Chapter 4 - Shattered Pearls
The plastic casing of the wall phone splintered under Victoria’s frantic blow, but the emergency line was already open, the dispatcher’s voice squawking a confirmation through the static. Arthur caught Victoria’s wrist mid-swing, his grip tightening until she hissed in pain. The pearls at her neck jerked violently, the silk thread snapping with a sharp pop. Dozens of expensive, perfectly round pearls rained down the concrete cellar stairs, bouncing and scattering into the dark corners like tears of hard glass.
"Get away from me!" Victoria shrieked, her carefully constructed persona completely dissolving into animalistic panic as she tried to claw at Arthur’s face. "You fool! If the police come, they dig into the offshore accounts! They dig into the company restructure! We go down together, Arthur!"
Clara dropped the wool blanket, rushing past them to drop to her knees beside little Lily. The young maid pressed her ear against the child’s chest, her face pale with dread. A moment later, Clara let out a shaky gasp and began pressing rhythmically against Lily’s sternum, performing desperate chest compressions while tears streamed freely down her bruised cheeks.
"Come on, Lily, breathe! Please, stay with us!" Clara sobbed, her small frame shaking with exhaustion and fear.
Arthur shoved Victoria backward against the damp brick wall, paying no heed to her muffled curses. He dropped down beside Clara, placing his large, steady hands over hers to guide the compressions with clinical precision, his own breathing ragged and shallow. He knew the layout of the estate better than anyone; the nearest highway patrol station was twelve minutes away, but in an asthma attack induced by panic and cold, twelve minutes was an eternity.
"Clara, keep going. Don't stop," Arthur ordered, his voice cracking slightly despite his best efforts to remain strong. He turned his head toward the stairs, where the distant sound of crunching gravel outside signaled the arrival of the private security patrol vehicles responding to his lockdown command.
Victoria scrambled to her feet among the scattered pearls, her satin shirt smudged with gray dust. She looked at the two of them with utter contempt mixed with a sudden, calculating shift in her eyes. She knew when a battle was lost, but Victoria was never one to go down without securing her own escape route.
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"You think the police will believe you over me, Arthur?" she whispered maliciously, stepping backward up the stairs. "I’m the registered owner of this estate. You were out of the country for three months. Legally, you abandoned us."
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