Chapter 1 #2
I was running because of Sarah.
She was the only pure thing left in my life.
And I had promised our mother, as she lay dying, that I would protect her.
No matter the cost.
I never imagined I would fail.
The memory twisted painfully inside my chest.
That night, when the ballroom was alive with music, laughter, and celebration, I quietly slipped away under the guise of getting some fresh air.
In truth, I was heading upstairs to retrieve the last suitcase hidden beneath Sarah’s bed.
Within the hour, we’d be gone.
We would never set foot in Flynn Manor again
Then I heard it.
A heavy thud.
Not loud.
Just...
Wrong.
Every instinct inside me came alive.
My heartbeat exploded in my ears.
I was already running before my mind understood why.
“Sarah!”
My voice echoed through the corridors as I sprinted up the grand staircase two steps at a time.
Portraits of dead Flynn ancestors blurred past.
Servants flattened themselves against the walls.
I barely noticed them.
Something was horribly wrong.
I could feel it.
I reached her bedroom door.
It hung halfway open.
The silence inside was unnatural.
My breathing stopped.
“Sarah?”
No answer.
I shoved the door wide open.
The room looked as though a bomb had gone off.
The curtains whipped violently in the wind.
The enormous window overlooking the courtyard had been shattered.
Jagged pieces of glass glittered across the hardwood floor like scattered diamonds.
A chair lay overturned.
One of her books had been ripped in half.
Drops of blood stained the white carpet.
My stomach dropped.
Movement flashed at the edge of my vision.
A broad-shouldered figure slipped away with hurried, purposeful steps, disappearing around the corner beyond her adjoining sitting room as though he had no intention of being seen.
I caught only the briefest glimpse.
Barely a heartbeat.
But it was enough.
I’d know that confident stride anywhere. The impeccable fit of the tailored jacket. The effortless swagger that had always bordered on arrogance.
I’d spent my entire life watching him walk those halls.
My brother.
I opened my mouth to shout after him, but instinct pulled me somewhere else.
The window.
Every nerve in my body screamed.
No...
Please...
No...
I stumbled toward the broken glass.
My boots crunched over the shards. Each step felt heavier than the last.
As though some invisible force already knew what I was about to see and wanted to spare me.
I reached the edge.
Looked down.
And my world ended.
Eight floors below, in the centre of the stone courtyard...
...lay Sarah.
Her body was twisted at an impossible angle.
One arm bent beneath her.
Her blonde hair spread around her like silk soaked in crimson.
Blood pooled beneath the back of her shattered skull, slowly creeping across the ancient stone.
She looked so impossibly small.
The distance between us was enormous.
She hadn’t fallen. She’d been thrown.
Someone had sent her over the edge of this eighth-floor window.
From that height, survival wasn’t a possibility.
My knees nearly gave way beneath me.
“No...”
The world lurched violently, the walls and shattered glass blurring together until none of it felt real.
It had to be a nightmare. It had to be. My mind clung desperately to that lie because the truth was too monstrous to survive.
Just two hours ago, I’d stood in this very room while Sarah sat by the window, absentmindedly sketching in the notebook she carried everywhere.
She’d laughed when I teased her for drawing flowers instead of the beaches we’d soon be calling home.
“I’ll draw them when we get there,” she’d said with that quiet smile only she possessed.
Two hours.
Two fucking hours.
And now...
Now she was lying broken on the ground below.
No.
No.
“Sarah!”
Her name tore from somewhere deep inside me, raw enough to shred my throat as it echoed through the mansion.
It echoed across the estate.
“My baby sister!”
I don’t remember leaving the window.
One moment I was staring down at the impossible.
The next, everything dissolved into chaos.
Voices erupted behind me. Boots thundered through the corridor as people rushed toward Sarah’s room.
My family had abandoned the ballroom and arrived within seconds.
Not with grief. Not with horror.
With anger.
Cold. Immediate. Unmistakable.
As though Sarah’s death wasn’t the tragedy.
I was.
My uncles stormed into the bedroom like a pack of starving wolves.
Their faces were thunder.
Their eyes already filled with accusation.
Uncle Declan reached me first.
His palm cracked across my face with enough force to send me crashing into the wardrobe.
“You wicked, illegitimate bastard!”
Another slap.
Harder.
“How dare ye lay a hand on yer own sister?”
I stared at him, unable to breathe.
“What?”
“Ye pushed her!”
“I didn’t—”
His fist smashed into my jaw before I could finish.
Blood filled my mouth instantly.
He grabbed my shirt with both hands.
“From the eighth floor!” he bellowed. “What kind of heartless piece of shite murders his own flesh and blood?”
“I didn’t touch her!”
