The water in the bathroom continued to run, creating a loud, steady roar that masked the silence in the bedroom.
Grace stood directly in front of the closet. She brought her knuckle down hard against the wood.
Thud. Thud.
Inside the pitch-black space, Jacey gasped. She bit down on her own hand to keep from screaming. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.
Grace leaned forward. She pressed her lips close to the narrow gap between the door and the frame.
"I know you are in there," Grace whispered. Her voice was slow, icy, and completely devoid of emotion.
The words hit Jacey like a physical blow. She stumbled backward in the dark. Her back slammed into the tie rack. The metal hooks rattled loudly against the wood.
Grace smiled. It was a cold, terrifying expression.
"You do not have to hide," Grace said softly through the crack. "Your cheap perfume already gave you away."
In the dark, Jacey's face burned with intense humiliation. She was wearing a limited-edition Chanel fragrance. Being called cheap by an assistant made her blood boil.
Jealousy and rage clouded Jacey's judgment. She balled her hands into fists. She took a step toward the door, ready to throw it open and slap Grace across the face.
But her hand stopped inches from the handle. Hayden's threat echoed in her mind. If she ruined his commercial value, she would get nothing.
Jacey dropped her hand. She sank slowly to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. Tears of pure frustration and shame spilled down her cheeks. She was trapped.
Grace waited ten seconds. When the door did not open, her disgust deepened.
"Since you like the dark so much," Grace whispered, delivering the final blow, "enjoy the closet. It is the biggest role you will ever get."
Jacey shivered. She did not understand the financial threat. She just thought the woman outside was insane.
Grace turned her back on the closet. She walked over to the bed.
She picked up Hayden's backup tablet. It was the device he used for reading scripts and private messaging. Because Grace managed his life, she had installed a backdoor passcode months ago.
She typed in a complex string of numbers. The screen unlocked instantly.
Grace bypassed the normal apps. She tapped on an icon disguised as a local weather application. A secondary password prompt appeared. She typed it in.
The screen shifted, revealing a hidden, encrypted messaging interface.
It opened directly to Hayden and Jacey's chat history. The screen was filled with explicit photos, graphic texts, and detailed conversations about how to drain Grace's resources to fund Hayden's production company.
Grace did not blink. Her pulse did not rise. She reached into her designer bag and pulled out a specialized, high-speed USB drive.
She plugged it into the tablet. She ran a pre-written data extraction script. Lines of code flew across the screen as the drive began sucking every text, photo, and audio file from the hidden app.
The progress bar moved rapidly.
Suddenly, the rushing water in the bathroom stopped.
The silence in the room was deafening.
Grace stared at the screen. Ninety-five percent.
The sound of the glass shower door sliding open scraped against the tiles.
Ninety-eight percent.
Hayden's wet footsteps slapped against the bathroom floor. He was reaching for a towel.
A small chime sounded from the tablet. One hundred percent.
Grace yanked the USB drive out. She shoved it deep into her bag. She locked the tablet screen and tossed it back onto the bed exactly where she found it.
She walked back to the sofa, sat down, and picked up a copy of Vogue from the coffee table. She flipped it open just as the bathroom door swung wide.
