Chapter 1 - The Weight of Red Velvet
The air in the luxury dining room still smelled faintly of expensive champagne and ozone from the chandelier overhead. Beneath my bare feet, the carpet offered no protection from the tiny, glittering hazards scattered across the floor. I stood frozen in my one-shoulder deep red velvet gown, the heavy fabric clinging to my skin like a second layer of sweat and panic. Just a few feet away, Person B lay motionless on the round glass dining table, surrounded by an absolute ruin of shattered crystal. Her white silk robe was stained with dark crimson where she clutched her stomach in sudden, agonizing distress. The bright chandelier lighting caught every jagged edge of the broken surface, turning the tabletop into a mosaic of dangerous reflections.
"You weren't supposed to be here," I whispered, the words trembling as they left my lips. My voice lacked any real authority, sounding thin and terrified in the cavernous space of the high-end modern room.
My chest rose and fell in jagged, uneven rhythms. I looked down at my hands, tracing the faint smudges of dust and debris on my skin. The silence that followed her fall was suffocating, broken only by the ragged sound of her breathing and the distant hum of the estate's climate control system. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to flee the grandeur of the room and the suffocating perfection of the decor that now felt like a gilded cage. But my feet refused to move. The crimson velvet of my gown felt heavier by the second, dragging me down into the reality of what had just transpired.
Footsteps echoed sharply from the polished hardwood hallway behind us. Marcus appeared in the doorway, framed by the dark wood trim. His black tuxedo was immaculate, the white shirt cuffs crisp against his wrists, contrasting violently with the chaos of the room. He stopped dead in his tracks, his dark eyes widening in genuine shock as he took in the sight of the broken table, the injured woman in white, and me standing rigidly beside the wreckage.
"What happened here?" Marcus's voice was dangerously low, lacking its usual polished warmth.
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I turned toward him, my hands flying to my face as tears finally spilled over my lashes, hot and unbidden. "Marcus, she attacked me," I cried, the frantic edge in my voice bouncing off the high ceiling. I gestured wildly toward the glass table, pointing at Person B, who groaned in pain and shifted slightly among the glass fragments.
Marcus didn't move toward the table. Instead, his gaze darted past us, tracking upward toward the white ceiling. Following his line of sight, I looked up and saw it: the black dome security camera mounted squarely overhead. Its tiny red indicator light glowed with a steady, unblinking pulse, watching every single detail of the room with cold, mechanical indifference. The camera had recorded everything. The realization settled into my stomach like lead, chilling my blood far more effectively than the shattered glass beneath our feet.
