Chapter 6 - A Sister's Betrayal
Vivian didn't scream for help. She didn't cower. Instead, a slow, terrifying smile spread across her red-painted lips as she reached deliberately into the open velvet-lined drawer of her vanity.
"You really should have minded your own business, Miss Carter," Vivian murmured, her hand sliding deep into the drawer. "Or better yet, you should have taken the hint when the first fifteen nannies ran away crying. But orphans like you always have a fatal flaw: you think you can save everyone because nobody saved you."
My muscles tensed, every instinct screaming at me to lunge forward, but before I could cross the room, Vivian pulled her hand out of the drawer.
In her grip was a heavy, snub-nosed .38 revolver, its steel barrel catching the lamplight with a sinister, dull gleam.
"Sit down on the velvet chair, Elise," Vivian instructed, her voice as smooth and deadly as chilled poison. "We are going to wait right here until security reports an unfortunate break-in. By morning, you'll be the primary suspect in a tragic home invasion, and Nathaniel will be mourning the loss of his faithful, but deeply unstable, sixteenth nanny."
I didn't move. I kept my weight balanced on the balls of my feet, my eyes locked on the barrel of the gun.
"You killed your own sister, Vivian," I said, my voice echoing clearly in the silent room. "For what? Control of the trust fund? To take Amelia's place as the matriarch of an empire you never built?"
"Amelia was weak!" Vivian snapped, her composure cracking for a fraction of a second, a dark, ugly flush spreading up her neck. "She wanted to give half the family holdings away to charitable foundations! She wanted to divorce Nathaniel and take the children away from the only world they belonged in! I simply... expedited her departure. And the best part? Nathaniel blamed himself every single day. He spent three years punishing himself in this gilded tomb while I managed the books."
"He loved her," I said quietly.
"He loved an idea!" Vivian shrieked, taking a step forward, the gun wavering slightly in her manicured hand. "And now you're going to join her at the bottom of the ravine."
Her finger tightened on the trigger.
I didn't wait. I threw myself violently to the left just as a deafening CRACK split the air. A heavy lead bullet tore through the fabric of the armchair I had been standing next to, showering feathers and cotton stuffing across the floor.
Before Vivian could adjust her aim and fire a second shot, the door behind me exploded inward for the second time that night.
Nathaniel filled the doorway.
His eyes locked onto Vivian with an expression so terrifying, so devoid of human mercy, that even Vivian froze in absolute terror.
"Drop the gun, Vivian," Nathaniel whispered, his voice vibrating with a lethal, suppressed rage that made the air in the room feel impossibly heavy.
Vivian spun around, pointing the revolver at her brother-in-law, her face twisted in hysteria. "Nathaniel! Stay back! She's lying! She attacked me—"
"I heard every word through the intercom monitor in the nursery," Nathaniel said coldly, taking a slow, steady step into the room. "The same monitor you used to spy on my children for three years."
Vivian’s hand shook violently. She looked from Nathaniel to me, realizing the trap had finally snapped shut.
With a wild, guttural scream, she raised the gun to her own head.
"No!" Nathaniel roared.
In a blur of motion, he crossed the room with terrifying speed, lunging forward and knocking the gun upward just as it discharged. The bullet punched a ragged hole through the plaster ceiling.
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Nathaniel slammed Vivian against the mahogany vanity, wrenching the weapon from her fingers and tossing it across the room into a pile of laundry. He held her there with one powerful forearm pressed against her collarbone until her legs buckled and she collapsed onto the floor in a heap of expensive silk and bitter, furious tears.
Outside, the first distant wail of police sirens began to echo through the rain-soaked valley.
