Beatrice slipped into the room, holding a half-empty glass of Pinot Grigio. When she saw me, there was no surprise, no guilt. Only a flash of profound irritation.
“What are you doing here?” Beatrice hissed, quickly closing the door behind her. She grabbed my arm, her manicured nails digging into my silk blouse. “You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
I stared at her hand on my arm, then looked back at Lily’s cast. “What happened to my daughter?” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It sounded hollowed out.
“Oh, for god’s sake, she fell down the basement stairs two days ago,” Beatrice whispered venomously, her eyes darting nervously toward the door. “She’s incredibly clumsy, Victoria. I took her to urgent care. It’s just a fracture. Look, don’t ruin the party mood. I have important guests out there. The mayor’s wife is literally by the pool.”
I looked at my sister. Truly looked at her. I saw the Botox, the expensive highlights, the utter, grotesque lack of a soul. She wasn’t a mother figure. She was a parasite who viewed my child’s broken bones as an inconvenience to her social calendar.
I pulled my arm away with such force that Beatrice stumbled back, spilling her wine on the Persian rug.
Just then, the door opened again. Hunter, Beatrice’s ten-year-old son, swaggered past the doorway. He was wearing designer sneakers and a smirk that mirrored his mother’s. But it was what hung around his neck that made my vision tunnel.
It was Lily’s custom-made diamond locket. A family heirloom I had given her for her seventh birthday.
Hunter didn’t see me in the shadows. He high-fived a friend lingering in the hallway and bragged loudly, his voice carrying over the muffled music. “Yeah, I got it after pushing the little loser down the basement stairs. Mom said finders keepers.”
The friend laughed. Hunter walked away.
The silence in the sunroom was absolute. Beatrice froze, the color draining from her artificially tanned face. She looked at me, waiting for the explosion. She expected the hysterical screaming of a mother. She expected a physical fight. She expected tears and chaos.
But the explosion never came.
Instead, the frantic, terrified mother inside me died, and the corporate litigator—the woman who dismantled billion-dollar conglomerates for sport—took the wheel. My eyes went dead. My breathing slowed to a terrifying, metronomic calm. I looked at Beatrice, feeling absolutely nothing but cold, surgical ruthlessness. I didn’t see a sister anymore. I saw a hostile entity. And I knew exactly how to destroy her, down to the very foundations of her stolen life, but first, I needed the one thing that would make my vengeance absolute.
