Chapter 1 – The Fall
The cold night wind howled across the rooftop, carrying Elena's scream into the darkness.
Her fingers burned as they clung to the thick decorative rope hanging beside the rooftop garden. Every muscle in her arms shook beneath the weight of her eight-month pregnant body.
"Please..." she gasped. "My baby..."
Below her, twenty stories of empty air swallowed every sound.
Mrs. Eleanor Whitmore stood above her with perfect hair and a face untouched by mercy.
"You should have let go already," she said quietly.
The elderly housemaid, Margaret Dawson, ignored the threat. At sixty-three, her knees no longer carried her the way they once had, yet she dropped to the concrete and stretched as far as she could.
"I've got you, sweetheart!" Margaret cried, grabbing Elena's wrist with both hands. "Don't look down. Just hold on."
Tears streamed down Elena's face.
"I can't..."
"Yes, you can."
Eleanor stepped closer.
"You old fool."
Without hesitation, she kicked Margaret's shoulder.
Margaret slammed against the concrete but refused to release Elena.
Then Eleanor grabbed a fistful of Margaret's gray hair and yanked backward with astonishing force.
Pain exploded through Margaret's scalp.
Still she held on.
Footsteps echoed across the rooftop.
Daniel Whitmore appeared.
Elena's heart flooded with hope.
Her husband.
The father of her unborn daughter.
"Daniel!" she cried. "Please!"
For one impossible second, she saw concern in his eyes.
Then it disappeared.
He walked calmly toward them, reached into his coat, and pulled out a folding knife.
Margaret stared at him in disbelief.
"Sir... what are you doing?"
Daniel looked directly into Elena's terrified eyes.
"I'm ending a mistake."
The blade flashed.
One clean slice.
The rope snapped.
Time stopped.
Margaret threw both arms around Elena as they plunged into the darkness.
Instinct—not fear—took over.
She wrapped herself beneath Elena, shielding the unborn child with her own body.
The city lights spun around them.
Concrete rushed closer.
Then—
Elena's desperate hand struck the metal railing of a maintenance balcony on the nineteenth floor.
Her fingers locked around it.
Her shoulder nearly dislocated.
The violent jolt stopped her fall.
Margaret, however, slipped lower.
Only her ankles had become tangled in the broken rope wrapped around Elena's arm.
Now Margaret dangled upside down, twenty stories above the street.
Blood trickled from her forehead.
Her grip on consciousness faded.
"Elena..." she whispered weakly.
Above them, Daniel stepped to the edge of the roof.
He looked down.
Not with horror.
With disappointment.
"They're still alive," Eleanor murmured.
Daniel slowly took out his phone.
May you like
"Call security," he said coldly.
"And tell them they jumped."
