Eleanor lay curled on her side across the polished floor, her beige cardigan stained with chalky plaster dust, her hands instinctively pressed against her abdomen to shield her unborn child. Her long red hair was matted with sweat and debris, and her face was frozen in a mask of shock so profound that her vocal cords refused to function. Beside her, Martha breathed heavily, her silver bun partially unraveled, her grey-and-white uniform torn at the sleeve where flying glass had grazed her arm. They were alive, but they had cheated death by a margin of less than a second.

Heavy, hurried footsteps pounded down the western hallway.

Richard Vance burst into the foyer from his private study, his appearance a masterclass in calculated corporate perfection. At thirty-five years of age, Richard possessed the chiseled jawline, manicured dark hair, and piercing grey eyes of a rising Wall Street executive. He wore a sharp, bespoke grey double-breasted suit with a crisp white shirt and a silk navy tie—attire that looked entirely untouched by the chaos surrounding him.

Yet, beneath the polished exterior, Richard’s eyes darted frantically toward the center of the room. When his gaze landed on Eleanor and Martha huddled safely behind the marble pillar, a fleeting micro-expression of intense, incandescent frustration flashed across his features—a look of pure, unadulterated disappointment that he quickly masked behind an expertly crafted performance of frantic, patriarchal panic.

Richard sprinted across the ruined marble floor, his expensive leather shoes crunching over thousands of glittering glass shards. He dropped to his knees beside Eleanor, his hands hovering over her shoulders in a theatrical display of trembling concern.

“Eleanor! My God, Eleanor! Are you alright? What happened? Are you hurt?!” Richard shouted, his voice pitched perfectly to project maximum terror, though his eyes remained unnaturally dry.

Eleanor could barely speak. She looked up at her husband, her mind spinning, expecting him to pull her into a comforting embrace and weep with gratitude that she and their baby had survived a near-fatal disaster. Instead, before Eleanor could even form a coherent sentence, Richard’s demeanor shifted with whiplash speed. His expression hardened from fake panic into a mask of cold, aggressive fury.

He whipped his head around, fixing his glare not on the shattered winch cable dangling from the ceiling, but directly upon Martha Miller, who was struggling to help Eleanor to her feet.

Richard surged to his feet, towering over the elderly maid. He pointed a rigid, accusatory finger straight at Martha’s face, raising his voice to a booming, authoritative roar that echoed off the vaulted ceiling:

“You clumsy, incompetent fool! What did you do?!” Richard shouted furiously, manufacturing a narrative with terrifying speed. “You were cleaning near the staircase controls! You shook the bannister, or you destabilized the mounting! You pushed my wife! You almost killed my family!”

Martha froze. For forty years, she had served this house with unflinching loyalty, and now she was being framed for a murder attempt by the very master of the estate. Her sharp eyes flared with righteous indignation, but before she could open her mouth to defend herself against the grotesque accusation, a clumsy physical mishap intervened.

As Richard stepped forward aggressively, leaning down to intimidate the elderly maid, his posture twisted sharply. From the deep interior pocket of his expensive grey double-breasted suit jacket, a heavy, metallic object slipped free.

Clack.

A pair of heavy-duty, black-and-red insulated wire-cutting pliers plummeted from Richard’s pocket and clattered heavily onto the white marble floor, sliding across the scattered glass shards before coming to a dead stop right at Martha’s feet.

The entire foyer went dead silent.

Chapter 3: The Cold Steel and the Unmovable Guardian

The heavy clatter of the black-and-red wire-cutting pliers hitting the marble floor acted like a sonic disruption in the space, freezing everyone in motion. For one heartbeat, Richard Vance stared down at the tool lying exposed on the floor, his face draining of its practiced color. The smooth, confident facade he had cultivated for years cracked down the middle, revealing a flicker of raw, panicky miscalculation.