Chapter 2 - The Lioness
"Leo!"
The scream didn't sound human. It sounded like an animal whose cub had been cornered.
Clara didn’t care that her forehead was bleeding from the steering wheel impact. She didn’t care that one of her work boots had ripped open on the wreckage. She vaulted over the three-foot stone retaining wall, her heavy canvas jacket flapping open against the bitter mountain draft, her boots sinking knee-deep into the snow with every frantic lunge.
She had driven six straight hours through an unplowed mountain pass after receiving a cryptic, panic-laced voicemail from the housekeeper who had been abruptly fired that morning: “Mrs. Vance... you need to come. Evelyn sent the staff home. She’s locked Leo in the study without food. She’s losing her mind.”
Clara had broken two court injunctions and violated a restraining order just by entering this zip code. None of it mattered.
"Mommy..." Leo’s voice was a frail, dry rasp.
Clara reached the patio and hit her knees so hard the stone cracked beneath the frozen slush. Dropping the tire iron, she scooped Leo into her chest. His skin felt like marble left in a freezer. His lips were an unnatural, terrifying shade of violet.
"I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. Mama’s here," she sobbed, unzipping her heavy Sherpa jacket and shoving Leo directly against her bare neck and wool sweater, sharing every calorie of body heat she possessed. She wrapped the coat around him like a cocoon.
"She... she threw me out," Leo whispered, his teeth clinking violently against one another. "She said nobody wants me. She locked the door."
Clara stopped breathing for three full seconds. The grief and panic that had fueled her drive evaporated into pure, sulfurous adrenaline.
She looked at the glass patio door. Through the tinted pane, she caught Evelyn’s silhouette reappearing at the top of the interior grand staircase, holding a cordless phone to her ear, a smug, amused smirk plastered on her porcelain face. Evelyn casually tapped the phone against her chin, clearly dialing 911 to report a trespasser.
Clara gently laid Leo behind the brick shelter of the outdoor barbecue island. "Stay here for ten seconds, sweetie. Don't look."
She picked up the tire iron.
She walked straight to the sliding door, wound back her arm, and put every ounce of her five-foot-seven mechanic’s frame into the strike.
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KABOOM.
Cliffhanger: The multi-layered tempered security glass shattered into millions of sparkling crystalline daggers, showering the polished hardwood floor, and Clara stepped straight into the warm air like a demon out of a winter storm.
