Chapter 2 - The Fall
The silence that followed was heavy and absolute, broken only by the rigid, synchronized breathing of the two security guards standing like obsidian statues near the arched doorways. Eleanor lay sprawling across the floor, her pride shattered far more violently than her poise. She raised a shaking, manicured hand to her face, her long fingers trembling as they grazed her lip. When she pulled them away, a bright, crimson smear of blood was already beading against her skin.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps shattered the stillness. Richard Sterling strode into the foyer from the inner gallery, his dark suit jacket unbuttoned, his white dress shirt slightly unbuttoned at the collar. He cut an imposing figure, a man accustomed to commanding rooms with a single glance. But as his eyes took in the scene—his glamorous mistress crumpled on the floor like a broken doll, and the young maid standing over her, breathing with an eerie, rhythmic calm—his face hardened into a mask of thunderous fury.
Richard’s gaze flicked from Eleanor’s bleeding lip up to Clara. The air in the foyer instantly compressed, turning dense and electric with the weight of impending wrath.
