Reclaimed Fortune

I stared at the glowing screen of Vanessa’s phone. She had left it face-up on the sticky mahogany bar table when she walked away to the restroom. A new message flashed across the glass, illuminating the dark corner of the VIP lounge.

Preston: Is she drugged yet? The photographer is waiting by the side exit. We need those pictures tonight.

My blood turned to absolute ice. Preston. My ex-fiancé. The man who abandoned me exactly fourteen days ago when my father was falsely indicted for corporate fraud. Why was he texting my best friend?

I looked down at the half-empty martini glass resting in my trembling hand. A strange, bitter metallic taste lingered on the back of my tongue. The room tilted dangerously. The heavy crystal chandeliers above me smeared into violent streaks of blinding yellow light.

Vanessa returned, her designer heels clicking sharply on the marble floor. Her mask of kindness was flawless, a practiced expression of deep sympathy that made my stomach heave.

“Drink up, Zara,” she smiled, sliding into the leather booth next to me. “You need to forget the scandal. You deserve one night of absolute peace. Let me take care of you.”

She was not trying to give me peace. She was serving me up for a final, fatal public execution. My father’s tech company was already destroyed, and my mother was currently fighting for her life in a hospital bed due to the stress. If a photographer caught the disgraced Zara Knight stumbling out of a luxury hotel completely intoxicated, it would ruin any chance I had of securing a job to pay for my mother’s medical bills. Vanessa wanted to ensure I never climbed out of the ashes.

I stood up abruptly. My legs felt like wet sand. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I slurred.

“No, babe, let us get you upstairs,” Vanessa insisted. Her manicured fingers dug into my bare arm like brutal talons. “I booked a penthouse suite for you. I put the keycard in your purse. You can sleep it off.”

I ripped my arm out of her punishing grip. Pure adrenaline fought a desperate war against the heavy sedatives flooding my veins. “Get your hands off me.”

I did not wait for her reaction. I shoved past the heavy oak chairs and bolted toward the main lobby elevators. The hotel warped and twisted around me. The ambient jazz music sounded like a demonic, underwater drone.

I mashed the call button for the penthouse level. The polished steel doors closed just as Vanessa broke through the crowd in the lobby, her beautiful face twisted in ugly, frantic panic. I was trapped in a metal box, fighting a losing battle for my consciousness. I dug into my designer purse—the last expensive thing I owned—and pulled out the cold plastic keycard she had planted.

The elevator chimed. I stumbled out into a silent, dimly lit hallway. The numbers on the brass plaques swam before my heavy eyes. 4215. That was