Silence.
Then chaos.
Guests screamed as security tried to react, but the black-suited men moved too fast, cutting through the crowd with surgical precision. The ballroom—once a paradise of gold and glass—became a battlefield of shadows and panic.
Emma didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
The boy’s grip on her hand was the only thing anchoring her to reality.
“Stay behind me,” she whispered instinctively.
But the boy shook his head.
“No… they’ll take you too.”
Emma turned slightly, eyes trembling as she looked at him.
“Who are you?”
The boy hesitated.
Then said the words that shattered everything she thought she knew:
“I’m your nephew.”
A shockwave ran through her body.
Before she could respond, a bullet cracked into a marble pillar beside them—too close.
The mysterious man stepped forward through the chaos, untouched, unhurried.
“You were never supposed to survive,” he said to Emma calmly. “Neither of you.”
Emma tightened her grip on the boy.
“Where is Sophia?” she demanded.
A faint smile crossed the man’s face.
“Oh, Emma… she chose to disappear.”
The boy’s voice broke.
“She didn’t disappear. They took her.”
For the first time, something shifted in the man’s expression—just for a second.
Then the chandeliers above flickered violently.
Lights stuttered.
Security alarms screamed.
And in that brief chaos—
A voice echoed from the ballroom speakers.
Familiar. Distorted. Alive.
“Emma… don’t trust anyone in the room.”
Emma’s breath stopped.
That voice.
Sophia.
The boy looked up at her, eyes full of fear and hope.
“She’s still alive,” he whispered.
But the mysterious man raised his hand again.
And this time, he wasn’t pointing at Emma anymore.
He was pointing at the boy.
“She was never talking to you,” he said quietly.
“She was talking to me.”
The lights went out.
And in total darkness—
A final sound echoed through the ballroom:
A single gunshot.
