Chapter 3 - The Broken Web
The sight of Lucy bound on the floor of the freezer shattered the rigid authority Victoria had spent years constructing. For three seconds, nobody moved. The rolling white fog carpeted the hallway, licking at the polished leather of Victoria's shoes and the worn sneakers of the little boy.
"Mom!" Toby cried out, lunging past the heavy freezer door into the sub-zero room.
"Toby, no!" Mark shouted, snapping out of his stupor. He rushed into the freezer behind the boy, dropping to his knees on the ice-covered concrete.
Mark’s hands trembled violently as he reached out to the young woman. Lucy flinched away from him, pressing her back against the aluminum shelving unit behind her, her eyes screaming with a terrifying mixture of horror and betrayal. Mark ignored her resistance, reaching up to peel the silver duct tape from her face in one quick, painful motion.
Lucy gasped for breath, her chest heaving as she sucked in the warmer air rushing from the hallway. "Get... get him away from me..." she choked out, her lips blue and numb. "Mark... get away..."
"Lucy, oh god... who did this to you?" Mark stammered, his fingers fumbling with the thick nylon rope binding her wrists. "Victoria said you packed your bags! She said you took the money from the safe and left town!"
"She's lying!" Lucy sobbed, her tears freezing on her pale cheeks as Toby wrapped his small arms tightly around her neck, crying hysterically into her frozen jacket. "She locked me in here last night! She... she was going to let me freeze!"
Behind them, at the threshold of the freezer door, the sound of high heels clicking against tile stopped abruptly.
Mark turned his head slowly.
Victoria stood in the doorway, framed by the bright light of the kitchen corridor. The panic that had flushed her face moments ago had vanished completely, replaced by an icy, sociopathic calm. In her right hand, pulled from the deep pocket of her tailored blazer, was a sleek, black stun gun. The twin electrodes glinted under the fluorescent lights.
"You always were too sentimental, Mark," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a flat, deadly register. "I told you to keep the boy at home. I told you she was gone. If you had just listened to me, we would have owned this entire commercial strip by next month."
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"You locked my wife in a freezer?" Mark said, his tone rising in horror as he slowly stood up, stepping between Victoria and his family. "You told me she abandoned our son!"
"She was going to the authorities, Mark!" Victoria snapped, stepping into the doorway and blocking the only exit. "She found the offshore invoices. She found out where the investment money actually went. Did you really think I was going to let a twenty-five-year-old line cook destroy a ten-million-dollar real estate enterprise?"
