Chapter 1 - JADE
DANGER HIDES BEHIND FALSE SAFETY.
Crisp. Moonless. Still.
Quiet enough to make disaster impossible to imagine.
Moths flutter against the lantern glass lining the mansion steps, tiny bodies beating toward the flame.
The screams come first, trapped between my ears, louder with every breath. The violence plays back in brutal fragments. A gunshot rips through the memory, the bullet punching into her chest with a sickening, wet thump.
No threat remains, no body spilling blood across the floor, no madman roaring over my silent screams.
Nothing remains but insects swarming the eternal flame, wings singeing against the heat.
To leave feels like conceding.
While she bled, I remained motionless, knowing courage failed me. I ran when she needed me, and every excuse since has sounded like cowardice.
She trusted me with her life. The woman sprawled across the floor of her mansion, blood pooling beneath her.
The woman who lived with fear, desperate for escape, and chose to trust me.
A gust slips beneath my coat, cold crawling down my spine. Cold isn’t what sets my nerves on edge.
It’s being here.
Something sinister stains the perfection of manicured lawns and silence.
Brittany died behind these guarded gates, where moss-draped oaks shade sprawling lawns, white-columned homes rise beyond iron fences, and country-club perfection keeps every ugly truth out of sight.
That day began with a plan, unraveling into violence, blood, and a memory that refuses to stay buried.
Daylight exposed everything then, while tonight the darkness settles over the house and lawn as if the night itself came to bury what happened here. The house stands sealed in silence, a coffin dressed in brick and glass, still holding Brittany Wittman where Brittany Alexander should have escaped.
Her death left flowers ungiven, condolences unspoken, and me as the only witness to a life I failed to save.
Because the silence protecting everything I built leaves me alone with the cost.
Grief demands a witness.
Sleep only comes by force now, liquor burning down my throat or pills pulling me under before this house can sink its teeth into me again. Without something to knock me out, the screams follow me into every hour until dawn, dragging me back to Brittany’s blood-slick face, her mouth parted around a breath that never came, terror fixed in her eyes.
My hands shake without warning, my chest tightening as panic works its way through my ribs. The guilt settles deeper, feeding on the truth that she died believing I would save her.
Desperation claws at my throat as I fight against the walls closing in, craving one breath of relief from a guilt I have no right to escape.
Jade Bellerose died with Brittany that day. Whatever walked away only learned how to wear her name.
An unworthy second.
It’s why I returned, one final goodbye to the place where she lost her life and I lost the right to forgive myself.
My car key digs into my palm, grounding me to the reason I came. Branches creak overhead as the wind lifts my hair, black strands dragging across my face like restless fingers.
I exhale.
It is time.
I slip out from behind the bushes onto the cold sidewalk, damp grass brushing my ankles, fearing being stopped more than death itself.
I draw the gun, cold metal settling into my palm, heavy with the finality of what comes next.
I cock it back and close my eyes, something darker slipping into the space where hesitation should be. My finger curls around the trigger. One pull. One second. I can do this.
The staff will adjust. They know how to keep everything running without me.
Curly is the only thing I can’t reduce to logistics.
“You deserved better,” I whisper into the silence.
My finger tightens on the trigger.
Something sharp smacks my forehead.
“Ow.”
A tiny metal BB drops to the sidewalk, skips once, and disappears into the grass.
I stare at the gun in my hand while the joke settles in.
You have got to be kidding me.
Not a real gun.
All that death in my head, all that certainty in my hand, and I brought a toy to my nightmare.
The BB gun hangs useless at my side, my grand exit reduced to a metal pellet lost somewhere in the grass.
A laugh cuts through the dead silence.
My entire body jerks before my mind catches up with the sound. It came from behind me, low, male, and close enough to raise every hair along my arms.
For one horrible second, I forget how to breathe.
His presence closes in behind me as I shove the gun out of sight. Fake or not, it looks real, and I’ve already made enough bad decisions tonight.
I shove it toward my jacket pocket.
It catches.
My fingers slip.
The gun hits the pavement and fires.
A cat screeches somewhere in the dark, followed by the violent rustle of something tearing through the bushes.
Perfect. Now the whole damn neighborhood knows I’m here.
I do the only logical thing available to a woman running on pure panic and punt the damn thing as hard as I can. It sails across the yard, and for half a second, I’m impressed with myself.
The damn thing punches straight through the front window.
Glass explodes inward.
An alarm starts screaming into the night.
I stare at the broken window.
Well. Shit.
A hand closes around the back of my neck.
Every thought in my head disappears.
His palm stays firm at the back of my neck, warm beneath my hair, as his solid weight closes in behind me. His breath grazes the shell of my ear, close enough to tell me exactly how little space remains between us.
I don’t need to see him to know I’m no longer alone.
The alarm keeps screaming somewhere beyond us, but the sound feels distant now. All I hear is blood pounding in my ears and the quiet certainty that whoever laughed behind me stands close enough to feel me shake.
He isn’t the one in danger.
I am.
Darkness swallows everything except the hand locked around the back of my neck, his fingers pressing deep enough to make the threat unmistakable, leaving me unable to see his face, judge his height, or make him anything more than a shape behind me.
Panic wins, and I raise both hands, surrendering before I give him anything that looks like a fight.
There’s nothing left to take.
His grip never wavers, precise enough to make control seem effortless.
Pressure builds at the back of my neck, fingers digging in until pain pulses beneath my skull. My knees threaten to fold, and for one humiliating second, I can’t tell whether fear or that hand is keeping me upright.
Is it possible to have the worst night of your life twice on the same patch of ground?
Because apparently I’m collecting them.
One more and I get a punch card.
I drive my knee backward, aiming for the one place most likely to make him regret putting his hands on me.
Unfortunately, he’s ready for me.
He catches my leg mid-strike, wrenching me off balance before I can connect. His arm locks around my waist, the hand at my neck jerks me backward, and my shoes skid uselessly across the pavement before my spine slams into his chest.
Fine.
If I’m about to die, I’ll accept the dance.
Olé, motherfucker.
I may have spoken my challenge a little too soon.
I take back the Olé.
Not the motherfucker part. He is still very much a motherfucker.
He drives me forward with one arm locked across my waist and the other hand clamped at the back of my neck, lifting just enough to keep my feet from planting. I twist, kick, claw for the pavement, but every time my shoes catch, he jerks me off balance and steals the ground from me again.
If he gets me inside, I’m dead.
The shattered window waits at the top of the steps, jagged glass framing the dark opening while the alarm screams overhead like a warning I understood too late.
No.
No, absolutely—
Fuck.
