Chapter 2 - The Snake in the Penthouse
While I was fighting for my breath on the ICU table, Selena Cole had already moved her luggage into our suburban estate. She had draped her silk robes across my vanity, thrown my designer shoes into garbage bags, and hired a professional carpet cleaning crew to scrub the dark, sticky pool of my blood out of the antique Persian rug. She believed that with me incapacitated, her position as the future Mrs. Vance was cemented in stone.
At seven that evening, Julian arrived at the estate, his keys shaking in his hand as he unlocked the heavy front door. The house was quiet except for the clinking of crystal glasses in the parlor. Selena was curled up on the velvet sofa, wearing an ivory cashmere sweater that had belonged to me, sipping vintage champagne. Her left forearm still bore the tiny, superficial scratch she had inflicted on herself with a brooch pin three days earlier.
"Darling!" Selena purred, setting her glass down and gliding across the hardwood floor with outstretched arms. "How was the board meeting? Did the PR firm release the statement about the home invasion? You look positively drained, sweetheart."
Julian didn't hug her back. He pushed past her, heading straight for the home bar to pour a three-finger glass of straight bourbon. His hands were shaking so violently that amber liquid splashed over the polished mahogany.
"She's awake," Julian said, his back turned to her.
Selena froze in the middle of the room, her sweet, delicate facade dropping like a lead weight. "What? The doctors said she was in an irreversible coma from blood loss! You said the trauma was fatal!"
Julian spun around, slamming his glass down with a violent crack. "She’s awake, Selena! And she’s pregnant!"
The silence in the room stretched until it felt like suffocating wire. Selena took a step back, her eyes narrowing into slits of pure, calculating malice. "Pregnant? With whose child? Julian, she’s been running around behind your back for months. You told me yourself that your marriage was dead in the bedroom!"
"They're twins, Selena!" Julian roared, running both hands through his disheveled hair, his polished exterior completely fractured. "They are my children! The ultrasound matches our timeline from the vacation in Aspen! If she tells the detectives what actually happened on that rug, I won't just lose the CEO seat at Vance Global. I will be facing two counts of attempted aggravated murder and attempted feticide! That is life in Menard Maximum Security without the possibility of parole!"
Selena crossed her arms, her voice turning razor-sharp, cold, and entirely devoid of the helpless innocence she had performed for him. "Calm down, Julian. Pull yourself together. You control the company, you control the money, and you control her family’s medical debt. Nora has always been a soft, sentimental idiot. Offer her ten million dollars, full custody of the bastards, and a house in California. Tell her that if she opens her mouth, you’ll cut off her mother’s hospice care. She will sign the non-disclosure agreement like she always does."
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Julian stared at her, suddenly seeing the calculating predator lurking behind the wide green eyes he had obsessed over for five years. "And what if she doesn't take the money, Selena? You don't know the look she gave me in that hospital room. It wasn't Nora. It was someone else."
"Then we make sure she never leaves that hospital room alive," Selena whispered, her voice dropping into a chilling hiss. "Complications happen in the ICU every day, Julian. Especially after severe internal trauma. You just have to pay the right orderly."
