Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Rug**
The paring knife felt heavy and cool in Flynn’s palm, completely out of place against the backdrop of our minimalist, sun-drenched living room. Only seconds earlier, his voice had rung out like a loaded weapon: "If you ever put your hands on Selina again, I swear to God I will kill you."
My name is Mabel Vance. Twenty-eight years old, a former private equity analyst who had willingly stepped down from a high-powered career to play the quiet, accommodating wife to the rising CEO of Vance Global. For three years, I had swallowed my pride, ignored the whispers, and endured the ghost of Selina Cole haunting the periphery of our marriage. Selina was the first love everyone in Chicago's elite circles whispered Flynn had never truly gotten over. She was the permanent asterisk beside our vows.
That afternoon, Selina had appeared at our front door like a weeping apparition, clutching her forearm against a microscopic, superficial scratch that looked like it had been brushed against a rose stem.
“Flynn… I didn't want to come here,” she had sobbed, her voice trembling with theatrical fragility as she buried her face in her hands. “Mabel pushed me. She tried to hurt me in the foyer.”
I hadn't even left the master suite all day. I had spent the morning reviewing financial statements and wondering how to tell Flynn about the life growing inside me.
“That’s a flat-out lie, Flynn,” I said, my voice shaking as I stood up from the sofa.
Flynn didn't give me a fraction of a second to defend myself. The apple he had been peeling tumbled from his fingers, rolling across the Persian rug. He didn't look at my face; his eyes were locked onto Selina’s manufactured tears. When he turned to me, the man I had shared a bed with for three years had vanished, replaced by a stranger possessed by blind, reckless fury.
“Did you hurt her?” he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
“Flynn, listen to me—this is insane—”
“I asked you if you put your hands on her!”
“No!” I shouted back, stepping away as he closed the distance between us with terrifying speed.
Selina sobbed harder, leaning against the doorframe. “Just leave it, Flynn. Please, I don't want you two fighting over me... she’s just unstable.”
That single sentence was all it took to trip the final wire in Flynn’s mind.
The first plunge of the blade caught me completely off guard, driving deep into my lower abdomen with a white-hot shock of agony that stole every ounce of air from my lungs. The second sent my knees buckling, crashing me down onto the hardwood floor as warm, bright crimson began to pool rapidly across the fabric of my dress.
As I lay gasping for air, clutching my stomach while my vision tunneled into terrifying darkness, I waited for Flynn to snap back to reality, to drop the knife and scream for an ambulance.
Instead, he walked right past my bleeding body.
He knelt beside Selina, untied his tailored bespoke suit jacket with tender care, and gently draped it over her shivering shoulders.
“It’s okay now,” he murmured, his voice softening into a gentle, honeyed tone I hadn't heard him use in years. “She will never touch you again.”
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Selina looked down over his shoulder at me, bleeding out on the rug. And right before my eyes slipped shut, she smiled.
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