Chapter 7 - The Unforgivable Bruise
Vivian's arrogant expression instantly vanished.
Her eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror. The blood completely drained from her face, leaving her looking sickly and pale under the bright crystal chandeliers. Her mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. Clear confusion and suffocating panic completely hijacked her nervous system.
The woman she had treated like garbage. The woman she had just left to suffocate on the floor to protect her party. It was the reigning matriarch of the most dangerous crime syndicate in the state.
"Your... your mother?" Vivian choked out, her legs trembling so violently she nearly collapsed in her red silk gown. "Marcus... I... I didn't know! She wasn't wearing a nametag! I've never met her!"
Before she could form another pathetic lie, a team of heavily armed syndicate medics burst through the side doors, swarming the area. They immediately laid the older woman flat, administering emergency oxygen and prepping a stretcher.
Marcus knelt back down to help them lift her. But as the bright medical penlight flashed across his mother's face to check her pupils, the harsh illumination revealed something horrifying.
Marcus stared at the left side of his mother's face. Beneath the drooping skin of the stroke, there was a massive, angry, dark purple bruise swelling violently around her eye. It wasn't a medical symptom. It was blunt force trauma.
Marcus’s hand reached out, gently touching the edge of the swelling.
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"She didn't fall," Marcus whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow.
👉 Marcus realized his mother had been assaulted, and the terrified maid was about to drop the final, devastating piece of the puzzle.
