Chapter 5 - The Call from the Queen
Five minutes after I hung up with security, my phone buzzed against the marble countertop.
The caller ID flashed: Mother.
I stared at the screen as it vibrated against the porcelain. I didn't answer immediately. I let it ring twice, letting the rhythmic buzzing echo in the empty, tiled room, before swiping my thumb across the glass and pressing the phone to my ear.
I didn't say a word.
"Savannah," Eleanor whispered, her voice tight, vibrating with a venomous, hushed fury. "Whatever petty game you’re playing right now, stop it. Do not ruin this night for your sister."
There it was.
Not Are you hurt?
Not Where are you?
Not I’m sorry.
Protect Fallon. Always Fallon.
"She punched me," I said, my voice dangerously calm.
"You provoked her," Eleanor hissed back instantly, without a shred of hesitation. "You walked in here looking for a fight, wearing that ridiculous dress, waving around old photographs like a ghost from the attic. You wanted to make her look bad in front of her investors."
"She dragged me across a polished marble floor by my hair, Mom. Seventy people watched."
"People saw you arguing with her and making a scene, exactly as you always do!" Eleanor’s voice rose slightly before she caught herself, lowering it back to a furious whisper. "Don't turn this into one of your pathetic military power trips. Fallon has worked years for this award. If you breathe a word of this to anyone, or if you cause one more scene, you are dead to this family. Do you hear me? Dead."
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The swelling under my eye had darkened into a deep indigo, but my hands were completely steady.
"Mom," I asked softly, "did you see Fallon hit me?"
Silence stretched down the phone line—heavy, guilty, and absolute.
Then, my mother spat out her final verdict: "Don't be dramatic."
Click.
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone, opened my call log, and hit Save Recording. Every word captured, time-stamped, and backed up to the cloud.
A sharp, crisp knock echoed on the heavy wooden door of the women's restroom.
"Ms. Blake? Riverstone security."
I straightened my shoulders, took one final breath, and pulled the door open.
Standing in the hallway was the hotel’s security director—a broad-shouldered man with iron-gray hair and a laminated badge on his lapel. Behind him stood the hotel general manager, looking pale and deeply distressed, and a uniformed Denver police officer who had been stationed downstairs for the VIP event.
The security director looked at my split lip, the swelling eye, and the torn satin dress at my knee. His jaw tightened so hard I could see the muscle tick in his cheek.
He held up a heavy-duty corporate tablet.
"We've secured the footage, Ms. Blake," he said, his voice grim. "Every single angle. Audio and video."
May you like
I nodded slowly, turning my gaze down the carpeted hallway toward the muffled sounds of music and laughter leaking out from beneath the grand ballroom doors.
"Good," I said quietly. "Then I want to go back in."
