Chapter 3

The door swung open.

Cassidy stepped inside and disappeared.

Several seconds of absolute silence.

Then a shriek — not a scream, a shriek — from upstairs. Cassidy's voice, completely unraveled.

"Oh my God—"

Then Zane, furious and snarling.

"Would you shut up? Jesus Christ. What is wrong with you people?"

"The girl is out of her mind. She threw herself headfirst into the damn wall."

"I barely touched her and she loses it. I almost got blood all over my shirt."

Downstairs, Hector's hand jerked and tea sloshed down his front.

He was on his feet.

"What happened? Is someone hurt? Oh God, don't tell me someone's dead in this house."

He scrambled for the stairs.

Linc followed, loosening his tie.

"Cass! Talk to me!"

I was alone in the foyer.

I dragged myself to the front door. Still deadbolted. No key.

I grabbed a vase from the console table and hurled it at the window.

Glass exploded outward — but the security bars bolted to the frame didn't move.

I turned and stared at the staircase.

Five minutes passed.

Footsteps coming down — uneven, stumbling.

Cassidy came first. Face drained of color. Sweat on her forehead.

Hector behind her, clutching the railing, knees buckling.

Linc last, hand pressed over his mouth, gray-faced.

Zane came down with his shirt hanging open, something dark spattered across the fabric. He didn't look at anyone.

The woman from the room — she wasn't with them.

Cassidy reached the bottom of the stairs and sat down hard on the couch. Her hands were shaking too badly to unlock her phone. She tried three times before the screen responded.

Zane dressed himself with aggressive, impatient movements, like the whole thing had just been an inconvenience.

"Cassidy. Your girl has problems. I barely touch her, and she starts acting like she's dying."

"She ran her own head into the wall. I couldn't even stop her."

"If this gets out, people are going to think I'm some kind of psycho."

I crossed the room and grabbed Cassidy by the neckline of her gown.

"Where is she? Why didn't you bring her down? I need to call an ambulance."

Cassidy jerked her head up. Her eyes were red, wild.

"Shut up. There is no ambulance."

"She's resting. She passed out. Nobody goes in that room."

Linc was across the room, pressing his hand to his chest like he'd nearly had a heart attack.

"Scared me half to death. Face all swollen, blood everywhere. I couldn't even tell who—" He stopped.

"Brother-in-law, your sister is one dramatic girl."

"Is she trying to set up a lawsuit? Destroy her own face just to get money out of Zane?"

"She's trying to trap him. Has to be."

Hector straightened up, his triangular eyes narrowing.

"Exactly. Classic shakedown. Trying to use this to claw her way into Zane's world?"

"Zane, this has nothing to do with you. She lost her footing. We all saw it. We'll all swear to it."

Zane pulled a card from his wallet and slapped it on the coffee table.

"Five hundred thousand. Get her face fixed — or don't. That's not my problem anymore."

"Cassidy. Clean this up. If even a whisper of this gets out, your whole family disappears. You know what I mean by that."

Cassidy stared at the card. Her eyes went from terrified to hungry in the span of a second.

She snatched it off the table.

"Done. Handled. Nobody will ever know."

"This was an accident. A family matter. You have nothing to worry about."

I lunged for the landline by the kitchen.

"There's a woman bleeding out upstairs. I am calling 911."

Cassidy grabbed an ashtray and brought it down on the phone like a hammer.

Plastic and circuitry exploded across the counter.

She spun on me, her mascara running in dark rivulets.

"Ethan. Do you want to get us all killed?"

"Zane is running for president of the Chamber of Commerce. This cannot come out."

"We handle this in-house. Private doctor. No hospitals."

"Until the doctor gets here, that door stays closed."

A sound from above — barely there. Like a fingernail, scraping slowly across hardwood.

In the dead silence of the house, it sounded like a scream.

Hector flinched so hard his glass hit the floor.

"That girl is... she's still moving? After all that blood?"