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Zara nods grimly. “And your father’s already running the spin. ‘Victim of online bullying,’ ‘driven to the brink by toxic cancel culture,’ ‘young woman destroyed by internet mobs.’ The usual horse shit.”

Of course. Evander’s always been good at this game. He understands public sentiment better than any PR strategist alive. When one of his puppets falls, he doesn’t cut the strings; he rewires them.

“But she’s not at any hospital,” Zara adds, her eyes narrowing.

I glance up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been running location pings since the post dropped.” Zara slides her tablet over to me. “Her private travel logs, the ones I hacked last month for fun, show her jet leaving last night. She was wheels up two hours after your video aired. The last signal pinged over the Mediterranean.”

I stare at the blinking red dot, frozen in place over open water.

“Coward,” I whisper.

Because that’s exactly what this is. She isn’t trying to kill herself. She is trying to vanish off the face of the earth. My father is staging her exit to minimize the blowback, and Harper, Harper fucking Eden, is more than happy to slip away and let the media clean up her mess.

The rage inside me simmers, but I need to tame it and keep myself focused.

I lean back against the headboard, my phone still vibrating beside me like a war drum.

They thought this would break me. But I’ve never stood taller.

And this is only the first strike.

XXX

The sun’s fading, but I don’t turn the lights on.

I like the half-dark. It feels honest. Like the world is finally matching the burden sitting in my chest. The suite around me is silent and unnervingly clean.

Too big and unwelcoming. It’s the kind of luxury that has started to suffocate me instead of comforting me.

Zara left just as abruptly as she came because, while I appreciated her support, I needed to be alone.

I curl up on the oversized armchair with my knees tucked tight against my chest, my back pressing into the plush fabric.

It’s meant to feel cozy, but right now it feels suffocating.

My fingers run over the leather cover of my mother’s journal that’s resting in my lap.

The edges are rough beneath my fingertips, worn and softened by time.

The leather is also cracked, fraying a little at the corners where it’s been handled too many times—by her, by me, by ghosts.

The gold embossing of her initials, C.H., is faded now, almost blending into the leather, like her name is trying to vanish right in front of me. But I won’t let it.

The pages are stiff and fragile, and years have yellowed them to a dull amber.

They smell like dust, old ink, and something faintly sweet, a hint of the gardenia perfume she used to wear that clings to everything she ever touched.

I bite my lip, forcing myself to stay focused when I’m met with the familiar scent.

The journal feels heavier than it should. Like it carries the gravity of every secret it holds and every warning my mother left behind while she tried to stay alive in this house.

I trace the final pages again, reading her words for what feels like the hundredth time, but each word still cuts like it’s fresh and still manages to twist the knife deeper.

“I think I’m in danger. I’ve changed drivers three times this week…”

“Noah said he could make a connection. One more meeting, then I’ll go.”

“The doctor confirmed it. Six weeks along. I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t. He’d make it his weapon.”

“He’s watching me again… If anything happens, it wasn’t an accident.”

My stomach churns as I mouth the words silently. My jaw clenches tightly. I feel the sting behind my eyes, but I don’t let the tears fall. Not yet. Not while I’m reading. Not while her voice echoes in my head.

Because this wasn’t a journal. It was a confession. It was her last attempt to survive.

And he didn’t let her.

I exhale a sharp, shaky breath, then reach over to the pile of documents spread out across the coffee table—old foundation records, shareholder filings, and public speeches carefully framed like charity and empire-building were the same fucking thing.

Everything my father ever touched is here.

But every one of these perfect little public lies has cracks running beneath them.

The charitable trusts. The shell companies. The PR spin campaigns. It all connects together.

Noah traced them. He pulled the threads my mother left behind and followed them straight into the offshore accounts, the dirty wire transfers, and the boardroom betrayals. My mother knew all of it. She didn’t stumble onto a scandal. She built a fucking case.

And she never got the chance to release it. She didn’t vanish. She was erased, neatly and efficiently. The way only my dad can.