Uncle Cillian seized me by the collar without warning, wrenching me completely off the floor.
Uncle Declan stood at his side, his face as hard and unforgiving as stone.
Cillian dragged me closer until our faces were only inches apart. His features were twisted with a fury so absolute it barely looked human.
“Have ye finally lost yer fuckin’ mind?”
His grip tightened. “Were ye drunk?”
“No!”
“Were ye jealous?”
“No!”
“Then why is she dead?”
“I don’t know!”
He slammed me against the wall so hard the plaster cracked.
Pain exploded through my spine.
Before I could recover, his fist buried itself in my mouth.
Blood sprayed across my shirt.
I spat out a broken tooth.
“I swear on Mam’s grave,” I gasped, struggling to breathe. “I didn’t push her.”
“Liar.”
“It was him!” My arm shot out, my trembling finger locking onto my brother.
“Sergei!”
Every head turned.
“It was Sergei!” I shouted, my voice cracking beneath the weight of panic. “I saw him leaving the corridor just after Sarah was thrown from the window!”
My gaze darted from one face to another, searching desperately for someone—anyone—to believe me.
“You all know how much Sarah meant to me.” My voice broke. “She was my sister. My best friend. How could you possibly believe I’d do this to her?”
No one answered.
Their silence was worse than any accusation.
“Please...” I pleaded, tears burning my eyes. “Don’t let your hatred for Sarah and me blind you to the truth. I would never hurt her. Never.”
They stared back at me with cold, unreadable faces.
Not one of them looked convinced.
Still, I kept talking, as though enough words could somehow save me.
“I heard something break,” I said, each sentence fractured by ragged breaths. “I ran upstairs as fast as I could. By the time I got here, the window was already shattered.”
I swallowed hard, forcing the next words past the lump in my throat.
“I saw someone leaving.”
My finger lifted again, pointing straight at Sergei.
“It was him.”
My finger remained fixed on Sergei.
“I saw him running,” I said, my voice rising with every desperate word. “He was leaving Sarah’s room. I saw him. Why won’t any of you listen to me?”
Uncle Declan’s expression didn’t soften.
If anything, it darkened.
The muscles in his jaw tightened, his eyes hardening into something cold and impenetrable. There wasn’t a flicker of doubt in them. Not even curiosity.
He had already decided I was guilty.
“I saw him!” I shouted again, struggling against Cillian’s grip. “Ask him where he was! Ask him why he was outside Sarah’s room! You’re accusing the wrong person!”
“Enough.”
The single word cracked through the room like a gunshot.
An oppressive silence descended as Grandfather Flynn stepped forward.
The patriarch.
The undisputed head of the Flynn clan.
Power seemed to move with him, commanding obedience without ever demanding it.
No one dared speak. No one dared breathe too loudly.
Even Uncle Cillian released my collar.
The old man stood ramrod straight despite his age, one weathered hand resting on the polished head of his cane.
His face revealed nothing.
His pale eyes settled on me. They were made of ice.
I searched his face desperately.
He had to know. He had to believe me.
“Grandda, I swear—”
His gaze never softened.
Not even for a heartbeat.
Before I could utter another word, Uncle Seamus, the youngest of my three uncles, erupted with a roar that shook the room.
“Ye lyin’ bastard!”
Uncle Seamus’s hand shot toward the bedside table, his fingers closing around the heavy brass lamp before I could make sense of what was happening.
For the briefest instant, time seemed to hesitate.
Then he swung.
The lamp hurtled toward me with savage force, and the brass connected with the left side of my face in a sickening crunch that reverberated through my skull.
White-hot agony erupted behind my eyes, so blinding it stole the air from my lungs.
For a heartbeat, the world ceased to exist.
No sound. No breath. No thought.
Then reality crashed back all at once.
The glass shade exploded into a thousand glittering fragments, scattering through the room as the brass frame twisted beneath the force of the impact.
A rush of warmth spilled over my face, thick and relentless, running down my cheek, soaking my lips, and dripping onto my shirt.
Blood.
It flooded into my left eye, swallowing my vision beneath a curtain of crimson.
At the same time, razor-sharp shards of glass tore across my cheek and brow, ripping through skin with merciless precision until I could feel warm blood pouring from a dozen fresh wounds.
The room lurched violently.
My legs gave out beneath me.
I hit the polished floor on my knees, one hand bracing against the marble while the other flew instinctively to my face.
My fingers came away slick with blood.
I could no longer see clearly through my left eye.
Everything beyond it dissolved into a hazy blur of crimson and shadow, the pain so fierce it felt as though molten glass had been driven into my skull.
That was the moment my left eye was forever damaged.
But even then...