The penthouse atop the Carter Tower was bathed in soft, amber light when the private elevator opened directly into the foyer. It was an environment of understated majesty: thirty-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the shimmering expanse of the city skyline, and walls adorned with original Impressionist masterpieces.
It was the home I had walked away from at twenty-two.
Dr. Richard Bennett, our family’s private physician for over thirty years, was already waiting in the master suite with two nurses. When he saw me walking in supported by my father, his stern, grandfatherly face darkened with sorrow.
“Oh, my dear child,” Dr. Bennett murmured, gently taking my arm and guiding me toward the examination table set up in the sprawling sitting room.
The next two hours were an agonizing blur of antiseptic, sterile gauze, and quiet medical assessments. Dr. Bennett carefully documented every injury with high-resolution clinical photographs—photographs I knew Marcus Vance would use as lethal weapons in the coming days.
My right knee required six stitches where the marble edge had sliced clean through the dermis. The scalp where Daniel had torn out my hair was inflamed and bleeding, requiring topical burn treatments to soothe the raw nerve endings. Across my ribs and upper back were four massive, purple hematomas where he had kicked me during previous arguments that I had kept secret from the world.
“Mild concussion,” Dr. Bennett pronounced finally, wrapping a fresh elastic bandage around my ribs. “Contusions across seventy percent of the thoracic area. Severe lacerations to the patella. If she had remained in that house another six months, Alexander… you would have been burying her.”
My father stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of untouched scotch resting on the sill. At the doctor’s words, the crystal glass shattered in Alexander’s grip. Scotch and blood dripped onto the white hardwood floor.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t make a sound. A nurse rushed forward with a clean towel, but Alexander waved her away, his eyes fixed on the distant lights of the city below.
“Richard,” Alexander said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Keep her heavily sedated tonight. I want her to feel no pain.”
“Daddy, don’t,” I whispered from the bed, my voice weak as the painkillers began to take effect.
Alexander walked over, ignoring his own bleeding hand, and sat on the edge of the mattress. He took my uninjured left hand into his.
“I failed you, Emily,” he said, and for the first time in my life, I saw moisture in the corners of Alexander Carter’s eyes. “I let you walk away because I thought pride would teach you a lesson. I thought you would see through him in six months and come home. I should have broken him the day you brought him to dinner.”
“No,” I murmured, my eyelids growing heavy under the weight of the sedatives. “I wanted to prove I was strong. I was a fool.”
“You are not a fool,” my father whispered, kissing my forehead. “You are a Carter. And tomorrow, you will watch them burn.”
