Justine leaned heavily against the oak wine rack. The sudden exertion of standing up sent a wave of dizziness crashing through her brain. The freezing air rushed into her lungs, triggering a violent, tearing cough. She doubled over, pressing the back of her freezing hand hard against her mouth to muffle the sound.
Carl stood perfectly still. He watched her body shake with the force of the coughs. He did not step forward. He did not offer her a handkerchief. Instead, his upper lip curled in disgust, and he took a deliberate step backward, as if her sickness were a contagious disease that might soil his cashmere sweater.
Justine finally forced the coughing fit to stop. She lowered her hand and slowly straightened her back.
She lifted her head and locked her bloodshot, fever-bright eyes directly onto Carl's face.
"Leo pushed me," Justine said. Her voice was completely shredded, sounding like dry leaves crushing underfoot, but she enunciated every single syllable with surgical precision. "He walked up behind me, put his hands on my back, and pushed me into the water."
The expression on Carl's face froze. For a split second, the truth hit him. But then, the psychological wall of his massive ego slammed down. He could not accept that his son, the heir to his political dynasty, was a malicious liar. To accept that would mean accepting that he, Carl McConnell, had tortured his wife for no reason.
The cognitive dissonance exploded into pure, unhinged rage.
Carl lunged forward. "You lying bitch!" he roared, the veins in his forehead pulsing visibly against his skin. "You are so consumed by your pathetic jealousy of Anabella that you are now trying to frame a seven-year-old boy! A boy who lost his mother!"
Justine did not flinch. She did not step back. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a smile that was so cold, so utterly devoid of warmth, it belonged on a corpse.
"Innocent?" Justine whispered, the word dripping with venom. "Your perfect son is a monster. And he learned exactly how to lie by watching you."
That sentence shattered the very foundation of Carl's pride. It attacked his parenting, his son, and his own integrity in one breath.
Carl's rational mind completely short-circuited.
He spun around, his eyes wildly searching the room. They landed on a small oak tasting table next to the wine racks. Resting on the table was a massive, leather-bound, hardcover edition of the Estate Wine Directory. It weighed at least two pounds, its corners reinforced with heavy brass.
Carl grabbed the heavy book with one hand. Blinded by the need to silence her, to punish her for speaking the ugly truth, he whipped his arm back and hurled the book directly at Justine's head.
The cellar was too narrow. There was nowhere to run.
Justine instinctively jerked her head to the left, raising her shoulder to protect her face.
She wasn't fast enough.
The heavy book struck her cheekbone with a sickening thud. The massive kinetic force was entirely absorbed by her delicate skin and bone, causing the directory to drop straight down from her face and fall to the cobblestone floor with a heavy, unceremonious clap.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow snapped Justine's head back. Her vision went completely black in her right eye. She stumbled backward, her shoulder blades slamming hard against the wine rack. Several expensive bottles of Pinot Noir rattled violently in their wooden slots, the glass clinking like a chaotic wind chime.
A sharp, blinding explosion of pain radiated from her cheekbone, shooting straight into her teeth and behind her eye.
Justine gasped, her hand flying up to cover the right side of her face.
She felt a sudden, terrifying warmth spreading across her freezing skin. She slowly pulled her hand away and held it up to the dim, yellow light of the sconce.
Her palm was covered in thick, dark red blood.
The sharp brass corner of the book had sliced the skin over her cheekbone wide open.
Carl froze. The moment the book left his hand, the red haze of anger vanished, replaced by a sudden, icy shock. He stared at the blood dripping through Justine's fingers. His chest heaved. He knew he had crossed a line that could never, ever be uncrossed.
But Carl McConnell never took responsibility. His political survival depended on always shifting the blame.
"That was your fault!" Carl shouted, his voice cracking with panic as he pointed a shaking finger at her. "You pushed me! You provoked me into doing that! You brought this on yourself!"
Justine did not argue. She did not scream for help.
She slowly lowered her bloody hand. She let her arm hang dead at her side.
The blood flowed freely from the gash on her cheek. It ran down her jawline, dripping onto the pristine white collar of her cashmere top, blooming into bright, horrifying red stains against the fabric.
She lifted her head. She looked at Carl through her left eye; her right eye was already swelling shut.
Her gaze was absolute zero. It was the look of a scientist observing a failed, disgusting experiment. There was no fear. There was no shock. There was only the terrifying silence of a woman who had just emotionally amputated her husband from her soul.
Carl felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Her silence was infinitely worse than screaming. It made his stomach churn with a deep, primal dread.
Desperate to regain control, Carl puffed out his chest. "Go upstairs and clean yourself up," he ordered, his voice trembling slightly despite his efforts to sound commanding. "Do not let the staff see you looking like a lunatic."
Justine did not say a word.
A single drop of blood rolled down her cheek and stopped at the corner of her lips.
Slowly, deliberately, Justine extended her tongue and licked the drop of blood off her lip.
The metallic, salty taste of her own blood coated her tongue. It was a taste she knew intimately from her years in the trauma ward. It was the taste of survival. It was the taste that woke up the dormant, brilliant surgeon inside her.
The marriage was dead. The autopsy was over.
Justine pushed herself off the wine rack. She dragged her freezing, trembling legs forward. She walked straight toward the stairs.
As she approached Carl, he instinctively reached out his hand, wanting to grab her arm, wanting to say something to stop the terrifying momentum of her silence.
Justine violently twisted her torso away from him. She dodged his hand as if he were covered in a lethal, flesh-eating virus. The look of pure revulsion on her face made Carl freeze in his tracks.
He stood there, his hand suspended in the empty air, watching her slowly climb the stone stairs. Her back was straight. Her bloody collar was a glaring testament to his failure.
A sudden, suffocating wave of panic seized Carl's throat. He felt the ground shifting beneath his feet.
He turned and viciously kicked the heavy wine directory that lay on the floor. The book skidded across the stones and slammed into the wall.
Justine walked out of the basement. She pressed her hand against her bleeding face and walked through the grand, opulent foyer of the estate.
Two maids polishing the grand staircase saw her. They gasped, dropping their rags, their eyes wide with horror as they stared at the blood. They quickly lowered their heads, terrified to look at her.
Justine ignored them. She placed her bare foot on the first step of the red-carpeted staircase. With every step she took toward her bedroom, she mentally buried the weak, pathetic "Mrs. McConnell." By the time she reached the top of the stairs, she was reborn.
