Prelude to Darkness
Part 1
One week ago, the dim glow of the antique desk lamp cast eerie shadows across the mahogany walls of my office. The air was heavy with tension, and the only sounds that echoed through the room was the soft hum of the flickering bulb and the grandfather clock seconds ticking.
I settled into the plush leather chair behind my imposing oak desk, fingers steepled together, grappling with the weight of the day's unfolding events. The news of my secretary's sudden heart attack lingered heavily, casting a sombre shadow over the atmosphere of my office.
As the reality of her passing sank in, the day took another chilling turn. The grandfather clock stopped ticking at exactly 2:15 pm and I stood up. My gaze drifted to the window, drawn to the bustling street below. She was walking on the sidewalk facing me, staring at me and smiling.
She was tall, slim and athletic looking. Lustrous blond hair, piercing blue eyes, full lips and she moved with a natural grace on her heels. Her 4 inch stilettos heels clicked against the pavement, echoing a haunting melody from the Rolling Stones amidst the city's usual chaos.
She stared at me again, smiled and I swear she said,
"Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what's confusing you
It is just the nature of my game"
And I said "Woo, who sexy"
At the same time the wind picked up and played with the hem of her coat, creating a sombre symphony with Sympathy For The Devil playing in my office. I don't know where it came from since I don;r have speakers in my office. She stepped off the sidewalk and navigated the crosswalk exposing her perfect long legs.
However, the ordinary rhythms of life "shattered" when a red sports car raced into view, its low profile tires screeching against the pavement trying to stop. Time slowed, and the scene unfolded before me, like a grim painting of Satan's daughter.
Caught in the chaotic ballet of life and hell, She found herself at the mercy of fate. The impact was swift and so loud, a sickening cracking of bones reverberating through the glass pane separating us. Her broken body crumpled to the asphalt, an unexpected casualty of the indifferent dance between vehicles and pedestrians.
The perpetrator, a man burdened with guilt and the stench of alcohol, emerged from his car. He stumbled towards her, his gaze fixated on the shattered figure sprawled before him. A gnawing realization claws at him, to a minimum she has 2 broken legs, or death. A direct consequence of his reckless actions.
"Help me! I can't move" She moaned and pleaded, her voice strained with pain and lust. Her blue eyes, once gleaming with determination, were now clouded with agony and pain.
The man, his face contorted with panic, stared at her legs, and the severity of the fractures was unmistakable. Fear gripped him, not just for the impending legal consequences but for the life he had jeopardized. His mind raced through the possibilities.
A hit and run vs the potential prison sentence, the damning weight of guilt on him and his family.
"Please, help me! You have to do something, I can't move my legs, I think they are both broken. I have so much to do in this world for my dad" She implored, but her voice wasn't pleading but warning him.
He grappled with Satan's options laid out before him. On one path, the right thing to do, a responsible admission of guilt, facing the legal consequences, and seeking redemption. On the other side, Satan's wrong path, the cowardly escape from accountability, whispered promises of temporary freedom at the expense of a woman suffering.
The silence between them thickened, suffocating in its intensity. She, broken and vulnerable, read the turmoil in his eyes. Her words sliced through the air like a serious warning, like a striking rattlesnake.
"Don't do it I want you, because I swear you will regret it. I'm not just a woman suffering in pain from your actions, I'm his daughter"
The man, caught in the middle of morality and self-preservation, hesitated for 2 seconds. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he contemplated the choices that would define his fate. With a resigned nod, he turned away from her, Satan was winning, he retreated to his car, and drove away into the night talking on his phone...again...Don't they learn she wondered.
Left in the wake of his departure, she laid on the cold asphalt, a shattered, twisted and useless but still sexy body for some.
As the minutes stretched into an eternity, a mix of pain, anger, and helplessness enveloped her. She had become not only a victim of a hit and run but also a pawn in the moral quandary of a man wrestling with her own father.
My heart raced as I witnessed the unfolding tragedy. Strangers rushed to her aid, their faces twisted in concern and disbelief looking at her legs, twisted, broken and partly attached to her body. A chill crawled up my spine, the weight of an unspoken connection I had just witnessed.
The tall woman's elegant attire, once pristine, was now showing the brutality of the impact, her blond hair dishevelled, her black dress stained with asphalt and blood. Her broken legs bent out at an unnatural angle, a grotesque reminder of the fragility of the human limbs.
A pump, a silly over expensive high heel shoe still attached to one of her broken legs, served as a haunting symbol of the horror that had unfolded.
The ambulance arrived with a wail of sirens, its red and blue lights casting an ominous glow on the scene. Paramedics carefully attended to her, the gravity of the situation bearing down on me. The echoes of the day's dual tragedies lingered in the air of my office, a heavy silence punctuated only by distant sirens and the muffled gasps of onlookers.
The grandfather clock resumed its measured ticking, bringing me back to the present moment.
I remained seated, my fingers now unconsciously tracing the smooth edges of the desk. The events of this fateful day had left an indelible mark, a dark stain and cloud on my routine of advocating for the indefensible, defending those who perpetrate heinous crimes such as murder, rape and white collar crime solely for financial gain.
That was my insidious manifestation of the sin of greed, where the lure of money literally blinded me. The oak desk, once a symbol of power and control, now felt like a witness to the fragility of life. Twice in one day.
Two lives, intertwined with mine in different ways, had been altered irreversibly. The weight of the day pressed upon me.
By the way, my name is Vincent Harlow, and I run a very profitable on the edge law firm in the heart of his city. It was his city, his people I was representing. My reputation as a ruthless and cunning lawyer was well earned, but nothing could have prepared me for the sinister turn my life was about to take.
It all began with Amelia, beautiful and sexy Miss Turner, a much younger woman than me with an air of mystery that intrigued me from the moment I saw her being hit by the car, the moment she later rolled into my office in her red wheelchair, both her broken legs elevated in leg rest.
She was dressed in a very sexy and tight fitting black dress... with her long, totally non weight bearing pink casts peeking out from beneath stylish pantyhose. She didn't look vulnerable at all but in her wheelchair, instead she looked dangerous and so attractive. I can't explain why I felt like I did towards this young woman, maybe if you read more you will understand. It's up to you.
"Please to meet you "she said and the song was back in my head.
Prelude to Darkness
Part 2 to come
K
