Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN IN THE DARK
Emergency lights flickered on.
Nate grabbed my arm.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost laughed despite the danger.
“You’re in a wheelchair.”
“And?”
“And I’m not using you as a human shield.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Security officers swept the hallway.
My mother and Sophie were in another wing guarded by police.
Vanessa had somehow entered the property before the lockdown.
A speaker crackled overhead.
Her voice filled the house.
“Nate.”
He looked upward.
“She hacked the smart system,” one security officer said.
Vanessa laughed through the speakers.
“Still letting other people tell you where to go?”
Nate’s jaw tightened.
I touched his shoulder.
“Don’t answer.”
“Oh, Elena,” Vanessa said.
My blood froze.
“She really has become important, hasn’t she?”
Nate looked at me.
The system was two-way.
She could hear us.
Vanessa continued.
“You’ve known him four days. Do you think you understand him?”
I kept silent.
“I changed his bandages,” she said. “I held him when he woke screaming. I cleaned blood off hospital floors. I learned every medication. Every appointment. Every humiliation.”
Nate’s face went pale.
“And you used all of it against me.”
Silence.
Then:
“You were leaving me.”
“I had the right.”
“You were throwing away everything I gave you.”
“I didn’t ask you to sabotage a helicopter.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!”
Her scream echoed through the house.
For the first time, the performance vanished.
“You were supposed to be scared, Nate. That was all. You were supposed to realize you needed me.”
He closed his eyes.
Vanessa’s voice softened.
“And you did.”
Nate looked up at the nearest camera.
“No.”
“You did.”
“I needed help. I mistook that for needing you.”
That landed.
We heard something crash through the speakers.
Then Vanessa said, “Send Elena upstairs.”
“No.”
“Then Sophie gets hurt.”
Nate froze.
Security checked.
Sophie was no longer in the protected bedroom.
The bathroom window stood open.
Vanessa had taken her.
A message appeared on Nate’s phone.
MASTER BEDROOM.
ELENA ONLY.
I started toward the stairs.
Nate blocked me.
“No.”
“She has Sophie.”
“Police are searching.”
“She wants me.”
“That’s exactly why you’re not going.”
I bent closer.
“If somebody had taken my mother at Union Station, could I have stopped you from helping?”
“That’s different.”
“It’s exactly the same.”
“Elena—”
“I’m going.”
His expression hardened.
“So am I.”
We argued for twenty seconds.
We lost because Vanessa screamed through the speaker, “ONE MINUTE!”
Security developed a plan.
I would enter first.
Nate would follow at a distance with officers concealed behind him.
The master bedroom door stood open.
I walked inside.
Vanessa was beside the bed.
She held a kitchen knife against Sophie’s throat.
Sophie looked furious rather than frightened.
“About time,” she said.
Vanessa tightened the blade.
“Shut up.”
I stopped.
“You wanted me.”
“Yes.”
“Let Sophie go.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Do you know what I hate about you?”
“We haven’t had much time to bond.”
“You made him look at me differently.”
“No. The staircase video did that.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think you’re clever.”
“No.”
“You think he loves you?”
The question stunned me.
Even Sophie blinked.
“I’ve known him four days.”
“Men like Nate don’t need time. They need worship.”
From behind me, Nate spoke.
“You never knew me at all.”
Vanessa jerked around.
“Nate!”
He entered alone.
At least, that was what she could see.
“Let Sophie go.”
Vanessa’s hand shook.
“You chose her.”
“I chose myself.”
The words stopped her.
Nate moved closer.
“You spent eighteen months telling me my life was over.”
“I took care of you!”
“You punished me whenever I became independent.”
“I loved you!”
“You loved control.”
Tears spilled down Vanessa’s face.
“I gave you everything.”
“No.”
Nate’s voice softened.
“You gave me fear and called it devotion.”
Sophie looked at her brother.
So did I.
Something had changed in him.
Not because he was suddenly fearless.
Because he finally understood fear did not make Vanessa powerful.
Only his obedience did.
He stopped moving.
“I’m not obeying you anymore.”
Vanessa’s expression shattered.
She pushed Sophie away.
Then she lunged at Nate.
I moved instinctively.
Again.
Just like the ballroom.
I stepped between them.
Vanessa’s knife came forward.
Pain burned across my upper arm.
I heard Nate shout.
Security flooded the room.
Vanessa was knocked to the floor.
The knife skidded away.
Sophie ran to me.
“Elena!”
Blood soaked my sleeve.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re bleeding!”
“I’ve had better evenings.”
Nate’s face was white with fury.
“Get a medic!”
Vanessa screamed from the floor.
“This is her fault!”
Nate turned toward her.
For the first time, I saw no anger in his expression.
Nothing.
She had finally lost even that.
“No, Vanessa.”
His voice was almost gentle.
“This is yours.”
Police handcuffed her.
She looked at him desperately.
“Nate, please.”
He turned away.
She screamed his name as officers carried her down the hallway.
He never looked back.
At the hospital, the doctor confirmed the cut was painful but superficial.
Six stitches.
My mother threatened to kill Vanessa herself, which Detective Bell politely suggested she not repeat in front of law enforcement.
Sophie stayed beside me until nearly dawn.
Nate waited in the hall.
When I came out, he looked at the bandage.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t stab me.”
“I brought all of this into your life.”
“Mateo brought me into yours first.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I’m going to make sure his name is cleared.”
“I know.”
“And the people responsible—”
“I know.”
He looked up.
I realized he was crying.
Quietly.
Not dramatically.
One tear.
Then another.
I sat beside him.
He whispered, “I almost got Sophie killed.”
“No.”
“I believed Vanessa over her.”
“You made a mistake.”
“For months.”
“Yes.”
“I should’ve known.”
I shook my head.
“That sentence is poison.”
He looked at me.
“You didn’t know what Vanessa was doing because she worked very hard to make sure you didn’t know.”
He said nothing.
“Now you know.”
I placed my hand over his.
“What you do next matters more.”
His fingers closed around mine.
Neither of us moved.
Then my mother appeared at the end of the hallway.
She saw our hands.
Her eyebrows rose.
I immediately pulled mine away.
Nate looked confused.
I whispered, “You survived attempted murder twice.”
“Yes?”
“My mother planning a wedding would be worse.”
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He laughed so loudly a nurse told us to keep quiet.
And for the first time since Mateo died, I laughed too.
