Chapter 6

The Maybach slammed on its brakes in the underground garage of the penthouse. The tires shrieked against the polished concrete, the sound echoing like a scream.

The cabin was freezing.

The door was ripped open. The security guards didn't wait for Allie to move. They reached in, grabbed her arms, and dragged her out. Her legs gave out, and she crashed hard onto the concrete floor.

Curtis descended via the hydraulic lift. He sat in his wheelchair, looking down at her scraped knees and bleeding palms with absolute zero empathy. He didn't issue a command to stop.

Allie ignored the stinging pain in her legs. She scrambled to her knees, looking up at him desperately.

"Curtis, please! The hug was forced! He grabbed me!" she pleaded, her voice cracking.

Curtis turned his wheelchair around, presenting his broad back to her.

"Throw her in the top-floor panic room," he ordered the guards. "No one goes in without my explicit command."

The guards hauled Allie up by her armpits. They dragged her toward the private elevator.

"Curtis! No! Please!" Allie screamed, thrashing against the guards.

The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off her cries.

The elevator shot up to the top floor. The guards dragged her down the long corridor to the very end, stopping in front of a heavy steel door designed to withstand a bomb blast.

They shoved her inside. The room was completely empty except for a single cot. The walls were lined with thick, gray acoustic foam. The silence inside was immediate and suffocating.

Vance stepped into the doorway. His face was a mask of cold professionalism.

"Hand over all communication devices," Vance demanded.

Allie clutched her dead phone to her chest. "No, please, Vance. It's dead anyway. I need it. I have to wait for a call from the hospital. My mother's ventilator-"

Vance's eyes flickered with a hint of disdain. He didn't care about her lies. He reached out, grabbed her wrists, and physically pried her fingers apart, snatching the phone away.

"Wait!" Allie lunged for it.

Vance stepped back into the hallway. The massive steel door swung shut.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

The electronic deadbolts locked into place. She was completely sealed off from the world.

Allie threw herself against the steel door, pounding her bloody palms against the metal. "Is anyone there?! Please!"

The acoustic foam swallowed her screams whole.

Suddenly, the lights overhead cut out.

The room plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness. It was a darkness so thick it felt like a physical weight pressing against her eyeballs. Allie's breath hitched. A wave of claustrophobia crashed over her.

She slid down the cold steel door, pulling her knees to her chest. Her stomach cramped violently from hunger and sheer terror. In the dark, her mind began projecting horrific images of Richard pulling the plug on her mother's life support.

Hours bled into one another. The temperature in the unheated panic room began to drop. Allie crawled blindly across the floor until she found the cot. She wrapped herself tightly in the thin blanket, her teeth chattering uncontrollably as she slipped into a shivering semi-consciousness.

Downstairs in the study, Curtis sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the glittering Manhattan skyline. His knuckles were white as he gripped a glass of whiskey.

Vance knocked and entered. "Sir, she is secured. Food and water have been withheld. She appears physically weak. Should I arrange for a doctor to standby?"

Curtis's jaw ticked. A brief flash of conflict crossed his eyes, but it was quickly devoured by the memory of her in Jerald's arms.

"Let her learn her lesson," Curtis snarled. "She won't starve to death."

The next day, around noon, the electronic lock on the panic room door finally clicked.

The heavy door swung open. The harsh hallway light flooded in, stabbing Allie's dilated pupils. She groaned, throwing an arm over her eyes.

Vance walked in carrying a plastic cup of water and a single slice of plain bread.

Allie didn't look at the food. She scrambled off the cot, her legs shaking so badly she almost fell, and grabbed Vance's sleeve.

"My phone. Please. Just for one minute," she begged, her voice a dry, raspy croak.

Vance set the food on the floor. He pulled a piece of paper from his jacket.

"Mr. Deleon's orders," Vance said coldly. "Sign this confession admitting your infidelity and promising to never see Jerald Burke again. If you sign, you get your phone back."

A wave of absurd, hysterical grief washed over Allie. She had done nothing wrong. But she had no choice. Her mother's life was ticking away.

"Give me the pen," she whispered.

With a violently trembling hand, she signed her name on the dotted line. A tear slipped down her cheek, blurring the ink.

Vance took the paper. He tossed her fully charged phone onto the cot and walked out. The door shut again, but this time, the deadbolts didn't engage.

Allie dove for the phone. She powered it on.

The screen instantly lit up with fifteen missed calls. All from her stepmother, Glendora.

A new text message popped up. It was a photo.

Glendora was standing in the private facility room. Her hand was gripping the power cord of Danae's ventilator, right at the wall socket.

The text below read: Get to the Upper East Side private clinic in thirty minutes. Brittanie had an episode and needs a blood transfusion. If you are one minute late, I pull the plug.

Allie stared at the screen, her blood turning to ice. She had just survived the dark room, only to be thrown into a far deadlier trap.