The Coldest Mistake

*Does he truly love Chloe more than her own brother hates me?* Audrey wondered bitterly, the freezing wind tearing through her drenched uniform and biting at her shivering skin.

Dominic stopped dead in his tracks. He turned slowly, fixing his piercing, dangerous gaze firmly upon her kneeling figure. "What did you just say?"

Audrey looked up at him from the freezing marble floor. Her faded, wine-streaked makeup settled into the hollows of her empty eyes. "I should never have fallen in love with you, Dominic. If I had known that you were secretly in love with Chloe, I would not have ever cast a single glance in your direction. Falling in love with you is the absolute biggest mistake I have ever made in my entire life."

Dominic stared at her for a long moment. A sudden, eerie laugh tore from his throat, the cruel sound echoing loudly in the freezing night air. "So what? Regret is the most painful poison a person can swallow."

He callously dismissed her confession and walked away, leaving her strictly obeying his command to stay kneeling in the brutal cold.

Hours crawled by as midnight approached in the bitter Florawood winter. Audrey remained trapped outside the nightclub’s entrance, dressed only in her thin, short uniform dress. The dark wine that Gideon had splashed onto her hair had long since frozen into actual icicles that tugged painfully at her scalp. Overwhelmed by the agonizing, bone-deep cold, her vision swam violently. She nearly fainted several times as the temperature continued to plummet. Passing customers pointed and sneered at the degrading spectacle, treating her like a piece of garbage, but Audrey had completely detached herself from reality.

She fixed her deadened gaze onto her bright red, severely frostbitten hands. She fell back on a grim survival tactic she had mastered over two brutal years in the penitentiary, choosing to ignore the physical world entirely. Back in prison, every attempt to fight back or preserve her dignity had only resulted in more severe, life-threatening beatings from the other inmates. She had learned the hard way to simply give in, shrink inward, and silently endure the agony until her tormentors eventually grew tired of hitting her. Now, she just wanted to be left completely alone in the dark.

Penelope broke the isolation. She secretly sneaked out of the club, her brows furrowed in deep anxiety, and threw a thick, warm sweater directly at Audrey's shivering frame. "Put this on right now. We have been standing outside for two hours, and you will literally freeze to death if you do not wear it."

Stunned by the unexpected act of kindness, Audrey slowly picked up the sweater from the freezing ground. Her pale, cracked lips parted as she spoke in a hoarse, fragile voice. "Do not worry about me, Penelope. I do not want to drag you into trouble."

Penelope sighed in intense frustration. She remained completely baffled by Audrey's stubborn refusal to simply resign and escape this torture. "I am going to quickly fetch a glass of warm water."

Audrey extended a trembling arm in a desperate attempt to stop her friend, unwilling to impose on the only person who had shown her any kindness tonight. However, the sudden, jerky agitation triggered a massive, violent wave of dizziness. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She collapsed forward, her forehead striking the freezing, hard marble floor with a sickening thud.

Meanwhile, deep inside the luxurious nightclub, Dominic sat at the desk in his private office. A darkened, brooding look was fixed on his handsome face. Beside him, the curvaceous manager, Nadine, elegantly poured expensive wine into his empty crystal glass.

She feigned casual conversation as the ruby liquid filled the glass. "The temperature is going to drop to a lethal twelve degrees tonight. I am afraid those decorative flowers we bought a few days ago are not going to survive the frost."

Dominic kept his gaze locked straight ahead, his voice laced with pure apathy. "We can always just buy new flowers to replace the dead ones."

Nadine paused her pour, resting the heavy bottle against the edge of the mahogany table. She looked at him pointedly, forcing him to confront the reality of the punishment he had ordered. "What about that living human, then?"