The street outside the Mirador Club shimmered under artificial suns. Chrome-bodied Rolls Royces lined the curb like sleeping beasts, their polished flanks catching every passing light and throwing it back in warped, liquid shapes. The sidewalk belonged to money—heels that could feed families, fur coats that rustled with the ghosts of foxes, diamonds that stabbed the darkness with cold fire. This was Viola Halvern's territory, the oxygen she'd learned to breathe.
Tonight, though, something felt wrong.
She stood at the entrance, guards positioned around her like chess pieces. At forty-six, Viola carried her beauty like armor—dark hair swept into precise waves threaded with deliberate silver, her posture engineered through years of practice. People stared. They always did. But their attention felt different tonight, sharp-edged and questioning.
Her gloved fingers tightened around her phone's dark screen.
"Still no response, Mrs. Halvern?" Kenny materialized at her shoulder, voice smooth as poured cream. Her butler for the past twelve years, he wore his uniform like a second skin, silver threading through his dark hair at the temples.
Viola's mouth pressed into a line. "Chloe thinks silence gives her leverage."
"The young often mistake stubbornness for strength, madam."
A laugh escaped her, empty of humor. "My daughter has always preferred the hard way. Even when it destroys her." She paused, watching neon patterns dance across car hoods. "She'll understand eventually. They all do."
Kenny offered a small nod, his face carefully blank. Loyalty meant knowing when not to speak.
"Take me home."
The words came out clipped, final. The guards moved instantly, creating a human corridor through the gathered crowd. Viola's heels struck marble as she descended the steps, aware of conversations bending toward her like flowers tracking the sun.
On the restaurant's terrace, wealthy men lounged with cigars and half-empty tumblers, their voices carrying.
"William's got taste, I'll give him that," one said, watching Viola. "Forty-six and she looks better than most women at thirty. Like aged wine—gets richer with time."
Another exhaled smoke toward the stars. "What do you expect from a Halvern? They don't live like normal people. Everything they touch turns to gold."
An older man with sun-damaged hands spoke quietly. "Enjoy the shine while it lasts. Storm's coming."
The second man frowned. "What storm?"
"You haven't heard? There's a podcast—Veilbreak. They're digging into the Halverns. Deep digging. Finding bones."
"Podcasts." The first waved his cigar dismissively. "Conspiracy garbage for people with nothing better to do."
The old man smirked, tapping his phone. "That garbage has millions of listeners now. And where there's smoke..."
The words found Viola's ears despite the distance. Her stride didn't break, but something tightened in her chest.
Guards opened the Genesis G90's rear door, its black surface drinking in the lamplight. Viola slid inside, Kenny settling into the driver's seat with practiced efficiency. The door sealed shut, cutting off the night's noise.
But silence offered no comfort.
Viola's fingers moved across her phone screen, finding what she'd been dreading. Veilbreak. Even the name felt like an accusation.
The latest video loaded. Grainy warehouse footage showed men moving wooden crates through shadows. The caption identified the location as property connected to Karan Mehra. Crowbars cracked wood, revealing vacuum-sealed packages inside.
Effexaine.
Viola's stomach dropped.
Marcus Holloway's voice filled her earbuds, smooth but hungry. "What you're seeing isn't speculation, folks. This is Effexaine—the drug that's been killing people for four years. And who's manufacturing it? Not street gangs. Not desperate chemists. The Halvern Consortium."
Clara Vance cut in, her tone razor-sharp. "Before you dismiss this as conspiracy theory, let's talk about Jeremiah Wycliffe and Isla Lin. The couple who first created Effexaine. They wanted it regulated, medicalized, controlled. But the Halverns saw profit instead of responsibility. When Jeremiah and Isla refused to hand over the formula, what happened? Both murdered four years ago. Police called it an Azaqor killing, blamed it on Lucian Freeman."
Marcus leaned closer to his microphone. "Convenient timing, wouldn't you say?"
Clara's laugh was bitter. "Especially when Jeremiah and Isla had filed formal complaints against Halvern business interests weeks before their deaths. Then they're dead, the complaints disappear, and suddenly Effexaine is being moved through shell companies like Malhotra Horology. Who ran that? Karan Mehra. Who's also dead now—another supposed Azaqor copycat victim."
Viola's hands trembled slightly.
Marcus continued. "If you think this only goes back a few years, think deeper. We've got vintage footage of Otis Freeman—yes, that Otis Freeman, the drug kingpin—sharing drinks and laughs with Theodore Halvern himself. Old friends, old money, old corruption."
Clara's voice sharpened. "And here's the latest development—Lucian Freeman, the supposed Azaqor killer, escaped from Crestwood County Jail two nights ago. Vanished from maximum security. How does that happen unless someone with serious power pulled strings?"
Marcus exhaled slowly into the microphone. "Someone on the inside."
Viola's whisper came unbidden. "No..."
From the driver's seat, Kenny's voice remained steady. "Mrs. Halvern, that's not favorable news."
Kenny's eyes lifted to the rearview mirror, and in that small rectangle of silvered glass, Viola caught his reflection. What she saw made something cold slide down her spine.
