Chapter 7 - The Midnight Visitor
By midnight, the city outside my penthouse window had quieted down into a steady hum of distant traffic and falling snow. Lily was fast asleep in the guest bedroom down the hall, her breathing soft and even under the care of a private night nurse I had hired to ensure she felt secure.
I was sitting in the dark study, a single desk lamp illuminating the financial audits of Blackwell Enterprises, when the private elevator chime echoed softly through the foyer.
I froze.
The security system was armed. Only three people in the world possessed the biometric override code to access the private elevator directly: myself, Marcus, and...
The elevator doors slid open with a faint metallic whisper.
I stood up silently, drawing the Sig Sauer P229 from its holster in my desk drawer, keeping it lowered by my side as I walked out of the study and into the darkened living room.
A figure was standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows, silhouette against the faint glow of the Chicago skyline.
It was Taylor.
She looked exhausted. Her coat was unbuttoned, her hair damp from the melting snow outside, and her eyes hollow with a deep, consuming despair.
"Taylor," I said, lowering the gun slightly but not holstering it. "How did you get up here?"
"My mother’s code still worked," she whispered, her voice cracking. She didn't look at the gun. She didn't seem to care. She walked slowly toward the sofa and sank down onto the cushions, covering her face with her hands.
"You shouldn't be here," I said coldly, walking over and placing the firearm back on the coffee table out of reach. "If Marcus knew you breached this penthouse, he’d have a restraining order slapped on you before sunrise."
"I don't care about Marcus," Taylor sobbed softly. "I don't care about the lawyers anymore, Julian."
I stood a few feet away from her, crossing my arms over my chest. "Then what are you doing here at midnight?"
She slowly dropped her hands, looking up at me with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "She lied to me, Julian."
The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute.
"What did you say?" I asked, my voice dropping.
"My mother," Taylor choked out, her shoulders shaking. "When the police questioned her the second time... I found her diary in her nightstand drawer while looking for her insurance cards. She... she wrote it all down."
My heart pounded against my ribs. "Wrote what down?"
"Everything," Taylor whispered. "She wrote about how she hated that Lily inherited your stubbornness. She wrote about how children today are 'insolent' and need to be broken early. And... and she wrote about last night. She wrote that she put Lily in the freezer because Lily talked back to her about cleaning her room, and she wanted to teach her what real cold felt like."
The room seemed to spin. All the anger, all the suspicion, all the agonizing uncertainty I had carried for the last forty-eight hours crystallized into a cold, terrifying reality.
"And you still defended her yesterday," I said, my voice dangerously quiet.
"Because I couldn't accept it!" Taylor screamed, standing up and rushing toward me, her fists balling up against my chest. "Do you understand what it means to realize that the woman who raised you—the mother you trusted your entire life—is a monster?! It means my whole life was a lie, Julian! It means I was raised by a psychopath!"
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She collapsed against my chest, crying uncontrollably, her fingers gripping the fabric of my shirt.
For a fraction of a second, I stood frozen, my arms hovering awkwardly in the air. Then, slowly, the maternal instinct of my broken family caught up with me, and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as she wept for the mother she had just lost.
