Chapter 2: The Sound of Scratching Glass
The house was silent, save for the rhythmic drumming of rain on the floor-to-ceiling glass walls. I moved toward the grand living room, footsteps muffled by silk Persian rugs. As I neared the terrace doors, I saw a shape through the mist.
My blood froze.
There, on the narrow stone balcony, my mother huddled in a corner, shivering in a thin silk nightgown. Wind whipped her grey hair across her face. Her hands pressed against the glass, fingers scratching feebly for a handle locked from the inside.
Inside, the fireplace roared, casting long, dancing shadows across velvet sofas. Tiffany draped over Chad Vance, my COO and friend for fifteen years, sharing a bottle of vintage Cristal. Their laughter clinked like ice in a glass.
“Did you hear her scratching at the glass again?” Chad laughed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. “It’s like having a giant, blind moth trapped on the patio.”
Tiffany sneered, tilting her head to let Chad kiss her neck. “Let her stay there. The old hag smells like poverty and stale medicine. It’s a sensory cleanse for the house to have her on the other side of that glass. Besides, Julian’s halfway to Japan. He won’t know she caught a ‘chill’ until Monday. By then, we can convince him she wandered out in confusion. Time to put her in a state-run facility, Chad. I’m tired of her ruining my home’s aesthetic.”
“To the ‘aesthetic,’” Chad toasted, eyes dark with greed. “And to the shell company. By the time Thorne realizes we’ve bled Visionary Systems dry, we’ll be in a villa in Cabo that doesn’t smell like ‘low-class’ sacrifice.”
I stood in the hallway’s shadows, breath hitching. The man who entered this house—the provider, the husband, the friend—died in that hallway. In his place stood something cold, calculated.
I didn’t burst in. I didn’t scream. I pulled out my phone, used the master override to unlock the balcony silently. Stepping into the freezing rain, the wind catching my coat, I reached my mother, who didn’t hear me until I wrapped her in my arms.
“Julian?” she gasped, teeth chattering. “I… I couldn’t find the way back in. I think the door stuck.”
“I’ve got you, Ma,” I whispered from a great distance. “I’ve got you.”
I lifted her frail frame, carried her down the back stairs to the guest wing, far from the laughter inside. I called her private doctor, who owed his practice to my funding, and ordered him to arrive in ten minutes. I wrapped her in heated blankets and stayed until her shivering stopped.
Then I dried my face, straightened my suit, and returned upstairs.
Tiffany and Chad remained on the sofa, firelight casting their betrayal in gold. I didn’t speak. I walked to the coffee table and set my phone down. It was still recording.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Tiffany’s face turned ash-colored, and the wine in Chad’s hand trembled, spilling over his fingers.
