The Groceries

And now she was going to evict the tenants.

Elena watched the video feed, the tiny screen glowing in the darkness of the woods. Seraphina holding the baby—*her* baby—like a prop. Marcus bargaining with Julian for her life. It was a digital dossier of their crimes, recorded in real time.

But she couldn't just take it to the police. Not yet. The police had already dismissed her as hysterical. They needed something undeniable. Something physical.

She needed to get back into the house.

She recalled the drone. The battery was at 15%. Not enough for another surveillance run, but enough for a distraction.

She flew the drone towards the front of the house, toward the black SUV still parked in the driveway. She hovered it over the hood.

Then she cut the power.

The drone dropped like a stone, smashing into the windshield with a loud *CRACK*. The alarm blared instantly, headlights flashing in the dark.

Inside the library, Marcus jumped. He ran to the window.

"What the hell was that?" he shouted into the phone. "Someone's out there!"

He hung up and ran for the door.

Elena didn't wait. She moved while he was distracted. She circled back to the service entrance. The guard was gone, investigating the noise at the front.

She slipped inside. The kitchen was empty now, the staff gone for the night. She moved through the shadows, her heart a cold, hard knot in her chest.

She didn't go upstairs. She went to the pantry.

It was stocked for a siege. Cases of wine. Imported cheeses. And in the back, behind the crates of San Pellegrino, was the delivery that had arrived earlier.

The boxes from *Dean & DeLuca*.

She opened one. Steaks. Filet mignon, thick and marbled. Another box held truffles. Another, tins of caviar.

It wasn't just luxury. It was gluttony. A feast for a family that was supposedly on the brink of ruin.

She pulled out her phone—the burner—and snapped photos. The labels. The dates. The sheer, obscene volume of it.

Then she saw the receipt, taped to the side of a crate of wine.

*Billed To: The Elena Vance Trust.*
*Authorized By: M. Hawthorne (Power of Attorney).*

He hadn't just used her credit card. He had tapped the trust directly. He had forged her signature or used the emergency powers he claimed to have.

She ripped the receipt off the box.

"Hungry?"

Elena spun around.

Seraphina was standing in the doorway of the pantry. She was still wearing the black dress, the silk clinging to her frame. She held a glass of champagne in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.

"I thought I heard a rat," Seraphina said, stepping into the small room. "But it's just a mouse."

"Get out of my way, Seraphina," Elena said, backing up until she hit the shelves.

"Or what?" Seraphina asked, swirling the wine. "You'll throw a steak at me? You're pathetic, Elena. You really thought you could outsmart us?"

"I know about the baby," Elena said. "I know he's mine."

Seraphina's smile faltered, just for a second. Then it widened, becoming sharper. "He's not yours. You just provided the raw materials. I provided the context. The lineage. The *name*."

"He has my eyes."

"He has my future," Seraphina countered. "And you have nothing. No husband. No money. No credibility."

She raised the knife.

"And soon, no pulse."

Elena looked around the pantry. She was trapped. Seraphina blocked the only exit.

But she wasn't defenseless.

She grabbed a bottle of wine from the open crate next to her. A heavy, red blend.

"Don't," Seraphina warned. "I'm faster than you."

"Maybe," Elena said.

She smashed the bottle against the shelf. Red wine exploded outward, spraying them both. Glass shards rained down.

Seraphina flinched, raising her arm to protect her face.

Elena lunged. She didn't go for the knife. She went for Seraphina's other hand.

She grabbed the wrist holding the champagne glass and twisted.

Seraphina screamed as the glass fell, shattering on the tile floor.

Elena shoved her back, hard, sending her stumbling into the shelves. Cans of caviar and jars of olives crashed down around her.

Elena ran.

She burst out of the pantry, into the kitchen. She heard Seraphina shouting behind her, a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.

She reached the side door. She threw it open.

And stopped.

Standing in the snow, blocking her path, was the guard. The one who had let her in earlier.

He held a taser.

"Mrs. Hawthorne said no visitors," he grunted.

Elena looked back. Seraphina was in the kitchen doorway, blood trickling down her forehead from a flying jar, the knife still in her hand.

"Hold her," Seraphina hissed to the guard. "I want to do it myself."

Elena looked at the guard. He was big. Immovable.

She looked at Seraphina. She was crazy.

She looked at the delivery van, still parked in the service drive. The driver was gone, but the keys... were they in the ignition?

She didn't know.

But she knew one thing.

The guard was looking at Seraphina, distracted by the blood.

Elena reached into her pocket. She pulled out the can of lighter fluid she had bought at the superstore.

She sprayed it in the guard's face.

He roared, dropping the taser to claw at his eyes.

Elena didn't wait to see if he was blinded. She ran past him, slipping on the ice, scrambling toward the van.

She tried the door. Unlocked.

She tried the ignition.

Empty.

"Damn it!" she screamed, slamming her hand against the wheel.

"Looking for these?"

She looked out the window.

Marcus was standing there. He was holding the keys.

And he was smiling.

"You really should learn to check the schedule, Elena," he said. "The delivery driver always leaves the keys with the butler."

He tossed the keys in the air and caught them.

"Now get out of the car."

Elena looked at him. She looked at Seraphina, who was walking across the snow, the knife glinting in the security lights.

She was trapped.

But then she saw it.

In the back of the van, amidst the buckets of flowers and bags of soil.

A crate of wine.

Not the red blend.

The expensive stuff. The *Dom Pérignon*.

The diet of a dying woman? No. The diet of a woman living in luxury.