Darkness. The screens glowed in rows across the wall, casting their sterile light on Gibson’s face.He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the faint hum of machines filling the room. Each monitor displayed a different angle of the Greenwood queen unraveling inside the house she had once mocked.Deborah, stumbling, clawing at her hair. Deborah, screaming into the silence. Deborah, chasing illusions of Clara through halls that bent and twisted with calculated precision.Every sound she heard. Every vision she thought was real. Every whisper in her ear. Engineered. Gibson’s jaw tightened as he watched her collapse in Clara’s old room, clutching at the ribbon he’d left for her.“Pathetic,” he murmured. A figure stepped into the shadows beside him. Marcus, his lieutenant. The man who had pulled him off the roadside years ago, nursed him back when Greenwood’s guards left him for dead.“She’s breaking faster than expected,” Marcus observed, eyes scanning the monitors. “She’s alread

The darkness pressed in like a coffin. Deborah’s sobs ricocheted off the concrete walls, each ragged breath filling the chamber with the raw stench of fear. Her wrists strained against the restraints, leather cutting into skin already rubbed raw. Then, his voice. Smooth. Controlled. Everywhere at once.“You think you can escape your sins by closing your eyes?”Deborah jerked her head, searching the shadows. “Where are you?!”“You never asked that when you had me dragged into the street. You never asked that when you signed my death warrant.” Her blood turned to ice. “Gibson…”“Yes.” The word echoed, deep and sharp. “I was your shield, your husband, your friend. And you turned me into prey.”The screens around the chamber crackled to life. Images flared.—Deborah in the arms of Greenwood’s business partner, her lips curled into a smile of satisfaction.—Deborah at a gala, laughing, glass of champagne in hand, while whispers of her affair filled the room.—Deborah sneering, the very ni

The chamber was a tomb. Darkness pressed in on Deborah like a living thing, heavy and suffocating. She strained against her restraints, the chains rattling with frantic rhythm.Her ears caught every echo: the steady thud of boots on concrete, the whisper of fabric brushing against stone, the hum of a machine hidden somewhere in the black.Her breath came in ragged bursts, shallow and panicked, each exhale visible as mist in the freezing air. Then, a sound she both dreaded and needed. A metallic click.Light flooded the chamber in a blinding flash. Deborah flinched, her eyes searing with pain. When her vision steadied, she saw him. Standing not ten feet away. Gibson. No mask. No distortion.Just the man she once called husband. But he wasn’t the man she remembered. His face was sharper now, carved with lines of pain and resilience.His eyes, once warm with the softness of devotion, now gleamed with a cold fire that pinned her to her seat harder than any restraint. He stood tall in a bl

Darkness swallowed the chamber. The lights had died with a single ear-splitting crack, showering the room in sparks before plunging it into suffocating black. Then came the noise. Gunfire, sharp, merciless bursts, spat fire into the void.The concrete walls amplified every shot until it sounded as if the world itself were tearing apart. Deborah screamed, her voice drowned instantly by the chaos.Chains rattled as she thrashed, blind and helpless. The taste of copper filled her mouth where she had bitten her tongue. Her ears rang with the screech of ricochets, the thud of boots pounding across the chamber, the guttural shouts of men barking commands.The air thickened with acrid smoke, burning her lungs, choking her with every gasp. She could feel the war raging only feet away but could see nothing.Only shadows flaring with muzzle flashes, staccato bursts that carved jagged glimpses of the nightmare.—The masked man launching himself at one of the intruders, knife flashing in the ha

Clara woke to darkness. Her body ached all over, her arms pinned against her sides by coarse straps that dug into her skin. Her mouth tasted of metal and dust. Every inhale stung her lungs, the air thick with oil and cold stone.She blinked rapidly, straining to see, but the blindfold was still there. The world remained a blur of black. Panic rushed up her throat, hot and choking. She jerked against her restraints. “Daddy! Daddy, where are you?!”Her voice echoed, thin and small against whatever walls surrounded her. No answer came. Only the steady hum of an engine somewhere below her. Clara froze. She was moving.The straps bit into her wrists as she twisted harder, trying to break free, but the more she struggled, the tighter they seemed to hold. Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate.She stilled immediately, heart hammering like a drum. A hand yanked the blindfold away. Light slashed into her eyes, blinding her for a moment.She squinted, blinking rapidly until the blur sharpened into the i