Chapter 6 6

Beth hit the hardwood floor hard. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, but the pain felt distant, muted by the thick, chemical fog rolling over her brain.

She tried to push herself up, but her arms felt like they were made of wet sand. The blue light from the television screen flickered above her, casting long, distorted shadows across the ruined bedroom.

The air grew uncomfortably cold. Her pulse pounded in her ears, a slow, heavy drumbeat that seemed to echo inside her skull. The sedatives weren't just putting her to sleep; they were tearing down the walls of her mental defenses, dragging deeply buried traumas to the surface.

She closed her eyes, but the darkness offered no relief. Instead, her consciousness plummeted into a vivid, terrifying hallucination.

The bedroom dissolved. The smell of spilled perfume was replaced by the heavy, oppressive scent of aged whiskey and Cuban cigars. The hardwood floor shifted into a thick, dark Persian rug.

Beth found herself standing as a ghost in the inner sanctum of Langley Manor. The private study of Gaston Langley, the ruthless patriarch of the family.

She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She could only watch as the hallucination played out with agonizing clarity.

Behind the massive mahogany desk, the figure of Gaston Langley was slumped in his leather chair. He was clutching his chest, his face contorted in absolute agony. He was gasping for air, his fingers clawing at the wood of the desk.

Beth's breath caught in her throat.

In the official family records, Gaston had died of a sudden, massive heart attack. It was the event that had triggered the final, bloody war for the Langley empire.

But as the memory-or intuition, she couldn't tell which- played, a dark, shadowy figure stepped into the light beside the desk.

The figure stood perfectly still, watching the old man suffer. Gaston reached a trembling hand out toward the figure, silently begging for his heart medication.

The shadow didn't help him. Instead, the figure reached across the desk and picked up a thick, sealed envelope-Gaston's revised will.

Then, the shadow leaned down and whispered something directly into Gaston's ear.

Whatever was said caused Gaston's eyes to widen in sheer terror. His body seized violently, and then he collapsed onto the desk, dead.

Beth lunged forward in her mind, desperate to grab the shadowy figure, to see their face. Was it Lachlan? Was it Evan?

Her hands passed through empty air.

The hallucination shattered like glass, and Beth was instantly back on the floor of her bedroom, gasping for air. A cold sweat drenched her clothes.

She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. Her chest heaving.

"He was murdered," Beth whispered, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. The patriarch hadn't just died; he had been removed. And if she could prove it, if she could find out who the shadow was, she would hold the ultimate leverage over the entire family.

But the chemical weight pulling at her mind was too strong. She reached a trembling hand toward her pocket, feeling the solid, reassuring shape of her phone. The audio recording of Dr. Finch was still there. It was her only armor.

She needed to stay awake. She needed to plan. She dug her fingernails into her palm, trying to use the pain to anchor herself to the waking world.

It wasn't enough. The darkness crept into the edges of her vision, suffocating and absolute.

She closed her eyes, surrendering to the void. But as her consciousness slipped away, the darkness morphed. It wasn't a peaceful sleep. It was a descent into the deepest, most terrifying recesses of her own memory.