Page 77 of Her Cruel Empire

“I’m home,” I say, and try to smile, and then I’m in their arms, trying to hold myself together as they cling to me.

“Did you win?” Alicia asks, but her voice is too careful, too quiet.

“Win?” I echo blankly.

“The show,” Dane prompts with a smile that’s too small.

“Oh.” I should have expected this. “I didn’t win the whole thing. But I did winsomemoney.”

“That’s great news,” Adrian says, with such relief that I know something bad is going on.

“Is Maisie in bed?” I ask. “I don’t want to wake her, but I?—”

“Come over here,” Adrian says quickly, but the look he exchanges with Dane and Alicia has me worried. Adrian pulls me into the kitchen.

“Adrian, what’s happening? Where’s Maisie?”

“She’s back in the hospital.”

“What?” There’s too much heat behind the explosion, and Adrian winces. “Why didn’t you tell me when I called?—”

“Icouldn’t,” Adrian tells me, his voice breaking. “I wanted you to have this one good thing. This one chance to change things for us.”

Evenhethought it was real. The fantasy I sold him was as stupid as the one I sold myself. The idea that we could change anything.

“I need to see her,” I say, and I start to move, but Adrian catches me back.

“Wait,” he says softly. He reaches for something in the mail stack on the counter, where he’s obviously kept it inconspicuously behind brochures and coupon flyers. “There’s something else,” he whispers. “The kids don’t know about this yet.”

I take the envelope, and my stomach clenches when I see our address typed across the front. Official. Legal. The kind of envelope that destroys lives.

I tear it open with numb fingers.

It’s an eviction notice.

I stare at the bold, black letters until they blur. All the legal language fades into background noise except for one phrase that stands out like a scream:

…seven days to pay the balance or vacate the premises…

“When did this come?” I ask urgently.

“Just today. But if you won some money, maybe we could… Right?” He looks at me hopefully.

But that just makes everything worse, that hope in his eyes. Seven days isn’t long enough. My payout from Eva won’t be in my account until after the deadline on this notice.

So it’s all been for nothing. All of it.

I thought I was saving my family. Instead, I left them to burn in false hope while I played princess in a tower. And now I see that Eva was right.

Hope is a curse, not a blessing.

And now I only have seven days to figure out how to save us all.