Chapter Twenty-One: The Woman On White

The sound of my own name leaving her lips felt terrifying.

“Vienne.”

Nobody dared to fire at her. Not even Silas and certainly not the armed men that came here full of energy and was ready to drop us all dead.

The woman stood there watching everyone. Everyone was watching her too. None of us knew what was going to happen next or what we were going to do. Elias and Silas looked confused too as though they didn’t know she was the one we were going to meet once the elevator slid open.

Suddenly her gaze stopped on me, staring at me like she was watching me deeply. She wore a tattered white hospital gown. Her dark hair was matted, falling over her pale shoulders. But it was her face—the high curve of her cheekbones, the shape of her eyes... it was like looking at a cracked reflection of myself from twenty years in the future.

Beside me, Silas slowly stepped forward. His weapon remained raised. But something had changed. His entire body had gone rigid. Like a man staring at a ghost.

The woman looked at him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“Silas…” Elias whispered.

Silas ignored him.

The woman smiled faintly and then pushed her attention back to me.

“Vienne”. She called my name again.

“How do you know my name?” I asked not out of confidence but fear.

“I used to call you that”.

“But I don’t know you”.

“You knew me before”.

The moment she said that word. A realization hit me hard. The voice…this was the exact same woman whose agonizing, late-night screams had echoed through the walls of the Vane mansion. I recognized her through her voice tone. She wasn't just a ghost in Silas’s house. She was here, locked inside the deepest structural veins of Vane Industries but I was lost in thought on how she got here.

A slight sound from Lena snapped me out of it. I suddenly realized I had completely forgotten my best friend, leaving her frozen on the floor. I reached down to help her up, but she was barely aware of what was happening around us. I placed on a desk close to me.

Now her gaze was back to Silas. “You got older.”

Silas’s jaw tightened. “You should be dead.”

The word sounded frightening even to the attackers. They all exchanged uneasy glances.

The woman’s smile disappeared. “I tried.”

My stomach twisted into a violent knot the moment those words left her mouth. Did she try to kill herself? I looked back and forth between them, desperate for answers.

“You know her?” I whispered to Silas.

“I have waited for so long to see you”. The woman cut in, her eyes locked onto mine.

“Man! This is getting interesting… look at this dude,” one of the armed men blurted out. A wave of sharp irritation hit me. To them, our living nightmare was just an entertaining movie scene.

“Follow me”. The screaming woman murmured.

"Don't move, Vienne," Silas whispered. His voice was dangerously low, vibrating with a lethal, protective panic. His dark eye were wide, locked onto the woman with a terrifying mixture of pain.

"Silas..." I choked out, my fingers trembling against the silver pistol in my pocket. "Who is she?” I asked him silently, trying to keep her from hearing.

But I was wrong she actually heard me. “I’m..”

But before she could answer…

“STOP HER!”

The scream exploded from behind us. Every head snapped toward where the voice was coming from. The person standing there made my blood froze.

Aunt Marissa stood in the shattered doorway. She looked nothing like the composed woman who had betrayed us. Her hair was disheveled. Her clothes were stained with white drywall dust. I wondered how she suddenly looked rough from few minute ago.

The moment the woman in white saw Marissa, something dark and dangerous flashed across her face. Like she recognized her instantly.

Marissa pointed a shaking finger directly at her. “Don’t listen to her!”

The woman laughed. A small, broken, humorless sound. “You always say that.”

The room went completely still. Everyone watching including me and now it was looking like a movie scene.

“You told her I was dead.”

Marissa flinched.

“You told all of them.” The woman continued, her voice filled with pain.

I stared at my aunt, then at the woman, then back again. My heart began pounding violently against my ribs, sounding heavy. The woman never broke eye contact with Marissa.

“I was protecting her.” Marissa shot back with a defensive tone.

The woman laughed again. This time there was no humor in it.

“Protecting her?” Her words dripped with bitterness. “You locked me away for nineteen years.”

Then the woman turned back to me. Tears filled her eyes.

