Kiara's POV
The elevator stopped between floors.
The lights flickered once… twice… then died completely.
My heart slammed against my ribs as my phone buzzed in my hand.
It was a text. I tapped on the text till it opened.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Don't go to the party Kiara.
My breath caught.
"The hell is this?" I whispered to myself.
I stared at the message for more than a minute, then at my reflection in the dark mirror walls…perfect makeup, flawless dress, the picture of celebration. Tonight was supposed to be simple. A birthday. Laughter. Cake. Applause.
But then, another message followed. Still from an unknown.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: If you step into that hall, your life will end the way it used to exist.
What was all this message about?
The elevator jolted violently, throwing me forward. I grabbed the rail just as a low mechanical groan echoed around me. My phone slipped from my fingers and skidded the floor. The screen is still glowing.
A file began downloading on its own.
My name was in the title.
Hands shaking, but then I opened it.
Bank transfers. Dates. Amounts that made my stomach drop. Accounts I had never seen…but bearing my digital signature.
"No…" I whispered
Then I heard it. Footsteps echoed outside the elevator shaft. Voices…urgent, male.
"…the warrant is ready."
My blood ran cold.
The elevator lights snapped back on. The doors slid open.
I looked up…and met the eyes of the man leading the security team. The same man who would be raising a glass for me in less than an hour.
He smiled.
"Happy birthday, Kiara."
David.
Behind him, two officers lifted their badges.
And somewhere above, music began to play
*********
The champagne bubbles caught the light like diamonds as I smoothed down my dress…themerald silk one David had bought me last month. "For my wife," he'd said, his eyes warm with promise.
"Oh my God Kiara, you look absolutely radiant!" My best friend Maya kissed both my cheeks. "Twenty-five really looks good on you. But I hope you stop behaving like a new born. You need to behave mature now."
"Thanks," I said, forcing brightness into my voice. My phone buzzed in my clutch. Another update from Lila about Mom's vitals. Still stable. Still fighting.
"Hey You okay?" Maya squeezed my hand.
"Just worried about Mom and Lila at the hospital. I should be there, and not here."
"Your mother insisted you celebrate tonight but am so worried about her. Anytime I look at her, I do have the fear she won't make it.
"Don'tsay that. She'll be fine. Both of them." Meya assured me.
Lila texted me herself…said she'd disown you if you bailed on your own party."
I laughed despite myself. "That really sounds like her."
Dad appeared at my elbow, his detective's eyes scanning the crowd with that perpetual wariness he could never quite turn off. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."
"Dad, you came!" I hugged him tight. "I thought you had some case to settle…"
"I can spare an hour." But his jaw was tight, and he kept glancing at his watch.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just work." He kissed my forehead. "I really need to make a call. I'll be right back in Five."
Before I could press him, David's voice finally rang out across the room.
"Everyone! Can I have your full attention, please?"
My heart skipped. This was it…the moment I'd been hoping for. He'd been dropping hints about a special surprise all week. I turned, smiling, as he raised his glass.
But his hand was shaking. What was happening? I asked myself in a whisper.
"David?" I took a step toward him.
His face crumpled, tears streaming down his cheeks. What was all this?
"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Confusion rippled through the crowd. My smile faltered immediately. Just as I was about reaching for him, he then started.
"I loved you, Kiara. God help me, I did. But I can't protect you anymore."
"What are you talking about?" My voice came out small,
I still don't understand what's all this.
"The million dollars missing from Davidson & Associates." His voice broke. The one announce at the new, it was stolen by the one person I never expected to do such. The one person I trusted. The one person I was ready to spend the whole of my life with…was the one who stole the Seven million dollar."
"And It was you. You stole it."
His hand pointed on me. "Kiara was the one who stole the money."
The room went silent. Someone's glass shattered against the floor. I could feel all eyes being fixed on me.
"What are you saying…" I whisper to my self.
