The scent hit first.
Smoke. Burnt wood. Blood.
Not the metallic tang of a clean cut, but thick and charred—soaked into carpet, into bone. Lingering like a ghost too stubborn to move on.
The Ardent mansion stood in eerie silence. The thick, suffocating kind that settles only after devastation, like the breath held between a lightning strike and the thunder.
Victoria stepped through the shattered entrance.
The grand double doors hung off their hinges, one cracked in half. Marble tile glistened with something dark and sticky. Her heels clicked softly—then stuck faintly to the floor. A soft skrrch every time she moved.
Blood.
It was everywhere.
The foyer, once pristine and immaculate, was now painted in ruin. Limbs twisted and bent at impossible angles. Men in dark suits, collapsed where they stood—or tried to run. Throats gaping. Eyes open. Skin pale.
Some were missing pieces.
Some were barely recognizable.