His face wore an expression she'd never witnessed before—lips curled at the corners, not quite a smile but something darker, more satisfied. His eyes held a gleam that seemed to pulse with its own rhythm, catching the passing streetlights in strange ways. Around the edges of his reflection, the air itself seemed to shimmer and twist, like heat rising from summer asphalt. Threads of light—violet bleeding into sickly green, then orange shot through with gray—flickered around his head like a crown of dying fireflies.
Viola blinked hard, looking away from the mirror to the phone in her hands. Some trick of the light. Exhaustion playing games with her vision.
The podcast continued spiraling.
Clara began reading viewer comments aloud. "Listen to this one: 'We all know only one family in Crestwood has that kind of power. The Halverns.'"
Another comment flashed across the screen: *Remember Hefts Veldman? Tried exposing Lockridge's trafficking connections to the Halverns? Disappeared along with Karan Mehra's brother and niece.*
A third: *Maybe these new Azaqor murders are just distractions. Halvern cleanup operations to eliminate witnesses.*
The comment exploded with likes and shares. Hashtags multiplied like bacteria: #CancelTheHalverns, #EffexaineTruth, #BloodMoney.
Viola scrolled, jaw clenching tighter with each passing second. Every accusation felt like a stone hurled through stained glass, shattering the careful image she'd spent decades building.
The Genesis slowed as they approached the estate gates—wrought iron twisted into elaborate patterns, gilded with real gold leaf. But the view ahead made Viola's breath catch.
Crowds pressed against barricades, camera flashes strobing through the darkness. News vans parked at crooked angles along the road's shoulder. Protestors surged forward with hand-painted signs: *Greed Kills*, *No More Halverns*, *Your Money Is Blood*.
Tomatoes exploded against the Genesis's windows as it crept forward, bodyguards fanning out to clear a path through the mob.
"Corrupt parasites!" voices screamed. "We don't want your blood money!"
Another tomato hit, sliding down the glass in a slow red streak that looked disturbingly like arterial spray.
Viola stared through the mess, face pale but expression locked into iron composure.
In the rearview mirror, she caught another glimpse of Kenny. His reflection seemed almost to vibrate, the strange lights around his head intensifying—writhing tendrils of color that shouldn't exist together, pulsing in time with her own racing heartbeat. His expression remained perfectly neutral now, professional, as if that disturbing half-smile had never existed.
She tore her gaze away, focusing on her phone's screen. Just stress. Just exhaustion making her see things.
The gates groaned open and the Genesis slipped through into the sanctuary of manicured lawns and sculpted hedges. Outside the walls, the crowd's roar continued, muffled but persistent.
The mansion rose ahead—a cathedral of glass and steel, its windows reflecting the night sky in fragmented pieces.
Viola stepped out as maids rushed forward, heads bowed, hands extended to assist. She waved them off, spine straight despite everything, heels clicking against imported Italian stone.
Inside, crystal chandeliers dripped light across marble floors. The air smelled of jasmine and old money. But Viola's mind remained outside with the mob, their voices still echoing in her skull.
Her phone buzzed. Caleb Saye.
She inhaled slowly before answering. "Caleb."
"Viola." Her brother's voice came strained, nearly breaking. The rumble of his Dodge's engine filled the background. "Everything's falling apart."
"I'm aware," she murmured, sinking onto a velvet chaise near the windows.
"The OSI found connections. Between me, you, and the Halverns. Through Marlene. Through what happened to her."
His breathing hitched. "Maison Salon—the manager talked. Said it was Arjun, Karan's brother, handling the shipments. They're connecting dots, Viola. Lily won't cover for me anymore. Neither will Slate. I'm exposed here."
She pressed her palm to her temple. "William will talk to them. He still has influence."
"No, you don't understand. Everything's cracking open. And when it breaks completely, all our secrets spill out."
"Stop it." Viola surged to her feet, voice fracturing. "No one's opening that door. Caleb—we crawled out of poverty. We survived hell. I did what I had to do. I won't let it collapse now."
Her throat constricted and suddenly tears came, hot and unwanted, streaming down her carefully made-up face.
"Vi," Caleb's tone softened despite the tremor underneath. "You married into the Halverns. They won't throw you away."
Her lips trembled. Guilt rose like bile. "Caleb... there's something I never told you."
Silence stretched across the line.
"What are you talking about?"
Her whisper came faint, words meant only for his ears, carried across the distance between them in a confession that changed everything.
On the other end, Caleb's sharp intake of breath. Then fury. "What? Why the hell wouldn't you tell me that?!"
"I thought... I thought it was safer this way."
"Safer? Viola, you should have trusted me with that." His voice shook with anger before softening again. "But it's done now. We'll figure something out."
"Promise me you'll stay with me through this," she whispered.
"Always. You're my sister. I'm not going anywhere."
His silence deepened, then his voice hardened. "Listen—I might have something. A clue. About catching that psychopath."
"Lucian?"
The pause felt heavier than before.
"Caleb," she pressed. "Are you talking about Lucian?"
"I'll call you back."
His voice snapped shut. The line went dead.
Viola lowered the phone slowly, staring at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the glass, the lake stretched black and endless, rippling faintly under moonlight.
She stood alone, watching the water, feeling the weight of the world she'd built pressing back against her—threatening to crush everything.
In the window's reflection behind her, barely visible if you knew where to look, Kenny stood in the doorway. The strange lights flickered around his head one more time before fading completely into shadow.