Chapter 24 The Trap is Sprung
Elena’s POV
Sleep did not come to me like a gift that night. It came like a thief.
It slipped in quietly, lowering my defenses one breath at a time, until my body surrendered even though my mind never truly did. I remember drifting—not sinking, not resting—just drifting, caught in that thin space where consciousness loosens its grip and memory sharpens its teeth.
And then I was no longer in my bed.
I was nine again.
The dream didn’t announce itself as a dream. It never does. It dressed itself in detail, in color and sound so precise it felt obscene. The manor rose around me exactly as it had that day—vast and echoing, marble floors polished to a blinding shine, ceilings so high they made my chest feel hollow.
White and gold streamers arched across the vaulted ballroom, tied carefully at intervals like someone had measured joy and portioned it out neatly. The scent of flowers was overwhelming—lilies and roses layered so thickly they made my throat itch. Enormous arrangements framed the long buffet table, their petals flawless, untouched by decay.
At the center stood the cake.
Four tiers. White frosting with pale yellow detailing. Candles already lit, flames flickering beneath the chandelier’s glow. Vanilla and lemon—sweet enough to make my teeth ache just smelling it.
My birthday.
I watched myself enter the room from somewhere just behind my own eyes, wearing the blue dress my mother had chosen. Soft fabric. Pearls stitched along the neckline. Too elegant for a child who still scraped her knees climbing trees. The shoes pinched—I remembered that too, vividly. I had practiced walking in them for days, taught myself to ignore discomfort because discomfort was unseemly.
Smiling was expected.
Looking perfect was required.
The guests clapped as I walked in, polite applause, restrained and measured. Adults in tailored suits and expensive dresses, faces composed, eyes assessing. Even then, some part of me understood I wasn’t the guest of honor so much as the centerpiece. Proof that the Vale family was thriving. Controlled. Untouched.
My father stood near the head of the table, laughing with a cluster of executives. Conrad Vale. Tall. Immaculate. His presence bent the room subtly toward him, like gravity. My mother stood beside him in a dark green gown, one hand resting lightly at his arm. Her smile was practiced, elegant—and empty.
“Elena,” she said, her voice gentle in that way that left no room for refusal. She reached for my hand. “Go greet your grandfather.”
I obeyed. I always did.
But something shifted.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t obvious. It was the kind of change you feel more than hear, like when the air in a room suddenly goes cold without explanation. I had just reached toward the cake, fingers hovering over the smooth frosting, when my skin prickled.
The room felt wrong.
I turned toward my mother, ready to ask if I could finally blow out the candles. The smile was gone from her face. Completely gone. What replaced it froze me in place.
Fear.
Not mild concern. Not surprise. It was raw, naked terror—wide-eyed and unshielded. The kind I had never seen on her before or since.
“Mom?” My voice in the dream sounded small, thin. “What is it?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her eyes were locked on something beyond me, beyond the buffet, beyond the room itself.
Toward the garden doors.
I turned slowly, dread curling in my stomach before my mind could catch up.
Through the tall arched glass, just past the velvet curtains stirring in the breeze, my father stood outside.
And at his feet, a man lay bleeding profusely. His body in the pool of his own blood.
The man had been one of the guests. I recognized his suit, the way he’d bent to compliment the cake earlier. I never learned his name. It never mattered. What mattered was how still he was, how the blood spread beneath him in a dark, obscene bloom against the stone.
My father stood over him with terrifying calm.
One hand held a silver pistol.
The other rested neatly in his blazer pocket.
His face was blank. Not angry. Not frantic. Empty. As if whatever had happened was no more significant than signing a document or correcting a mistake.
The music inside the ballroom kept playing.
That was the worst part.
The soft notes drifted through the open doors, cheerful and absurd, clashing violently with the image burned into my vision. No one screamed. No one ran. The world did not shatter the way it should have.
Time fractured instead.
I remember gripping the edge of the cake table so hard my knuckles went white. The frosting smeared beneath my fingers, melting as the candles burned lower. My stomach twisted violently, fear rising like bile.
Behind me, my mother’s voice whispered, hushed and broken.
“He wasn’t supposed to do that here.”
Not what my father has done.
Just… here.
I turned back to her, confused in a way only a child can be when the rules of the world suddenly dissolve. “And it’s my birthday.”
The words sounded wrong even as I said them. Too small for what was happening.
My mother crouched down in front of me. Her hands cupped my cheeks, trembling slightly. Her touch was gentle, but her eyes were hard with something that felt final.
“From today, sweetheart,” she said quietly, “you must never forget who your father is. Or what the price of disobedience looks like in this family.”
The candles sagged, wax dripping down the sides of the cake. The vanilla scent grew sickeningly sweet.
And then the gunshot echoed.
I screamed awake, gasping, bolting upright in bed as if I were trying to outrun the memory itself. Cold sweat soaked my skin, my heart slamming so hard it hurt, each breath shallow and panicked.
For a few terrifying seconds, I didn’t know where I was.
The sheets were silk beneath my hands. The air smelled faintly of jasmine. The room was quiet—too quiet. I scanned it wildly, chest heaving, until my eyes landed on the window. Sunlight spilled through the clouds, gentle and real.
It was morning.
Not the manor, the ballroom or even my ninth birthday. It was my room and it was just a dream.
I dragged both hands down my face, pressing my palms into my eyes as if I could physically push the images back where they belonged. My throat burned.
“God…” I whispered, my voice rough and unfamiliar.
I had buried that day for years, or maybe buried wasn’t the right word.
I thought about the blood, the gun and my mother’s voice.
You must never forget who your father is.
My mind felt like cracked glass. But my thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Jack.
I wondered if he was awake. My fingers tightened around the edge of the curtain at the thought of the dream.
I wasn’t that little girl anymore.
And if the memory from back then had surfaced now—after all these years—it wasn’t random. It wasn’t cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
It was a warning.
A reminder of what Conrad Vale was capable of.