Chapter 3
The bright, natural light of the backstage reception area seemed to sharpen into high-definition clarity as little Zuri made her way across the carpet. Her gold ballet flats made soft, practically silent sounds against the floor. She held the small, slightly crumpled handmade paper flower carefully in her tiny hands, treating it as if it were a priceless diamond. Her glowing warm-brown face was entirely split by a massive, hopeful smile as she approached the group of adults.
Nathan was in the middle of frantically trying to appease Harrison’s probing questions about the syndicate's supply lines when he felt a tiny tug on the fabric of his black tailored trousers.
"Daddy?" Zuri asked, her bright, innocent voice cutting through the heavy, tense conversation.
Nathan froze. The blood instantly drained from his fair, rosy face, leaving him looking sickly and pale under the cinematic lights. He looked down at the three-year-old girl, his eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated panic.
Scarlett paused mid-sip of her champagne. She slowly lowered her crystal glass, her cold eyes dropping to look at the little Black American child standing near the hem of her ruby-red satin gown.
"Who is this?" Scarlett asked, her voice flat and laced with immediate irritation.
"Daddy, look what I made for you," Zuri said proudly, completely ignoring the strange woman. The little girl reached up, stretching her small arms as high as she could, and offered the small, handmade paper flower directly to Nathan.
Nathan didn't move. He didn't reach down to take the flower. He stood paralyzed, trapped between the innocent love of his child and the towering, ambitious lie he had constructed to impress the ruthless woman standing beside him.
Seeing Nathan hesitate, Scarlett let out a sharp, offended sigh. She perceived the child’s intrusion as a direct insult to her status and the exclusive nature of their conversation.
Without a fraction of a second of hesitation or basic human empathy, Scarlett moved.
She aggressively reached out with her heavily jeweled hand. She violently snatched the small paper flower right out of Zuri’s tiny fingers. The sudden, forceful movement caused the three-year-old to stumble forward slightly.
"Hey, my flower!" Zuri cried out, her smile vanishing instantly, replaced by a look of profound confusion and hurt.
Scarlett didn't even look at the child. She held the paper flower up, her fair face twisting into a mask of pure, vicious disgust. With a quick, deliberate motion, she tore the handmade flower completely in half, dropping the shredded, ruined pieces onto the floor near her stilettos.
"No!" Zuri screamed, tears immediately welling in her eyes as she watched her hard work destroyed.
Annoyed by the child’s outburst, Scarlett’s temper flared into absolute, unhinged cruelty. She drew her hand back and violently slapped the three-year-old girl directly across the face.
The sound of the impact cracked like a whip through the brightly lit backstage area.
The sheer force of the blow from the grown woman was devastating. Zuri let out a sharp, breathless gasp as she was knocked completely off her feet. She fell hard onto the carpet, her gold tulle dress bunching up around her as she collapsed into a weeping, trembling heap.
Several nearby guests who had been walking toward the rehearsal bench stopped dead in their tracks, their mouths dropping open in absolute shock.
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Scarlett smoothed the front of her ruby-red gown, entirely unbothered by the violence she had just committed. She looked down at the sobbing child on the floor, her expression a portrait of aristocratic malice.
"Why did you give me trash?" Scarlett demanded contemptuously, her American accent ringing clearly in the sudden, horrifying silence of the room.
