Page 35

The espresso on my vanity is ice-cold. I think I poured it an hour ago, maybe more.

The cream has already dissolved into a bitter film, and the cup’s half-empty, forgotten like the rest of this fucking day.

My laptop screen quivers, the glow sharp against the soft light of the vanity bulbs. I should look away, but I don’t.

Silas took my phone away, and I haven’t asked for it back.

I probably won’t. There’s no point anyway.

I know him. I know that once he decides something is for my own good, there’s no prying it out of his hands until he’s damn well ready.

And maybe, deep down, I’m relieved. Maybe I’m hiding behind his silence because I don’t have the strength to face what’s waiting on that screen.

Even if I asked, I know what his answer would be—calm, firm, and immovable. So I don’t bother.

And the truth is… I’m not sure I even want it back. Not right now.

Because that phone doesn’t just hold my schedule or my contacts or carefully posed photos.

It holds a battlefield. A flood of venomous comments and hateful DMs. Words sharp enough to slice skin, dressed in emojis and hashtags.

Speculation. Lies. Half-truths twisted into weapons.

And people I’ve never met dissecting my life, my choices, and my body like they’re entitled to every piece of me.

So no, I don’t miss it. Not the weight of it. Not the pit in my stomach every time it lights up.

What I miss is peace. And for now, my solitude will have to be close enough.

My last Instagram post sits open on my laptop in a cruel parade. The picture was perfect—a picture of me with sunset-kissed skin, my hair swept up, and my chin angled like I owned the goddamn world. It was supposed to break the algorithm. And it did, but in the worst possible way.

“You’re not the victim here.”

“She always loved attention.”

“Didn’t take much to get her to spread her legs.”

“Honestly? She was asking for it.”

“Just another rich slut trying to play saint.”

Comment after comment. Like digital glass shards embedding into my skin. My eyes blur from reading them too many times. But it’s not from tears, it’s rage. I want to scream, to set the whole world on fire, but that would mean they win. That would mean I break.

I slam my laptop shut, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet.

My hand twitches, my insides snap, and I grab the laptop by the edge and hurl it across the room.

It hits the closet mirror with a sickening crack, and a spiderweb fracture blossoms across the glass, cutting clean through my reflection, my face splitting in half like some twisted art piece.

Pretty things shatter loudest when they fall.

I don’t even flinch.

The sponsorship shelf taunts me. It’s already half-empty, stripped bare. The LuxeMara perfumes are gone, and so are the velvet boxes from my jewelry collab. There’s an emptiness in their place that mirrors the pit in my stomach.

My iPad pings. I don’t want to look, but I do. And it’s like watching your own autopsy in real-time.

Brand partners are stepping back until things stabilize.

The board at LuxeMara said the optics are “too high-risk”.

Vivino dropped your collab line.

We’re placing the charity auction photos on hold. No new press releases. No red carpet.

High-risk, like I’m toxic and a scandal waiting to happen.

Every deal I bled for, clawed into existence from the bones of who I used to be, is dissolving. Like sugar in acid.

I refresh the screen again. My follower count is bleeding, down 37k overnight. And another 5k since I woke up.

It’s more than numbers that are decreasing. It’s my identity’s worth. Clout. It’s the difference between being someone and becoming a cautionary tale. The ghost of fame. The pretty girl they all loved to hate.

But right now, I don’t want protection. I want revenge. I want answers. I want my name back. Instead, I sit in the solitude of my own curated life, surrounded by things that were supposed to make me untouchable—Chanel compacts, La Mer jars, diamond-encrusted lipsticks.

None of that can fix this. No amount of daddy’s money can heal this pain. I’ll have to get through it alone.

I get up, the marble of the vanity seat kissing the backs of my legs. My feet find the plush carpet, but it feels like I’m walking on glass. I wrap my robe tighter around me and move to the balcony, stepping out into the garden breeze.

The estate looks peaceful in the early afternoon haze, which is a lie. I can see the view from my balcony door, which opens to a beautiful scene, but that beauty isn’t doing anything for me right now. It’s only making me feel worse. And I’m too fucking tired to fight today.

I step out onto the balcony in nothing but my robe and the fuck-me heels I wore to the gala because those were the only shoes I could find.

My legs are goosebumped and trembling slightly, though not from cold, but just from…

everything. But I don’t go back inside because I need the chill.

