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The apartment was quiet when she plated the French toast and arranged the flowers in a vase.

Perfect. Everything was perfect.

* * *

And how wasshe to have known that the very rest of the life she was thinking of, the one that had only just begun, was about to turn this way?

Her heart thudded in her chest as Chiara slid the alcove doors open, fully dressed, and Vi knew. Time stopped even as Chiara moved towards her, languid and graceful and perfect. Except her eyes were closed off and watchful, and when Vi lifted a hand, she was out of reach. In every way possible. Vi sensed she couldn’t touch her anymore, even if she were to caress her skin.

“White roses. My favorite. You are such an attentive person, lover. Always were.”

Vi recoiled as if she had been slapped. Chiara picked one of the roses from the vase and lifted it to her face, inhaling the fragrant aroma.

“So attentive. Knowing. Seeing. Aren’t you,lover?”

“Chiara…” What was she even saying? Something had happened while Vi was away, while Chiara was on the phone. Something had happened, and Vi’s stomach was a deep well of dread. Surely not, after everything she had done, every step she had taken to protect Lilien and Chiara, whatever her family did, whatever was going on underneath all the veneer, whatever they were not telling her… Surely it had not touched—

“I want to say that it was low of you. That I would have never expected you to do this. Especially not after last night. But then I’ve been encouraging you to nurture that ambition and stand on your own two feet for months,lover.”

That word again, mocking. Another slap.

“Stop, Chiara—”

“Stop? There’s no stopping this. Look what you’ve unleashed.” She lifted her other hand where her phone was going off in a series of unstoppable vibrations of incoming messages and missed calls. And there, on the screen, was the front page of the Paris Gala… Vi’s world tilted. On instinct she darted a glance to the small kitchen table where… the camera no longer lay.

And just like that, the sense of premonition she’d had morphed into a sense of her worst nightmare come to life in the form of the labor of her own hands. Or, well, her father’s hands. But it was a picture she herself had taken. A picture of Chiara watching Frankie cheat on her. The pain etched on that beautiful face. The loss entrenched in those eyes that Vi had made close in ecstasy again and again only a few hours ago.

Those same pained eyes watched her now. A steady hand pocketed the phone and laid the rose on the breakfast bar. Vi opened her mouth to speak and Chiara looked on, daring her. To apologize, to explain. Vi lowered her face instead, tears streaming down her cheeks.

And what could she say? Everything made sense. Why Vi had even been dispatched to Lilien Haus. Why Charles wanted updates and regular visits. He ‘d been waiting for something to happen. Something he could use.

And while she had failed with the collection, she hadnotfailed with a juicier piece. Everything slid into place. The pieces of the carnage puzzle all fit now. Why her father had been here. Why he’d said she couldn’t go back.

And why he took the camera.

He’d gotten what he needed. Charles Courtenay won dirty yet again, as he always did. Underhanded, cheating ,and probably illegal, but her father had been victorious. And Vi lost. Previous times, when he’d grifted and conned his way into money, all Vi had to lose, aside from an occasional payment to staff her family had swindled, was her dignity. This time? Vi lost everything.

She looked at the picture of her mother, still propped up against the wall where it had fallen.

She’d lost everythingagain.

“Why did you do it, Vi? Fame? Money?”

Chiara’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I didn’t do this,” she pleaded. It was the truth, even if it meant nothing at all.

Something shining in Chiara’s eyes looked back at her, and she wanted to wince, to raise her shoulders and shield herself from it, except she didn’t think she deserved to.

When Chiara spoke again, the whisper was no more, it was all pained sadness.

“You took the pictures, and even if you didn’t sell them yourself, you certainly know who did. So in that case, it might as well have been you. Right?”

Vi shook her head, more out of instinct, then to outright lie. In the silence of the room, she could hear the thread of the breathing, pulsing city outside. Or was it her heart?

Still, itwasa lie. Because she knew who did all of this. And, in spite of everything, she couldn’t betray her father, no matter what it cost her. Her mother kept smiling at her from the picture, as if approving of her choice. Except Vi wasn’t so sure she would. This was where Charles had gone too far. Nothing would be as it was ever again. And Vi would pay that price twice over. She was losing Chiara. And she would lose her family too. She would not be able to tolerate it anymore, not after this.

Chiara’s voice was sad. A melancholy much worse than the one Vi had gotten used to in that first month at Lilien Haus.