Chapter 2

Everett's promise was a lie.

He said Julianne was safe, that he' d sent her home. But when Charlotte finally stumbled back to the house, bruised and broken, the mansion was empty. Silent. Julianne wasn't there. Her calls went straight to voicemail. Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at her throat.

Hours later, just as the sun was beginning to stain the sky a sick gray, the front door creaked open.

Julianne stood there.

Her clothes were torn. Her hair was a matted mess. There were bruises on her neck, her arms, her legs. The gold and silver paint was smeared with dirt and tears and blood. Her eyes, those beautiful, artistic eyes, were hollow. Empty. She looked at Charlotte, but it was like she was looking through her, at something horrible on the other side.

Barbara, Charlotte's adoptive mother, who had been staying with them, came rushing down the stairs. She saw Julianne and let out a strangled cry, her hand flying to her heart before she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

The world dissolved into a blur of sirens, hospital corridors, and the sterile smell of antiseptic. Barbara was stabilized, a mild heart episode brought on by shock. But Julianne... Julianne was in a catatonic state, refusing to speak, her body a roadmap of the horrors she had endured.

Charlotte sat by her daughter' s bedside, a storm of grief and fury raging inside her. She called Everett again and again, but he didn't answer. He was a ghost.

The next morning, he appeared. He walked into Julianne' s private hospital room as if he were dropping by for a casual visit. He looked pristine in his tailored suit, not a hair out of place.

"Did you call the police?" he asked, his voice devoid of emotion.

"Yes," Charlotte spat, her voice trembling with rage. "I told them everything. What you did. What Kaylynn arranged. What those men did to her."

Everett' s expression didn't change. "Cancel the report."

"Never."

"It was just a misunderstanding," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "Kaylynn was just trying to... liven things up. She didn't think it would go that far. The men got carried away."

"She is sixteen, Everett! Sixteen! She is a child!"

"I'll compensate you," he said, his tone bored. He pulled out his checkbook. "A million? Five? Name a price."

The sound was deafening. Not the checkbook, but the slap. Charlotte' s hand struck his face, the force of it a release of a fraction of her agony.

He didn't even flinch. He just looked at her, a slow, cold smile spreading across his lips. "You shouldn't have done that, Charlotte."

He took out his phone. He pressed play.

And the room filled with the sound. The sound of Julianne' s screams. The sound of men laughing. The sound of tearing fabric.

Charlotte lunged for the phone, a wild animal cry tearing from her throat, but his guards, who had materialized silently in the doorway, grabbed her, holding her back.

"You see," Everett said, his voice a venomous whisper over the sounds of his daughter' s violation. "If you don't drop the charges, this video goes public. Think of Julianne' s reputation. Her future. The prestigious art school she just got into. They won't want a student with this kind of... baggage."

He was using her daughter' s pain as a weapon against them. Again.

Suddenly, there was a small sound from the bed. A whimper.

Charlotte' s head whipped around.

Julianne was sitting up. Her eyes were no longer vacant. They were fixed on the phone in Everett' s hand, wide with a fresh, deeper horror. She had heard everything.

She looked at Charlotte. Her lips formed a single word. "Mom."

And then she moved.

It happened so fast. One moment she was on the bed, the next she was on the windowsill. The window was open, a cool morning breeze drifting in.

"Julianne, no!" Charlotte screamed, fighting against the guards' grip.

But it was too late.

With a final, heartbreakingly empty look, Julianne leaned back and disappeared from view.

The screams from the courtyard below were the last thing Charlotte heard before her world went completely silent.