Chapter 4

Helena's defenses crumbled faster than I expected.

That secret was the Hargrove family's deepest buried thing.

When Violet transferred back to the school that year, she had developed an interest in a boy from a lower-income family. The boy liked the class president instead.

So Violet spent six months making that girl's life a living nightmare.

Rumors. Isolation. Shredded homework. Chalk dust poured into her water bottle.

In the end, the class president — a girl named Maya — stepped off the roof of the school building.

The Hargrove family paid an enormous sum to have it buried. The official story became "suicide due to depression."

It was the first blood on Violet's hands. The beginning of a long and well-hidden pattern.

"Keep going," I said, my voice as soft as if I were coaxing someone to sleep. "Mom, is your memory slipping? Want me to fill in the details? Like the threatening note Maya was holding when they found her — written in Violet's handwriting?"

Helena's lips trembled. Her eyes kept darting to Liam.

Liam stood with his brow furrowed, his expression dark enough to cast shadows.

The look he turned toward Violet was different now. Something in it had cracked.

In his mind, Violet had always been a white lily. The kind of person who cried over a crushed flower. Bullying? Driving a classmate to her death? Those were two entirely different people.

"That — that was a misunderstanding!" Helena was still trying. "That girl was fragile to begin with! Violet was just joking around, she didn't mean—"

"Joking."

I cut her off with a flat laugh.

"Stripping someone and posting the photos to the school's internal network was a joke?"

"Forcing someone to eat bread they'd dunked in toilet water — that was a joke?"

"Enough."

Liam's voice came out rough.

He looked at Helena, his eyes sharp. "Is what she's saying true?"

Helena flinched under his gaze and couldn't form words.

Silence was its own kind of answer.

Liam unclenched his fist. Then clenched it again.

He looked at me, and something complicated moved across his face.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want you to see what she actually is. The person you've been risking everything for."

I shrugged, all innocence.

"Liam — do you love Violet? Or do you love the version of her you invented?"

"Continue."

I looked at Arthur, chin slightly lifted.

"Your turn, Dad. Violet's sophomore year of college. A design student — very talented — suddenly withdrew. Official reason: plagiarism. Want to tell me about that?"

The vein in Arthur's temple pulsed.

He looked like he wanted to cross the room and tear me apart.

But he didn't dare move. My hand was still resting above that IV line.

"Talk."

My voice came down hard, and Arthur startled.

"The design portfolio…" he started, voice deflated. He lowered his head. "Violet wanted it. Said she was the one who made it. We used our connections to have the university discipline the student who actually drew it."

Another ugly, familiar story.

But in my hands, it was a weapon aimed directly at the heart.

That night, the basement became a courtroom.

I made them go through it all. One by one.

Stealing a best friend's boyfriend. Cutting my brake lines to stage an accident. Faking illness for sympathy. Paying people to intimidate competitors.

Every item on the list was the kind of thing that rewrites how you see someone.

Liam listened without speaking the entire time.

He stood in the shadows, his expression unreadable. With every new revelation, the atmosphere around him dropped a few degrees colder.

The goddess he had kept enshrined in his chest was crumbling in real time, and what was underneath was something rotting.

But I knew it wasn't enough.

Old debts and past cruelty wouldn't be enough to kill it completely. Not for a man like him.

Men like Liam were specialists in rationalizing. He'd tell himself she was young and didn't know better. That she'd been influenced by bad people. That everyone makes mistakes.

As long as the idea of "saving her" still existed — as long as that romantic filter was still in place — he'd find a way to forgive her.

I needed something stronger.

Something that would sever whatever remained of his trust in her, cleanly and permanently.

By the time the sky outside began to lighten, the stories had run dry.

Arthur and Helena sat slumped on the floor, voices gone hoarse, looking like they'd aged ten years in a single night. Their eyes were blank.

I looked at them and felt nothing but a bleak, dark humor.

For a woman who was nothing but a fabrication, they had sacrificed every principle they had — and offered up another daughter's life on top of it.

What devoted parents.

"That was satisfying." I put the vial away and stood, stretching my arms overhead.

"Since everyone's exhausted, let's rest a bit."

"After all, we're only halfway through the show."

Liam watched me. His gaze was deep and unreadable.

"Vivian. What exactly do you want?"

He wasn't calling me by my nickname anymore. The false warmth was gone too.

Good.

I liked him much better like this — looking at me like I was a threat he couldn't calculate.

"What do I want?"

I walked over to him and looked up into his face.

We were close. Close enough that I could see the red threading through the whites of his eyes, and the exhaustion dug into the lines around them.

"Liam, I want to make a bet with you."

"What kind of bet?"

"I bet that when Violet wakes up, the first thing she says is—"

I leaned in close to his ear and said it quietly.

"'Why aren't you dead yet?'"

Liam's pupils snapped tight.

"That's not possible." The words came out like a reflex.

"No?"

I stepped back and smiled.

"Then I guess we'll see."

"Oh — one more thing I forgot to mention."

I pointed at the security camera in the corner.

"I killed the feed hours ago. And that little confession session we just had? Recorded. Audio and video both. Already uploaded to the cloud."

"On a timer."

"If anything happens to me — if I have any kind of accident—"

"That footage goes straight to every news outlet in the city. And the police."

Arthur and Helena went the color of old chalk.

Liam's expression turned into something unpleasant.

"You're threatening me."

"No. I'm protecting myself."

I held out my empty hands, smiling wide.

"Looks like the leverage just changed hands, doesn't it?"