A silver Maybach rolled smoothly through the massive iron gates of the Mckee family estate in Long Island.
The car stopped in front of the illuminated water fountain.
Kassandra stepped out of the back seat. The sweet, fragile victim act she had played at the hospital was completely gone. Her face was set in hard, cold lines.
She pushed open the front doors and tossed her expensive shawl at a terrified maid.
She walked up the grand staircase and entered her bedroom. It was a massive suite, decorated in pink silk and white gold-far more luxurious than the room Calista had grown up in.
Kassandra walked straight to her vanity mirror. She ripped the plastic ice pack off her cheek and threw it violently into the trash can.
She stared at her own reflection. The right side of her face was swollen and purple.
She thought about the hospital hallway. She remembered the look in Jett's eyes when he saw that doctor holding Calista.
It wasn't just anger. It was territorial panic.
Kassandra let out a scream of pure frustration. She swept her arm across the vanity.
Dozens of glass perfume bottles and expensive creams smashed against the hardwood floor. Shards of glass exploded everywhere.
"He still wants her," Kassandra hissed at the mirror.
She realized that framing Calista for violence wasn't enough. Jett was angry, but he hadn't immediately demanded a divorce. As long as Calista held the title of Mrs. Holder, Kassandra would always be the mistress in the shadows.
She needed to destroy Calista's reputation completely. She needed to attack Jett's ego as a man.
Kassandra walked over to her nightstand, her heels crunching on the broken glass. She picked up her diamond-encrusted phone and dialed Bo Mckee's number.
The second he answered, Kassandra's voice morphed into a trembling, pathetic whimper.
"Daddy?" she cried softly. "I can't sleep. I close my eyes and I see her coming at me again."
"Oh, my sweet girl," Bo said, his voice thick with guilt and anger. "I promise you, I will ruin that ungrateful bitch."
"But Daddy," Kassandra whispered, manipulating the conversation perfectly. "As long as she's in the social circle, people will laugh at us. If Jett found out she was... doing dirty things behind his back, the Holders would throw her out tomorrow."
Bo went dead silent on the other end of the line. Then, a low, cruel chuckle rumbled through the speaker.
"You're a smart girl, Kassie," Bo said.
Kassandra hung up the phone. The fake tears vanished instantly. A twisted, psychotic smile stretched across her lips.
She walked over to the large bay window and looked out at the dark, sprawling woods behind the estate.
The darkness pulled her memory back fifteen years.
She remembered the heavy rain. She remembered standing in the alley behind her miserable orphanage. She remembered handing a thick envelope of stolen cash to a man with a scarred face.
She remembered the news report the next day. The couple who had just adopted Calista Beck-her own biological parents-burning to death in a tragic car accident. That was how she erased her past and ensured she was the only Mckee heir.
Kassandra looked at her faint reflection in the glass. Her eyes were completely devoid of humanity.
She walked to her closet, dug under a pile of designer sweaters, and pulled out a cheap, plastic burner phone.
She punched in a number she had memorized from the dark web.
The line clicked. A gruff voice answered.
"I need a job done," Kassandra said, her voice dropping to a dead, mechanical flatline. "I need you to manufacture evidence of Calista Beck sleeping with multiple men. Make the photos as filthy and undeniable as possible."
