Chapter 7 - The Bridge Burning
The descent was no longer a glide; it was a freefall. Greta, stripped of her social armor, began to hallucinate that she was still at the top, barking orders at servants who had long since stopped answering her calls. Her father had fled the country to avoid the impending indictments, leaving Greta alone in the silence of her decaying life.
The bitterness inside her transformed into a volatile, dangerous heat. She couldn’t accept that she was the architect of her own ruin. She needed a villain, and Tristan was the only one left standing. She became obsessed with the idea that if she couldn't have the status, she would destroy the symbol of his success.
Tristan’s mother, Helen, had recently moved into a charming, modest estate in the suburbs—a gift from Tristan to ensure she was away from the city's toxicity. Greta, fueled by a cocktail of prescription pills and paranoid delusions, drove there in a beat-up rental car under the cover of a storm. She carried a single canister of gasoline.
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In her fractured mind, this wasn't arson; it was a "reset." If she could burn the house that Tristan built for his mother, she would be striking at the heart of his "sainted" narrative. She broke into the garden shed, dousing the curtains of the porch. The smell of the chemicals brought her a twisted sense of peace. She struck a match, watching the orange glow dance in her dilated pupils.
But as the flames caught the dry wood, a security floodlight blinded her. She didn't hear the police sirens until they were already flanking her vehicle. Tristan had known she would break. He hadn't just secured the house; he had turned it into a trap. He stepped out from the shadows of the porch, not with anger, but with a terrifying, calm pity. He watched as the firefighters extinguished the small blaze before it could truly take hold. Greta was pulled away, screaming, her silver gown now blackened with soot and mud—the very "filth" she had once mocked.
