Downstairs, someone screamed.
Upstairs, Ethan didn’t understand why.
Vanessa did. Her smile flickered.
“What was that?”
Ethan frowned.
The music downstairs stopped abruptly.
A massive silence settled over the house.
Charlotte felt the weight of hundreds of people holding their breath below her feet.
Another message appeared on her watch.
The prosecutor is here. Police are on the way. Keep them talking for thirty more seconds.
Charlotte lifted her face.
The tears were still there.
But her eyes had changed.
“Tell me something, Ethan,” she whispered. “When you lock me away… are you also going to say I imagined you and Vanessa?”
His face twisted.
“No one will believe anything you say.”
He opened the folder and slammed the documents in front of her.
“Sign.”
Vanessa stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“And if you refuse, maybe those babies won’t even make it to birth.”
Charlotte stopped crying.
That sentence traveled through the entire house.
Downstairs, a glass table shattered.
Then came footsteps.
Many of them.
Fast.
Furious.
Charging up the staircase.
Ethan turned pale.
Vanessa stepped backward.
