Chapter 2: The Pillow She Dropped
The third night, she came alone.
No pearls this time.
No gloves.
Just that perfume, and the soft click of the door being locked behind her.
I heard her breathing before I heard her voice.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The breathing of someone who had already made a decision and was simply carrying it out.
She stood over me for a long moment without speaking.
Then she pulled the pillow from beneath my head.
"You should have d*ed on that terrace," she said quietly.
"You were never supposed to survive it."
I did not move.
I moved only my thumb.
One small press.
Barely anything.
The recorder activated.
"Adrian is weak," she continued, almost to herself.
"He always has been.
But he is mine.
And you — you with your little audits and your little suspicions — you were going to take everything I built."
She leaned closer.
"The doctors say there is nothing left in there.
That you are just a body keeping itself warm."
Her hands tightened on the pillow.
"So this is mercy, really."
Then the door handle moved.
Cordelia stepped back so fast she nearly knocked over the monitor stand.
The pillow dropped.
Her face rearranged itself in under a second — grief, softness, a grandmother's sorrow.
A nurse entered.
But behind the nurse stood someone else.
May you like
Someone Cordelia had not expected.
Someone who had a folder in his hand and a look on his face that said he had already heard enough.
