CHAPTER 1: REFRIGERATION AND NEON LIGHTS

“People say law students always know how to slip through the narrowest cracks of justice. But they don’t know that my finest exam was precisely timing the moment my parents’ bodies froze solid.”

The thought slipped through Elena Vance’s mind smoothly, as cold and sharp as the surgical scalpel she was gripping.

Underneath the historic Brooklyn mansion in Park Slope, the air in the wine cellar was thick, suffocating with suppression. Carbon monoxide (CO) gas is naturally colorless and odorless, but in this absolute silence, Elena felt as though she could smell the sickly sweet reek of death lingering around her. The touch panel of the large industrial freezer let out a dry beep. The LED display showed the numbers: -20°C.

The twenty-one-year-old law student, with her delicate features—the epitome of Columbia Law’s elite—was kneeling on the freezing granite floor. A pale yellow glow from the filament bulb on the cellar ceiling cast a long, stretching silhouette of Elena against the wall. There was no panic. The NYPD psychological team would later mistake this for the cold-bloodedness of a psychopath, but in reality, it was the absolute focus of someone executing a sentence.

Elena pulled on a pair of blue medical latex gloves. A female student’s strength wasn’t enough to lift two adult bodies. She had no choice but to grab their ankles, dragging them one by one across the floor. The friction of fabric against granite made a harsh scraping sound, echoing through the oak wine racks surrounding the cellar.

When she dragged her father’s body near the mouth of the freezer, Elena’s movements abruptly halted. Her ash-gray eyes narrowed, locking onto his left arm—where a medical transplant bandage was tightly secured. The clock struck 2:15 AM. Time was running out. Elena reached for an iron pipe lying near the wine rack, propped her father’s arm onto the stone step of the cellar, and took a deep breath.

Crack.

The sound of the radius bone snapping was dry and hollow, echoing through the confined space. Elena didn’t flinch. Her white shirt remained spotless, yet her hands were utterly decisive. Holding the scalpel, she cold-bloodedly sliced through the flesh and bandage on the freshly broken arm. From the dark, bloody recess, the tip of the blade extracted a tiny object: a micro-SD card encased in waterproof silicone.

Wiping the dark red blood off the card with the hem of her shirt, Elena carefully tucked it into the hidden compartment under the back plate of her wristwatch. She knew full well that when the police examined the crime scene, the detail of the broken arm would paint her as a “ruthless monster” in the public eye. The media would curse her as a parricide who slaughtered her parents for money. But the public didn’t need the truth—they just wanted a sensational spectacle, and she was more than ready to provide them with the most cruel script imaginable.

After zipping both bodies into heavy-duty black industrial bags and lowering them deep into the freezer, Elena peeled off her gloves. She pulled her father’s iPhone from his jacket pocket. The screen lit up, reflecting an unnervingly calm gaze. Her fingers glided swiftly across the keyboard, skillfully mimicking her father’s typing habits, right down to the familiar punctuation he used in conversations with colleagues and partners:

“The financial market is experiencing major volatility. I urgently need to raise liquid cash to preserve my trading positions. Will repay with 15% interest by the end of the month. Please transfer immediately to this secondary account.”

Extortion and urgent borrowing messages were sent out in rapid succession. Thanks to the untarnished reputation of a longtime financial entrepreneur, notifications chimed continuously for the next forty minutes. A total of $300,000 flowed smoothly into three anonymous accounts Elena had meticulously set up through multiple proxy layers months in advance.

Suddenly, the phone vibrated violently. A message accompanied by a question mark icon came in from her suspicious cousin: “Where are you two? Why are you using a random offshore bank account all of a sudden? Send a video call or a photo to verify—there are too many AI scams going around lately.”

Elena tilted her head slightly. A faint smile flickered across her lips. She walked slowly toward the freezer, pulling down the zipper of the black bag containing her mother’s corpse past the chest. The skin had already begun turning a deep purple, eyes shut rigid beneath a layer of frost. Elena pulled out her personal phone, switched on the front camera, and leaned her smooth cheek right against her mother’s frozen face. Her finger swiped across the screen, selecting an auto-filter to smooth the skin, boost the rosy tone, and crank up the light saturation.

