Ellen picked up her wineglass and brought the rim up to her lips, taking a long sip from it.
“Now, Scarlett, she’s fascinating. She isn’t just the reason your mother left me for your father. Your mother uses her as the focal point of the family. All attention is deflected off Parker and onto how perfectly perfect Scarlett is. That was, until she wound up seducing that sweet, young graphic designer who worked for her. Now, that was a scandal, wasn’t it?”
Most of what Ellen was saying was simple gossip. However, what she’d deduced about their family dynamic from that gossip was disturbingly accurate.
“That just leaves you, doesn’t it? You’re her baby. Her way of reliving her youth.” A fiendish smile spread on Ellen’s face. “You’re her favorite, aren’t you, Bianca? You’re the one I needed to get close to. You’re the one who needed to know the truth. Because, through you, your mother will finally know what she’s done to me. Through you, she’ll finally understand what it means to have everything she loves taken from her.”
Bianca’s heart sank into her stomach. Her mother had been right all along. By forcing Bianca to get a bodyguard, she hadn’t been babying her. She’d been trying to protect her youngest daughter from a danger that was very, very real.
And Bianca had sent the very person meant to protect her packing.
She was on her own.
She needed to get out.
Bianca remained facing Ellen as she backed toward the door. “I think I should go. Thank you so much for inviting me into your home, Ellen. I promise to have a candid talk with my mother about all this…”
She made it all the way to the door. But when she gave the handle a firm yank, it didn’t budge.
“So soon?” Ellen said. “Why don’t you stay a while?”
Bianca jiggled the handle. It must have had an auto-lock that Ellen could open and close at a whim.
Bianca was trapped.
“We still have so much to talk about,” Ellen said right behind her.
Bianca held back a curse, panic rising inside. It wasn’t until she could feel Ellen breathing down her neck that she finally remembered what she had tucked away in her purse.
The pepper spray!In her state of shock, Bianca had forgotten all about it.
But as she reached into her bag, she was interrupted by a distinctive clicking sound behind her.
“Ah-ah! I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Bianca froze in place. As slowly as she dared, she turned to face Ellen.
In the woman’s hand was a gun.
This time, Bianca didn’t bother holding back her curse as her life flashed before her eyes.
Yet Ellen merely took another sip from the wineglass in her other hand. “Hand over the purse, sweetheart. You’re not going anywhere.”
Bianca was shaking so hard she could feel her sweat vibrating on her forehead. She needed a way out of this. And fast.
“I need my phone,” she squeaked. “To control my insulin pump.” Slowly, she pulled up her shirt to show Ellen the pump at her waist. “If I don’t have access to the app, I might—”
“Hand. It. Over.”
With palms as wet as her throat was dry, Bianca held out her purse. Gun still trained on Bianca, Ellen set her wineglass on the table and took the purse, peering inside.
She pulled the pepper spray out of the purse and inspected it carefully. “You won’t be needing this. I think I’ll hang onto your things for now.”
Bianca’s heart clenched inside her chest. Her only defense, and her only lifeline, were gone. She was entirely at the mercy of a woman who held a 40-year grudge against her family.
And that woman was determined to get her revenge.