The thought hits me like a gut punch I’ve been trying to dodge for years.

And finally, I feel my throat crack open.

The tears start falling, slow at first, hot and unwelcome as they trail down my cheeks and land on the fragile paper.

The ink blurs slightly where a drop touches one of her last entries.

I quickly swipe at my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, breathing hard through my nose like I can somehow will the grief back into its cage.

But it’s spilling over now. I clench the journal tighter against my chest, holding it like it might fall apart without my grip. Like I might fall apart without it.

She was planning to leave. She was planning to save me.

She was carrying a child I never knew existed.

And now she’s gone, reduced to whispers and rumors and polite family statements that never once mentioned how afraid she was and how close she came to breaking free before Evander made sure she couldn’t.

It’s all been a lie. All of it.

The woman they painted in the media wasn’t my mother. The loyal philanthropist’s wife. The woman who “passed too soon.” No. She was a prisoner. She was hunted. And I’ve been living in the gilded cage Evander built ever since.

I run my fingers across her handwriting again, trying to steady my breath and trying not to shatter completely.

“You tried,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “God, you tried so hard.”

My grief swells into rage—a sharp, hot pulse that spreads through my chest like a wildfire.

My phone vibrates, the sound pulling me out of my thoughts. I glance over, my heart hammering. I don’t even need to check the sender because I have a feeling I know who it is.

Father Dearest.

The name blinks on the screen.

I stare at it, my teeth grinding, my fingers curling into fists.

I tap to open the message, and it says, You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart. What do you think you’re doing?

There it is.

His first contact in weeks, and it’s not concern or regret. God, not even an attempt at one of his usual backhanded reassurances. Instead, he decides to send a threat. Short and measured. It’s laced with that familiar condescension that always drips from his voice like poison disguised as silk.

He still thinks he owns the board, and he still thinks he can manipulate me like he always has.

Well, not anymore.

I stare at the text until my vision blurs again, this time not from grief but from pure, vibrating fury.

I don’t respond. I won’t give him the satisfaction. He’s not getting any words from me, only war.

My hand tightens around the journal as I set my phone facedown on the table. The vibration dies under my palm like the last heartbeat of something rotten.

I close my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and letting my rage sharpen into something clearer. This isn’t just about survival anymore. It hasn’t been for a while.

He’s trying to rattle me. To pull me back into his orbit.

But he doesn’t understand. That version of me, the one who trembled under his control? She’s gone. Now all that’s left is the fire.

I stand, still gripping the journal and feeling it settle against my ribs like a silent pact between my mother and me.

She scattered the clues, and I’m piecing them together, one by one.

XXX

The next night, after the drop, I barely get any sleep. The media storm ignites faster than even I anticipated. Within hours, the feeds are a wildfire. My face is everywhere, my voice clipped into a thousand reels, articles, and threads.

Zara sits across from me on the floor of the study, her laptop practically overheating on her legs as she monitors the storm. Her face is lit by the glow of dozens of windows, journalist inquiries, hate comments, love comments, and wild speculations from people who claim they knew all along.

We’re joined by Noah. We’ve never worked together before, but Silas sent him for extra help.

Noah, in his chosen place, is wired into the estate’s secure systems, bouncing off servers faster than my dad’s teams can even detect him.

He’s already hacked into several private banking servers, pulling Evander’s accounts apart piece by piece.

The evidence mounts like bricks stacking toward a guillotine.

By the time day two hits, the study we’ve claimed as our war room looks nothing like the pristine showroom it used to be.

The antique tables are buried under legal files, court documents, half-drunk coffee cups, and rage.

Cables snake across the polished marble floor like black veins—tripping hazards and lifelines all at once.

The expensive oil paintings, all smug portraits and golden frames, hang above glowing monitors streaming real-time security footage from the estate perimeter.

The whole place is a contradiction—every inch of luxury my father built now turned against him, weaponized. And I’m not even sorry.

Every hour brings another revelation. Another mess. Another reason to burn the whole empire down.