“Mom, just a little lighting tweak and you look vibrant again. This is going to be our best mother-daughter selfie on Instagram.”

Elena whispered into the void, her voice so gentle it bordered on demonic.

Snap.

The perfect selfie with her deceased mother was sent. Merely ten seconds later, a reply from her cousin popped up: “You both look great. Just transferred the remaining $50,000.”

Every initial link in the chain had locked into place perfectly. Before stepping up out of the cellar, Elena decisively reached out and pulled the industrial freezer’s power plug from the wall outlet. The mechanical compressor groaned dryly before cutting off completely. She needed the freezer to stop working. She needed the natural decomposition process to begin so the stench of death would spread throughout the mansion, alerting the neighbors and the police at the exact moment she had plotted in her script.

Four hours later. Midtown Manhattan.

A bright red Porsche 911 roared, ripping through the dark, gloomy night of 5th Avenue. Behind the wheel, Elena Vance no longer looked like a serious law student. She wore a high-slit black silk dress by Yves Saint Laurent, her long hair intentionally tousled, her lips painted a deep crimson like fresh blood. She slammed her foot on the gas, letting the centrifugal force pin her body against the leather seat, feeling every wild beat of her heart—proof that she was still very much alive after performing the ritual of sending her past to the dead.

Her destination was The Crown—the most decadent, lavish, and notorious nightclub in New York, where Wall Street’s dirty money was laundered through expensive Champagne and deafening beats.

As Elena stepped past the steel doors guarded by two hulking bouncers, she instantly commanded the room. Purple and blue neon lights wrapped around her body in rhythmic, strobing flashes. The thumping bass of Techno music slammed into her chest as if trying to strangle her senses. The air was thick with the scent of luxury perfume, Cohiba cigar smoke, and the heavy stench of depraved desire.

Perched arrogantly in the center VIP booth was an obnoxious tycoon from Hudson Financial Group. Fat, sporting a diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe, he was stuffing hundred-dollar bills into the lingerie of two attractive hostesses. Elena strolled past his table, her sharp gaze locking onto his smug face. Glass of Martini in hand, she casually splashed the ice-cold liquid straight into his face.

“Your Patek is a high-grade fake,” Elena said, her sharp voice slicing through the noisy background music. “Just like how you’re trying to hide your gut and your impotence in bed.”

The tycoon froze for a second before blue veins bulged on his neck. He swung his arm. A heavy slap hit Elena dead on, sending her staggering back against the edge of a glass table. The metallic taste of blood seeped from the corner of her lips.

There were no screams of terror, nor any tears. Elena’s eyes flared with a manic excitement. Her slender hand swept up, grabbing an empty Dom Pérignon Champagne bottle off the table.

Shatter!

The thick glass bottle smashed over the tycoon’s head. Fresh blood mixed with foaming alcohol spilled lavishly down his expensive vest. Blood-curdling screams erupted. Dozens of black-suited guards rushed in. The entire club descended into a chaotic brawl. The manager of The Crown, dripping with sweat, had to personally step in to settle the chaos, dragging Elena into his private office.

Instead of trembling, begging, or fearing a lawsuit, Elena calmly unzipped her crystal-studded handbag and tossed three stacks of cash totaling $30,000 onto the glass desk.

“Cleanup fees and paying off your camera feeds for tonight,” she said, a dried streak of blood still at the corner of her lips, but her mouth curving into an arrogant smile. “From tomorrow on, hold the best VIP table for me. I’ll be back.”

And she kept her promise. For the next seven days, Elena Vance became the wildest sensation at The Crown. She blew money like trash, tipping bartenders thick stacks of bills, bribing the entire security team, and forcing the DJs to play her custom tracks. She turned herself into Manhattan’s most brilliant time bomb, pulling the attention of every degenerate partygoer, every lustful gaze, and the covert lenses of tabloid paparazzi. She flooded social media with wild videos of herself dancing feverishly on bottle-service tables.