“I’m your Godmother, Vienne and I never stopped looking for you.”

I was shocked. So was Silas and everyone else. I couldn’t fully remembered i had a godmother probably because I was still little then. Before I could ask further question..

Pam! Pam! Pam!

The deliberate sound of hands clapping cut through the air, stopping my sentence dead. The noise abruptly woke Lena, who had been heavily dozing against the desk out of sheer exhaustion. Now, she was fully awake, her eyes wide with terror.

“Beautiful drama. You guys won the award for the best acting scene”. Meaning he has been standing there along.

Julian.

He stepped into the light, casually handing Aunt Marissa a paper cup of tea. Marissa, who had looked petrified and on the verge of tears just a few seconds ago, suddenly wore a completely neutral expression. The fear was entirely wiped from her face.

I stared at them in shock. I had truly believed the two of them weren’t on good terms.

When the woman gaze meet Julian, her expression was that of sadness and happiness mixed together. Julian acted like she wasn’t even there, his gray eyes completely focused on me.

"You look confused, Little Sister," Julian said, taking a slow, elegant step towards me, his black suit making him look superior. "Did you really think Aunt Marissa went behind my back to Victor Laurent? Victor is an old man clinging man so what do you think she would do that.

“Julian.” My Godmother called out softly.

For the first time, his arrogant expression shifted slightly. He finally looked at her.

“You look terrible,” he said coldly.

The woman laughed softly taking a fragile step forward, her eyes swimming with that strange mix of joy and deep sorrow. "Look at what you’ve become. Look at what they turned you into.”

Julian paused for a second. His smooth mask slipped, revealing a flash of something cold and broken underneath. But it was gone in an instant. He tore his eyes away from her, locking them back onto me.

"I became what I had to be to survive the family business," Julian murmured softly.

Will somebody tell me what is going on?” I demanded, the confusion tearing at my throat.

The woman looked at me. Then at Julian.

Then at Marissa. Then at Silas. “They still haven’t told you.”

Marissa immediately stepped forward. “You better don’t. Not one more word”.

The woman smiled. “See? She always does that.”

Beside me, Silas’s arm shifted, his body blocking me even tighter as his weapon remained leveled straight at Julian’s forehead. "You brought her here, Julian. Why?"

Julian let out a dry, melodic laugh. “If I wanted her here, trust me, you wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late.” He brushed out dryly.

“But well… Julian continued, his voice dropping into a dark, mesmerizing rhythm as he raised his hand. The armed men instantly raised their weapons, their red laser sights clustering directly over Silas’s chest and my forehead. "The reunion is over. Arthur Vance's cleanup crew is waiting downstairs, and Victor Laurent is expecting his prize."

"Julian, please," I gasped, my hand tightening around the silver pistol in my coat pocket, the metal sweating against my palm. "She's your family. I'm your family. Do not betray me just the way Marissa did”.

Marissa scoffed like she wasn’t bothered.

Julian smiled, a terrifyingly empty expression that didn't reach his eyes.

“I’m not sis. Trust me I’m helping you.”

How are you helping me? With guns on our head? I cried while staring deep into his eyes.

“I’m helping you, Vienne.” He screamed again taking his gaze off me like he hated seeing me cry. “The difference is that you’re too busy hating me to notice.”

“I don’t…” He didn’t even let me finish my sentence.

“Take the Godmother. Secure Silas, Lena and Elias. And as for my little sister..." He looked at Aunt Marissa, who stood beside him with a cold, expressionless face. "...let's see how much she's willing to bleed to save the people she loves."

“Is this how you helping me”? I cried out. Silas was about to pull his trigger but before Silas could pull the trigger, a heavy smoke canister thudded onto the floor between us, instantly exploding into a blinding, suffocating cloud of white chemical haze.

In panic, I fired blindly into the smoke, the recoil slamming up my arm, but a heavy, gloved hand suddenly clamped over my mouth from behind, ripping the weapon from my fingers and dragging me backward into the shadows.