"David, that's not funny…"
"Since I got the information and find out the really thief, I decided to wait till this day." He smiled but then continued. "I never loved you Kiara. All your years with me were all waste. I used you in so many ways that you didn't even noticed."
"I swear, I didn't do this. I don't even know what his talking about I swear."
"I have proof." He pulled out his phone, projecting an image onto the wall behind him. A bank transfer. My name. My account number. Seven million dollars.
"That's not…I never…" The words tangled in my throat.
"I wanted to believe you," David sobbed. "I've been investigating for months now, hoping I was wrong. But the evidence doesn't lie."
"David, please, you know me…you know I can't do this."
"You can't?" He smiled. "But this is clear evidence of your name, and your account number also. And yet you're saying you are not the one?"
"She's a thief!" someone shouted from the back.
Phones appeared everywhere. Camera flashes exploded like fireworks. Video lights turned the party into an interrogation room.
"Smile for the camera, fraud!"
"How could you steal from your own fiancé?"
"Are you out of your mind, you gold digger?"
"Did you ever love him, or was it always about the money?"
I stumbled backward, the room spinning. "This isn't real. This can't be…"
"Officers are already on their way," David said, and I heard sirens wailing in the distance, growing closer.
"No, no, no…" I turned to run, but the crowd had me surrounded, their phones thrust in my face like weapons.
Dad burst through the circle. "Get back! All of you, get back!"
"Detective Hale, did you know your daughter was a criminal?"
"Dad, I didn't do this…"
"I know, baby. I know." He tried to shield me as the police entered, but there were too many cameras, too many voices.
"Kiara Hale, you're under arrest for embezzlement and fraud…"
"She's innocent!" Dad's voice thundered. "I'm Detective Marcus Hale, and I'm telling you…"
"Sir, step aside or we'll have to restrain you."
"Don't you dare touch her!"
"Or what?"
They pulled me away from him, cold metal closing around my wrists. The last thing I saw was David's face, twisted with what looked like grief but couldn't have been…not if he'd planned this. Not if he'd known.
Three months earlier, David's office. His ex-associate Jake who's my ex-boyfriend before David…had accessed the firm's accounts. Jake, who'd whispered poison in David's ear: "Frame her, let the whole world think she's a thief and then we both walk free. Or I make sure they find evidence leading to you."
David had chosen survival. He'd chosen himself.
The police station smelled like disinfectant and desperation. Seventy-two hours bled together in a gray haze of questions I couldn't answer and evidence I couldn't explain. Dad's colleagues looked at me with pity or disgust. The same people who'd come to our house for barbecues now processed me like a common criminal.
**********
I spent a week in the prison before I was released.. Dad's rank bought me freedom I didn't deserve and couldn't keep…the world outside had moved on. Moved on and condemned me.
"We're very sorry, Ms. Hale," the loan officer said, not meeting my eyes. "Given the current... situation... we can't approve your application."
That made seventeen rejections. Seventeen doors slammed in my face while Mom's medical bills piled higher and Lila's treatments drained what little savings we had left.
I sat in Lila's hospital room now, holding her hand while she slept. The TV mounted on the wall showed my face next to the word FRAUD in bold red letters.
"Local socialite Kiara Hale, daughter of decorated Detective Marcus Hale, remains free tonight despite overwhelming evidence of her involvement in the Davidson embezzlement scandal..."
I switched it off and moved to Mom's room. Her vitals were worse. The numbers dropping, always dropping, while I had nothing to stop their fall.
My phone rang. The precinct.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Hale, this is Sergeant Rodriguez. Is your father with you?"
"No, why?"
"He didn't show up for his shift this morning. He's not answering his phone. We thought maybe…"
"He didn't come home last night." Ice flooded my veins. "I assumed he was working."
"We've checked everywhere. Ms. Hale... your father has disappeared."
The phone slipped from my hand.
I had two people I loved dying in hospital beds, and now the one person fighting for us was gone.
I had nothing left to give them.
And somewhere out there, David and Jake were celebrating their freedom.