Publicity Armor. Elena knew the rules of the underworld all too well: the powerful syndicate hunting her family could easily liquidate a quiet law student in a staged traffic accident, but they could never quietly murder a viral, controversial icon commanding the eyes of millions online. The crowd’s attention was the safest shield she could construct for herself.

The eighth night.

3:00 AM. The cash in her handbag was completely drained. The offshore bank accounts had hit rock bottom.

Elena sat alone in a shadowed corner of the VIP area. Her eyes were exhausted, yet her brain was still racing, calculating down to the millisecond. The storm of public attention had been fed enough, the prey had taken the bait, and now it was time to throw the final match to detonate the charge.

She pulled out her second phone—an encrypted burner device. Opening the contacts, she selected the name saved as Julian Grayson—the prominent attorney, her father’s close friend of many years, the man who used to come to her house every weekend for dinner with a benevolent smile, and the hypocritical demon orchestrating the money laundering network from the shadows.

Elena’s fingers glided across the touch screen, typing out a message dripping with lethal intent:

“Julian, I know exactly what you and the Sterling Group did with the medical shipment at the Port of New York two years ago. My father kept full transaction records. Arrange $5 million in cash if you don’t want a copy of the encrypted ledger sitting on the New York State Attorney General’s desk at 8:00 AM tomorrow.”

Elena hit send. Immediately after, she popped the SIM card, dropped the phone into her half-empty glass of Whiskey, and watched tiny bubbles rise and vanish. She leaned back against the red velvet sofa and closed her eyes.

Julian Grayson was cautious, ruthless, and condescending. He would never let a 21-year-old girl blackmail him. He would instantly mobilize the dirty cops on his payroll within the NYPD to trace the signal, arriving to sweep away the “blackmailer” before dawn.

Fifteen minutes. Exactly fifteen minutes, just as calculated.

Elena opened her eyes as she felt a sudden shift in the surrounding atmosphere. The deafening electronic music shaking the floor was abruptly cut off. In its place came the wail of sirens piercing the dark city night, accompanied by harsh red and blue strobe lights flashing through the club’s stained glass windows.

“NYPD! DON’T MOVE! EVERYONE GET YOUR HANDS UP!”

The glass doors were kicked open. Dozens of heavily armed SWAT officers stormed in, M4 carbines raised. Screams of panic from hundreds of patrons echoed across the venue. Smartphones from every table were thrust into the air, flashes blinking continuously like a meteor storm.

Black gun barrels aimed directly at the corner VIP booth where Elena sat. Two burly officers rushed forward, violently tackling Elena down onto the glass tabletop strewn with shattered glass and spilled liquor.

“Elena Vance! You are under arrest for suspicion of the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Vance and grand larceny fraud!” an officer roared in her ear, barking out her constitutional rights.

The stench of death wafting from the unpowered freezer in the Brooklyn cellar had finally alerted the neighbors—or perhaps Julian Grayson himself had arranged an anonymous tip to use the law to lock her away. Everything was playing out down to the exact millisecond according to the script she had written.

At this very moment, across X (Twitter) and Reddit, leaked photos of the crime scene showing the two frozen bodies in the cellar were exploding. The selfie with her deceased mother and the brutal detail of her father’s broken arm were going viral with millions of shares. Online mobs were screaming, vilifying Elena as a “ruthless Gen Z monster,” a cold-blooded psychopathic killer who slaughtered her parents for money.

As the ice-cold steel handcuffs locked tight around her slender wrists amid the neon glare, Elena was hauled to her feet by the two officers. Dozens of phone lenses were shoved into her face, capturing the moment the “cold-blooded killer” was brought down.

Ignoring the brutal weight forcing her shoulders down, Elena slowly turned her head. Her gaze cut through the crowd, locking onto the manager of The Crown, who stood frozen in utter shock near the corner bar. The corners of her lips curled up, breaking into the most radiant, beautiful, and insanely chaotic smile he had ever seen in his life.

“As the cold steel of the handcuffs tightened around my wrists under the neon glare, I looked right at the stunned manager and smiled: Let the show begin.”