I need this punishment. I need to feel something that doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my own skin.

The marble tiles feel like ice beneath my soles as I pace to the railing. The light robe flutters behind me like something pretending to be elegant. It’s all an illusion. That’s all I’ve ever been to them anyway—a pretty facade, painted just enough to pass as a Vane.

I pull a cigarette from the emergency stash in the antique drawer on the balcony. I don’t even like the taste, but the ritual matters—the smoke, the fire, the inhale like it’s armor, like it might stitch me together.

Flick. Flame. Inhale.

Fuck.

I close my eyes, letting the smoke coil around my face. The taste is bitter. Fitting.

Then I do something reckless.

I can’t sit here any longer, paralyzed by silence and uncertainty. The not-knowing is worse than anything else, so I reach for my backup phone, the one Silas didn’t find, the one he doesn’t even know exists. Because even my own bodyguard doesn’t get all my secrets.

It’s old, its screen cracked at the corner like a splintered memory, but when I press the power button, it lights up. Still alive. Still mine.

I power it up, and a thousand notifications flood in like a tsunami of shame. Mentions, tags, my name in all caps across gossip accounts, hate threads, and God knows what else. But I ignore them.

Instead, I open Instagram. The icon pulses like it knows it’s about to be weaponized.

I go straight to Stories and tap “Record.”

The camera opens. My reflection stares back, disheveled, half-drunk on grief, and entirely out of fucks.

I smile. Wide and vicious.

“Morning, darlings,” I say, my voice sweet enough to make teeth rot. “PSA: If you think I give a fuck about your outrage, I don’t. Cancel me if you want. But spell my name right.”

I end the video, watch it once, then hit upload.

The second it posts, my shoulders drop. My hands start to shake like they finally got permission. My lungs deflate, and I slump against the iron railing like a puppet cut from its strings.

That smile? It’s a lie. A full-body costume I’ve worn since I was twelve.

But even the best performances have encores. And I just gave them one.

I glance at the garden, so perfectly manicured like nothing’s wrong. Like the girl who is crumbling two stories up doesn’t exist. Like I’m still Lyra Vane, darling of the spotlight. Not some sex tape scandal with designer bags.

My fingers curl into the railing, my knuckles whitening. My nails dig into my palm.

I haven’t heard from my dad. Not a text. Not a call. Not even a “clean it up” memo from one of his assistants.

And that silence? It’s louder than anything.

He probably disowned me the second the first screenshot leaked. No, wait, he disowned me the moment I opened my mouth in public. He has always hated my online presence. Especially after the letters started showing up.

The stalker. The scandal. The fucking security protocols I wasn’t allowed to question. All of it has been my fault, apparently. Because God forbid his daughter acts like she owns her body.

I should’ve run when I turned eighteen. But I was na?ve. I thought maybe he’d change. Instead, he held the leash tighter and kept me here “for my protection.” I thought Mom would get better, and we’d be the perfect little family.

Bullshit.

Turns out families don’t protect us. They hide us.

A memory punches through, one I haven’t let myself think about in years.

The Vane ballroom glittered like a cut diamond, too polished and a little too perfect.

Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto champagne flutes and silk gowns.

Everything smelled of old money and curated elegance.

Waiters moved like ghosts, and the orchestra played Vivaldi in a minor key as if they knew something the rest of us didn’t.

I was playing my role. The perfect daughter.

All posture and poise, smiling wide enough to feel the strain in my cheeks. Laughing at jokes that weren’t funny. Touching elbows, trading pleasantries, knowing which forks to use and when to tilt my head like I was listening.

Dad stood beside me on the stage, one hand gently curled around my back like a leash dressed in velvet.

He addressed the sea of donors and socialites with his usual gravitas.

“Lyra,” he said, pausing for effect, “is a modern example of resilience in the digital age. Graceful, even under scrutiny.”

Applause broke out like gunfire. He smiled like a proud father. But it was hollow. A performance, just like mine.

Two days later, in his study, the door clicked shut behind us like a cell. The curtains were drawn.

His hands were balled into fists on the mahogany desk. His voice was a low, coiled thing.

“We don’t air laundry, Lyra. Especially not bloodstained.”

Not “I’m proud of you.” Not “You handled it well.”