Chapter 7 - The Uninvited Guest
Friday evening arrived beneath a veil of thick fog rolling off the river. The Grand Horizon Hotel glittered like a cut jewel, hosting the elite of the state. Limousines lined the velvet-roped driveway while paparazzi flashbulbs popped in steady rhythm.
Victoria Sterling stepped onto the red carpet, a vision in emerald silk. Beside her stood Arthur Vance, impeccable in his bespoke tuxedo, acknowledging the applause with calculated nods.
"Mr. Vance! How is the new heir adjusting to the estate?" a reporter shouted.
Arthur gave a thin, polished smile. "Both mother and child are resting peacefully at home. Tonight is about celebrating our family's future."
Inside the hotel's rear service corridor, Clara moved swiftly. Dressed in a stolen catering uniform, her dark hair tucked beneath a black cap and her posture bent, she wheeled a heavy linen cart past the kitchen line. Marcus’s voice crackled through a micro-earpiece hidden in her ear.
"Cameras on floor four are looping now. You have seven minutes before the central hub notices the frame latency."
"Copy," Clara whispered.
She slipped into the service elevator and punched the code Marcus had cloned from a hotel manager's keycard. The elevator ascended smoothly to the fourth floor—where Victoria had rented a presidential suite to prepare before the main ballroom entrance.
Clara slipped into the suite's private foyer, her heart beating a steady, cold tempo. The suite was quiet; the makeup artists had already been dismissed down to the ballroom.
Sitting on a marble vanity was Victoria’s evening clutch, beside an open jewelry case. But Clara wasn't here for diamonds.
She walked directly to the mirrored vanity, opened her apron, and pulled out an envelope containing Dr. Gregory Morris’s medical ledger—retrieved from Marcus’s contacts in the underworld who kept blackmail files on corrupt physicians.
She placed the ledger directly in front of the vanity mirror, weighed down by a single, blood-stained hair tie—the very one torn from her head at the hospital.
May you like
Suddenly, a click sounded behind her.
"I wondered how long it would take you to come crawling," Victoria’s voice purred from the doorway. She wasn't downstairs. She had been waiting.
