Chapter 5 - The Mastermind Behind the Veil
"Where is the photograph, Celeste?" I asked, taking one step toward her.
Celeste let out a dark, mocking laugh that echoed off the high marble walls. "Burned. Along with your grandfather's original land deeds and your mother's jewel collection. Did you really think I spent the last three years loving you, Adrian? Sitting across from you at those insufferable charity dinners? Listening to you talk about your estate?"
"Julian Vance sent you," I said flatly.
Celeste stopped laughing. Her eyes narrowed into slits. "My father spent twenty years rotting in a Swiss clinic because you broke his legacy! You stole his share of the firm! You built this palace on his blood!"
"Your father embezzled forty million dollars from our pension fund and tried to frame my family for it," I replied coldly. "He broke himself."
"It doesn't matter anymore," Celeste smiled—a cold, terrifying expression that revealed the viper beneath the velvet. "You think you caught me? You think a switched water glass was the whole plan?"
Suddenly, the lights throughout the forty-room estate cut out completely.
Blackness slammed over the house like a heavy iron shroud. The roaring of the storm outside seemed to double in volume as the emergency generators failed to kick in.
BOOM!
The heavy glass doors at the back of the estate exploded inward, the sound of shattered glass echoing up through the grand foyer.
"Vincent!" I yelled into the dark, pulling my custom sig-sauer pistol from my shoulder holster.
Heavy, tactical boots stamped across the wet marble floor downstairs. Three flashlights cut through the pitch-black hallway below, their sharp beams bouncing off the walls.
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"Target is upstairs!" a harsh voice shouted from below. "Secure the house! Leave no witnesses!"
Celeste didn't run down the stairs. In the beam of a tactical light, I saw her pull a compact, silenced pistol from her pocket, point it directly at my chest, and squeeze the trigger.
