Chapter 1 - The Fall from Eighty-Two Floors
Rose heard the scream before she saw the woman fall.
One second, she was carrying a silver tray of crystalline champagne flutes through a sprawling rooftop wedding eighty-two floors above the sprawling Metropolis skyline. The air was cool, scented with thousands of imported white roses and expensive French perfume. The rich and powerful of the state had gathered to celebrate the union of the city’s most eligible bachelor, thirty-two-year-old shipping tycoon Nathaniel Callaway, and his stunning bride, socialite Victoria Sterling.
The next second, seventy-year-old Eleanor Callaway was tipping backward over the clear glass railing.
Rose dropped the tray.
Crystal shattered across the pristine white marble floor, champagne splashing over designer shoes and silk hems.
She didn't hesitate. She ran.
Across the sprawling terrace, Nathaniel turned toward his mother’s frantic, bone-chilling scream—and froze in sheer horror.
Because beside the shattered glass railing stood his bride of barely two hours.
Victoria.
Her hands were still raised in mid-air, palms extended, fingers trembling.
Rose didn't have time to process or wonder what she had just witnessed. Eleanor was already disappearing over the terrifying edge.
Rose threw her body forward, hurling herself toward the railing, her hands diving wildly over the glass perimeter. Her fingers caught a fistful of heavy, embroidered silk fabric at the back of Eleanor’s navy blue designer dress.
The sheer momentum and dead weight of the older woman nearly dragged Rose straight over the edge.
Her ribs slammed brutally into the top of the glass barrier, knocking the breath out of her lungs in a sharp gasp. Her soft leather serving shoes slid across wet marble slick with broken champagne flutes and spilled alcohol.
Below her lay eighty-two floors of sheer drop—a dizzying abyss of concrete, steel, and miniature yellow taxicabs floating nearly nine hundred feet below.
Above her, hundreds of elite wedding guests stood frozen in horrified, breathless stunned silence.
Eleanor’s weight pulled harder and harder.
Rose’s fingers began slipping against the smooth silk.
“No… no, no…” Rose gritted out through her teeth, pain shooting through her arms and wrists like liquid fire.
She hooked her right leg violently against the solid iron base of the glass railing, digging her knee into the frame to anchor herself.
“HELP ME!” she screamed, her voice tearing through the paralyzed air of the terrace.
For several agonizing, terrifying seconds, nobody reached them. Fear had turned the billionaire guests into statues.
Rose’s shoulder joints burned with intolerable pressure. Her palms wore raw against the tearing fabric. Her grip was giving out. Another inch, another fraction of a second, and the weight would tear her balance away—and she would plunge into the abyss along with the matriarch of the Callaway empire.
Then heavy, thunderous footsteps vibrated through the floorboards behind her.
Nathaniel reached the railing, his face pale as death, his eyes wide with wild terror.
Four uniformed private security guards rushed forward right behind him.
Nathaniel reached over the edge, grabbing his mother’s upper arms, while two security officers grabbed Rose’s belt and arms, pulling back with all their combined strength.
Together, with a heavy, desperate heave, they dragged Eleanor Callaway back over the glass railing and onto the marble rooftop.
Eleanor collapsed heavily into her son’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably, her body trembling like a leaf in a storm.
Rose slumped back onto the wet floor nearby, gasping for air, her lungs burning, staring down at the raw, bloody skin on her palms where the heavy fabric had shredded her skin.
Then Nathaniel slowly lifted his head.
He wasn't looking at Rose. He wasn't looking at his security team.
He was staring directly at the woman in the hand-stitched, multi-million-dollar white wedding dress.
Victoria hadn't moved a single inch.
Her face had gone completely, utterly white. Her manicured hands were still hovering slightly at her waist level.
And Nathaniel had seen enough. He had seen her hands pushed outward. He had seen his mother’s backward stumble.
Victoria took one slow, cautious, desperate step toward him, her veil fluttering in the high-altitude wind.
“Nathaniel…” she whispered, her voice trembling, attempting to summon a delicate, vulnerable tear.
His mother was still shaking violently against his chest, clutching his tuxedo jacket, unable to speak, her eyes wide with shock.
Around them, dozens of guests began snapping out of their paralysis, raising their smartphones, light flashing from camera lenses.
Victoria opened her mouth, her eyes darting nervously toward the onlookers.
“It was an accident,” she stammered, stepping closer. “She... she lost her footing on the wet step! I reached out to grab her! Nathaniel, you have to believe me!”
Nathaniel stared at his bride of two hours. His dark eyes, usually warm and gentle, hardened into two solid slabs of solid black ice.
May you like
Then he answered.
“Security,” Nathaniel said, his voice terrifyingly quiet, carrying across the silent rooftop like a death sentence. “Restrain her. Call the police.”
