The humid air of the Lancaster estate clung to my skin like a second layer, thick with the perfume of expensive jasmine and the manicured cut of freshly trimmed grass, but beneath it all, it reeked of decay—the kind of rot that seeps into the bones of a dying dynasty. I was six months pregnant, the weight of the Lancaster heir pressing down on my back, a constant, throbbing ache, and yet even that familiar physical burden paled against the icy terror that curled in my chest when I saw her: Patricia Lancaster. She didn’t carry the softness of a grandmother-to-be, nor the warmth that family photographs might suggest. No, she stood in the designer kitchen with a predatory grace, silver hair gleaming like polished steel, holding a Rowenta steam iron that hissed as if it were alive, as if it were sensing the blood it wanted to scorch.
“You think you’re special because you’ve got Christopher’s seed in you?” Patricia’s words were a low, jagged whisper, each syllable slicing through the air like a knife. Her eyes, sharp as obsidian, bore into mine, stripping away every fragile layer of courage I had cobbled together. “You’re a weed, Kaylee. A common Riverside waitress who thought she could bloom in a marble garden. But weeds get pulled. Or, in your case… they get cauterized.”
