Chapter 18 - The Glass Kingdom Revisited
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour by the time Ricardo’s car crept up the winding, tree-lined avenues of Las Lomas. The neighborhood was dead silent, the massive stone villas shrouded behind towering hedges and iron palisades.
The iron gates of his former home were indeed unlocked, standing wide open just as the message had promised.
He drove inside, killing the headlights, and parked the stolen sedan near the darkened hedges where he used to park his Ferrari. He stepped out into the pouring rain, slipping the heavy pistol into the pocket of his damp trench coat.
The twelve-million-dollar mansion loomed before him like a mausoleum. The limestone facade was dark, but through the towering, two-story glass walls of the grand living salon, a single golden light spilled across the polished marble terrace.
Ricardo walked toward the entrance, his boots squelching on the gravel.
The front doors were unlocked.
He pushed them open. The familiar scent of the house—polished cedar, white marble, and antique wax—rushed over him, triggering a violent surge of phantom memories. This was the hall where he had walked in tailored suits; this was the staircase where he had sneered at her long hours; this was the floor where he had planned his new life with Ximena.
"Victoria!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the thirty-foot ceilings, harsh and cracked. "I'm here! Show yourself!"
"You're late, Ricardo," a voice drifted from the grand salon.
He drew the gun, his finger hooking around the trigger, and stepped into the expansive room.
Sitting in the center of the vast, empty space, behind a single minimalist glass table, was Victoria. She was dressed in a pristine white pantsuit, her dark hair pulled back in a severe, elegant chignon. On the table sat a single bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon, two crystal flutes, and a sleek, closed laptop.
She didn't have bodyguards beside her. She didn't look afraid. She was looking at him with the calm curiosity of a scientist observing an insect trapped in amber.
"Put the gun on the table, Ricardo," she said smoothly. "Let's speak like civilized people before the inevitable happens."
"Civilized?" Ricardo yelled, raising the pistol with both hands, aiming the barrel directly at her forehead. His arms shook violently; sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes. "You stole my life! You sold this house while I was on my honeymoon! You ruined my mother! You turned Ximena against me!"
"You ruined yourself," Victoria replied, not flinching an inch from the black muzzle pointed at her face. "You sold my corporate secrets to Camilla Sterling. You abandoned your mother in a pawnshop. You tried to raise a child that wasn't yours out of sheer, pathetic vanity."
"Shut up!" he screamed, stepping closer, the barrel mere feet from her temple. "Shut up! I will pull this trigger, Victoria! I will blow your brains all over this marble, and I will take what belongs to me!"
"You won't take anything," Victoria said, her voice dropping into an ice-cold, rhythmic cadence. "Because you are already dead, Ricardo. Legally. Financially. Spiritually."
She tapped the spacebar on the laptop.
The screen illuminated, displaying a high-resolution, multi-angle live video feed.
In the top corner of the screen, sitting in the corner of the room behind a two-way mirrored partition, were four federal tactical officers armed with submachine guns.
In the lower corner of the screen was a live broadcast connection linked directly to the Federal District Attorney's emergency command center.
"Every word you have spoken since you stepped across that gate has been recorded in 4K resolution and high-fidelity audio," Victoria said, leaning forward, her eyes piercing through his shattered soul. "You are trespassing on property owned by a German multinational. You are carrying an unregistered firearm with the serial numbers scrubbed. And you are on camera attempting to extort and assassinate the CEO of Vance Logistics."
Ricardo froze. His eyes darted wildly toward the dark corners of the room.
"You... you're bluffing," he stammered, his finger tightening on the trigger. "You wouldn't risk your own life!"
"I didn't risk my life," Victoria whispered. "Look at the glass between us."
Ricardo blinked. For the first time, he noticed the faint, greenish tint of the seamless, ballistic-grade poly-carbonate shield running floor-to-ceiling between the glass table and where he stood. A barrier capable of stopping a fifty-caliber rifle round at point-blank range.
May you like
He was standing in a cage.
***
