Chapter 4

Just as Big Tony' s grimy hand reached for her, the main door of the Heritage Wing crashed open again.

Senator Julian Vance stood framed in the doorway.

He had come to check on Elara before the gala.

For a moment, he was utterly still, a statue carved from ice.

His eyes took in the scene: the opulent room, now a ruin of smashed antiques and scattered debris. Lena, lying in a pool of blood, so terribly still.

And Elara.

His sister.

Bloodied, her sacred garments torn, held down by two brutes, Vicky standing over her with a look of manic triumph.

The silence stretched, taut and terrible.

Then, a sound escaped Julian, low and guttural, like an animal wounded to its core.

It was followed by an explosion of icy rage.

He moved faster than Elara had ever seen him move.

He grabbed Big Tony by the collar and the belt, lifted the heavy man clear off his feet, and threw him across the room. Tony crashed into a wall with a sickening thud and slid to the floor, groaning.

Ace, momentarily stunned, turned towards Julian, but the Senator was already on him, his face a mask of cold fury. A single, precise blow sent Ace sprawling.

Julian didn't even glance at them. His attention was solely on Elara.

He ripped off his expensive suit jacket and gently, tenderly, covered her exposed body.

"Elara," he whispered, his voice choked with horror and a pain that mirrored her own. "Oh, God, Elara."

Vicky, seeing her husband, seeing the look on his face, tried to shift tactics.

"Julian! Thank God you're here!" she cried, rushing towards him, attempting to play the victim. "This woman... she attacked me! She' s some crazy stalker, obsessed with you! She destroyed the room, she... she killed that other girl!"

Julian didn' t even look at her. His gaze was fixed on Elara' s ravaged face, her blinded eyes.

He slowly rose, his movements deliberate, terrifying.

His own security detail, who had accompanied him, now filled the doorway, their faces grim.

"Secure everyone," Julian said, his voice flat, devoid of all warmth, colder than any winter Elara had known. "No one leaves. Call the Commissioner. Tell him it' s Code Black. Call my lawyer. Get him here now."

He finally turned his eyes to Vicky. The look in them made her physically shrink back.

"You," he snarled, each word a shard of ice. "You are finished."

He gestured to Elara.

"This is Elara. My sister."

Vicky' s eyes widened in disbelief, then dawning horror.

"The spiritual healer I brought here. The one I told you about. The woman I asked to save your miserable life."

His voice dropped to a whisper, but it carried more menace than any shout.

"What you have done here tonight... you will pay for it. You, your friends, these animals." He looked directly at Vicky. "And your father. His empire is over. I will burn it to the ground. You will all face utter ruin."

Vicky stared, speechless, the color draining from her face as the full weight of Julian' s words, and the reality of her catastrophic miscalculation, crashed down upon her.