The music playing in the car was soft, almost too casual for the storm brewing beneath my skin. We were driving along the quiet curve of the bay, the evening light bouncing off the windshield. One of Kieran's hands rested on the steering wheel, while the other casually reached over and entwined his fingers with mine like he always did.
Then his phone lit up.
He moved too quickly, attempting to flip it face down—but not before I caught a glimpse of the message that had just come in.
Averie: "Ugh. I hate that she got accepted and I didn’t… I need you now. Come spoil me. I miss you."
I didn’t react. Just kept my gaze out the window, pretending the scenery held my full attention. My hand stayed in his, still. My breath, calm. My face, unreadable.
He cleared his throat, trying to sound nonchalant. “It’s just a colleague from work. Probably about the orientation.”
“Mmm,” I hummed, offering a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.
He didn’t realize that I had seen the full truth. He didn’t realize I’d known for a long time.
Kieran Sanchez, my so-called fiancé—the man who once called me his everything—had been seeing Averie Hale behind my back for over a year. Yes, that Averie. The same girl who spent high school making my life hell. The one who spat venom in the company lobby not even an hour ago.
Their affair wasn’t even subtle. The signs were all there: her scent lingering on his clothes, fabricated fights between them in public, and his increasingly flimsy excuses for missing our dates. But I didn’t confront. I watched. I waited. I strategized.
Because revenge, real revenge, isn’t about screaming. It’s about silence. Precision. Timing.
---
Earlier that day, everything had erupted.
Averie's voice echoed through the marble lobby of Ravenwood Corporation as she stormed toward me, her heels clicking furiously against the tile. She didn’t hesitate—just grabbed the phone from my hand and hurled it across the floor.
It clattered loudly, silencing the room. A few new hires gasped.
“What the hell is your issue?” I asked, eyes locked on hers, my voice low with warning.
She sneered, stepping into my space. “How did someone like you even get accepted into Ravenwood Corp? You weren’t on the interview roster. And yet, boom—your name’s on the list. So tell me, Althea—what strings did you pull?”
I didn’t back down. “Maybe they saw potential in someone who didn’t feel the need to tear others down.”
“Or maybe you just opened your legs for someone important,” she shot back.
With that, she whipped out a stack of photos and threw them at me like confetti. They floated down—sharp, damning, heavy.
They were pictures of me and Xavier Ravenwood. Talking. Walking out of a private meeting. Him resting a hand on my shoulder, me smiling up at him. My cousin. A Ravenwood board member. The man helping my mother run the empire behind the scenes while I worked incognito.
My blood ran cold. I didn’t know who took those or how Averie got them. But someone inside was clearly feeding her information. And now it was spreading—people were whispering, bending down to grab photos, phones snapping pictures.
“Guess that’s how you snuck in,” she said with venom. “Seduced a board member. Trash behavior from a gold-digger.”
I laughed under my breath. “You really think that little of me?”
Before I could turn away fully, her hand twisted into my hair, yanking hard.
I spun on instinct and shoved her off with enough force to make her stumble.
“I am so done with you!” I snapped, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Leave me the hell alone, Averie!”
She regained her balance, glaring. “It’s not fair! You’re nothing—and yet you’re here? This company’s a joke! You must’ve slept your way in! That’s the only way someone like you gets accepted!”
She stomped off in a rage, flinging accusations behind her like fire.
I straightened, picked up my phone from the ground—it wasn’t cracked, surprisingly—and calmly walked through the glass doors as whispers followed in my wake.
---
Before all of that, before the attack and the photos and the scene, I had stood in the lobby with my phone pressed to my ear. The massive marble columns rose above me like pillars of judgment.
“Mom, I don’t want anyone here to know who I really am,” I said softly, adjusting my ID badge. “I want to earn my place from the bottom, like everyone else. Then I’ll step into my rightful role as CEO.”
She sighed on the other end, long and quiet. “But Althea, this company is your legacy. You shouldn’t have to pretend.”
“I need to do this,” I replied, firm but calm. “Please. Let me prove myself.”
---
By the time I walked out and saw Kieran waiting for me, I already knew everything. Still, I let him take my hand, kiss my forehead, and call Averie a brat. I let him say we should go out and celebrate working at the same company. I nodded. I smiled.
He had no idea.
He didn’t know the girl he was lying to was the same one who’d one day control the very company he was trying to climb through deception.
The same girl whose family made it possible for him to be there at all.
So yes, I let him take me to dinner. Let him pretend everything was okay.
So when I finally dropped the act—
When I showed the world my true identity—
Kieran wouldn’t just be saying goodbye to me.
He’d be watching his entire world crumble.
