Chapter4

"Breathe in, Elara. I'm not dealing with a stuck zipper." Mrs. Gale, the housekeeper, grabbed the metal zipper at the back of the tight black dress and yanked it up with a vicious tug.

The waistline of the uniform was ridiculously tight.

"Move it," Mrs. Gale snapped, shoving me toward the kitchen. "Take this soup out to the main hall. The Vance family’s allies don't like to be kept waiting."

I balanced a massive sterling silver tray holding a large tureen of boiling hot Russian borscht.

Stepping into the charity gala, I kept my head down, carefully clutching the heavy tray to my chest. It was partly to avoid colliding with anyone, but mostly to let the tray's shadow hide the unnaturally tight curve of my stomach.

"Asher, do the servants in your estate always stare at the floor?" Valentina laughed, her voice ringing out among a group of mafia capos. She wore a backless evening gown, a champagne flute in hand, but her gaze was dead-set onto me.

I avoided her eyes and carried the tray toward the buffet table.

Just as I was about to set the heavy, boiling tureen down, Valentina suddenly took a half-step forward in her stilettos.

She rammed her shoulder directly into my elbow.

The sudden impact made it impossible to balance the tray. The entire tureen tipped, sending a cascade of scalding, dark-red liquid splashing directly over my chest and stomach.

"Ah—!" I cried out in agony. My knees buckled, and I crashed down onto the marble floor, landing right in the spilled soup and shattered porcelain. A jagged shard immediately sliced into my knee.

Low scoffs and snickers rippled through the crowd.

"Can't even hold a tray straight?"

"Disgusting. She got soup on the soles of my shoes."

Valentina took a step back in exaggerated disgust, glaring down at me from her high vantage point. "A mongrel is always a mongrel. Well? Are you going to lick the floor clean or not?"

Blinding pain brought a sheen of cold sweat to my forehead. Biting down hard on the tip of my tongue, I raised my head. I peered past the sea of custom-made Italian leather shoes, looking up at the semi-open interior balcony on the second floor.

Asher was standing right there.

From his vantage point, he had a perfect view of the entire pathetic spectacle unfolding below. He had to have seen Valentina step into me. Nothing in this estate escaped his eyes.

I tilted my head back, staring pleadingly up at him. I foolishly thought that, if only to maintain the order of his damn estate, he would at least send someone down to intervene.

But he didn't.

Asher’s cold gaze lingered for a mere second on my pathetic, soup-soaked chest. Then, with utter indifference, he turned his head away, raising his glass in a toast to a bald ally standing beside him. He tipped his head back and took a casual sip.

He didn't care if I lived or died. Worse, he was actively enabling his fiancée's cruelty.

The last fragile bubble of my self-delusion popped. Along with the cruel, absurd memory of him whispering "Good girl" that night.

"Stop making a scene in front of the guests!" Mrs. Gale stormed over, grabbing my arm and roughly hauling me up from the floor. "Get down to the B2 employee locker room and change out of that mess! And you aren't sleeping tonight until every toilet in this house is scrubbed clean!"

I practically stumbled my way to the service stairwell. By the time I reached the B2 basement level, the blistering pain had me hunched over. Clutching my stomach, I limped out of the dimly lit corridor toward the locker rooms.

The heavy iron door at the end of the hall—usually locked tight—sat slightly ajar today. I was about to sneak past it when a blood-curdling scream tore through the silence.

"Ahhh—! Boss! I swear... I didn't leak the intel! You have to believe me!"

The voice was so raw and gargled it barely sounded human.

Driven by a morbid compulsion, I crept closer and peeked through the narrow crack of the door. A burly man in a bodyguard’s suit was strung up by his wrists with heavy chains, kneeling on the floor. His face was a pulpy, bloodied mess.

And standing right in front of him was Asher—the same Asher who had been casually sipping champagne on the second-floor balcony just fifteen minutes ago.

He had shed his suit jacket. His pristine, snow-white dress shirt was now speckled with dark droplets of blood.

Asher raised a thick iron pipe and brought it down viciously on the kneeling man’s right kneecap. The sickening crunch of shattering bone echoed simultaneously with the man’s agonizing shriek.

Asher casually opened his hand, letting the bloody pipe clatter to the concrete floor and roll away.

"I don't care what you leaked," Asher said, his tone utterly devoid of mercy.

He snatched a towel from a waiting lieutenant and methodically wiped the gore from his knuckles. He tilted his head slightly, his icy peripheral vision sweeping toward the hallway.

"Pass the word to everyone outside," he ordered. "Don't keep secrets from me. Anyone who betrays me will beg for death."

I clamped both hands over my mouth and scrambled backward. I couldn't wait any longer.

To hell with changing clothes. To hell with scrubbing toilets. With all the security occupied upstairs managing the gala, the back gates would have a skeleton crew. I had to get upstairs now, grab my fake ID and meager cash stash from my dorm, and run.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I bolted up the service stairwell like a madwoman, heading straight for the maids' quarters. I had to vanish from this estate before the night was over.

But I never could have anticipated what awaited me. When I burst through the door of my cramped room, gasping for breath, I found the place completely trashed. My mattress had been flipped over, and my cheap clothes—the ones I kept hidden in the crevices—were strewn all over the floor.

And standing in the middle of the wreckage, silhouetted against the window, was Valentina. She was staring right at me, twisting a crumpled plastic pill bottle between her manicured fingers.