The silent weight of the silence in the kitchen was heavier than the shattered porcelain on the floor. Weston didn't even look up from his phone screen as he adjusted the silk cuff of his sleeve. "You’re not coming, Elowen."

The massive double mahogany doors at the top of the grand staircase swung open.

A wave of heavy, suffocating silence washed over the five hundred guests in the ballroom.

Standing at the top of the staircase, framed by two six-foot-tall security guards in crisp black tuxedos, was a woman who looked like an empress descended from a mountain of obsidian and diamonds.

Her obsidian velvet gown caught the brilliant spotlights, the thirty-carat pink diamond around her neck flashing with an almost blinding luminescence. Her long, dark waves spilled over her shoulders, her red lips set in an unyielding, lethal line of pure, absolute authority.

Beside her stood Arthur Pendelton, holding a sleek silver tablet, and Julian Cross, carrying a thick leather portfolio.

For three seconds, nobody in the ballroom moved.

Then, at the VIP table, Weston Prescott’s glass of hundred-year-old scotch slipped from his fingers.

It hit the crisp white tablecloth, shattering into jagged shards, dark amber liquid soaking into Victoria’s emerald dress and splashing across Claudia’s diamond tiara.

Neither of them noticed.

Weston’s face had gone so pale that he looked like a corpse that had been pulled from a frozen lake. His eyes were wide, bulging with a terrifying, paralyzing shock as he stared up at the top of the grand staircase.

"No..." Weston gasped, his voice a dry, raspy wheeze that barely made it out of his throat. "No... that's... that's impossible..."

Claudia leaned forward, her hand flying to her throat, her mouth open in a grotesque, silent scream of pure horror. "Weston... Weston, who is that? Why does that woman look like—"

"Elowen?" Victoria whispered, her perfectly manicured fingernails digging into the tablecloth so hard that one of them snapped. "That... that can't be Elowen. Elowen is at home! She's washing dishes in Pacific Heights!"

Up at the top of the staircase, I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at the photographers whose camera flashes were lighting up the hall like lightning strikes.

My eyes swept slowly across the ballroom until they landed directly on Table 1.

I looked at Weston.

I looked at his open, terrified mouth, his trembling hands, and the dark stain of scotch spreading across his lapel.

I let a slow, faint, lethal smile touch my red lips.

I took my first step down the grand marble staircase, the high heel of my dark crystal shoe clicking sharply against the stone—a sound that echoed through the silent ballroom like the ticking of a countdown clock.