Chapter 5
Celeste stared at her brother’s unconscious body buried in the splintered wood and sheet music. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps. The illusion of her control over the Ashford empire had just been violently, permanently dismantled. She looked at Nolan, realizing that she had awoken a monster she could not put back to sleep.
Driven by sheer, blind desperation to eliminate the source of the unraveling lie, Celeste’s eyes darted toward the little girl hiding behind the maid.
"I'll kill her!" Celeste shrieked, entirely losing her mind.
She lunged forward, her elegant engagement dress tearing as she bypassed Nolan, her manicured hands hooked like claws, aiming directly for Nora.
Nolan moved with absolute, lethal precision. He stepped backward, smoothly moving Nora and Mae safely behind him, creating an impenetrable wall of dark fabric and muscle. As Celeste closed the distance, Nolan simply reached out and caught her wrist in mid-air. His grip was an iron vise, stopping her momentum instantly and painfully.
"Let me go!" Celeste screamed, thrashing wildly.
Nolan did not let go. He stared into her terrified, flushed face for a fraction of a second before he drew his right hand back.
He delivered one thunderous, open-handed slap across Celeste’s face. The sound cracked through the parlor like a rifle shot. The force of the strike spun her violently backward, but before she could fall, Nolan followed through. He drove a forceful, perfectly executed front kick directly into her torso.
Celeste rocketed backward, lifted entirely off her high heels. She flew across the room and crashed brutally into the extravagant engagement-flower display.
The lightweight decorative frame collapsed instantly under her weight. Hundreds of pristine white flowers burst across the marble, showering the floor in petals. Expensive velvet favor boxes scattered everywhere, bouncing and tumbling across the stone. Celeste collapsed into the ruin of her own engagement celebration, groaning in agony as the breath was knocked completely from her lungs.
As she hit the floor, the heavy, antique diamond engagement ring she wore on her left hand snagged on a piece of the metal framework. The ring flew from her finger, soaring through the air in a glittering arc.
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It bounced twice on the pristine marble before it rolled, spinning lazily, until it came to a dead stop directly touching the tip of Nolan’s polished leather shoe.
There was no dialogue. The parlor was a war zone of shattered glass, broken wood, crushed flowers, and bleeding bodies. Nolan stood perfectly still in the center of the wreckage, his chest rising and falling in a slow, controlled rhythm.
