Chapter 2 2

Flashback — Two Weeks Earlier

...

The door didn't open so much as it exploded inward, slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle the frame.

"Anastasya! You ungrateful little brat — how dare you take money from my wallet!"

Helen's voice filled the room before she did, sharp and furious, and Anastasya — who'd only just walked through the front door minutes ago, still in her work clothes, still catching her breath from the walk home — froze where she stood.

"M — Mom?" The word came out small, uncertain. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just got home, I didn't—"

The slap landed before she finished the sentence.

"Ah—!"

Ana hit the floor, her cheek burning, her ears ringing with the force of it. When she looked up, Helen was standing over her, face twisted with an anger that had clearly been building long before Ana ever walked in the door.

"Don't lie to me." Helen's voice dropped, venomous. "Who else would it be? You think I don't know a thief when I raised one?"

"You disgusting, ungrateful bitch." Each word landed like another blow. "You should have died with your parents. A curse like you doesn't deserve to keep breathing."

"Now give me back what you stole. NOW!" Helen's eyes had gone wide and glassy with fury, her voice climbing into something that filled the entire room.

She spoke like a judge already certain of the verdict — never mind that Ana had walked in the door not five minutes ago, never mind that there was no possible way she could have taken anything from anywhere.

"Mom, I really didn't—"

Ana's head dropped. Her chest had already begun to seize, tight and airless, the familiar tremor starting in her hands and spreading outward until her whole body shook with it.

It happened every time. Every single time someone brought up her parents, something in her simply broke open, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it.

It wasn't fair to blame Helen entirely — that was what Ana always told herself, in the aftermath, once the shaking stopped. Her mother had died bringing her into the world. Her father had died years later, on the way to drop her off for a university entrance exam, in a car that had never made it to campus.

Helen had married her father when Ana was four. And somewhere in the years since, in all the moments Ana's father wasn't home to see it, Helen had built an entire architecture of cruelty around those two deaths, brick by brick, until Ana genuinely believed she was the reason for both of them.

That she was cursed. That she brought misfortune wherever she went.

"ANASTASYA. Are you listening to me? Give me back what you stole!" Helen's voice cracked through the room again, louder this time.

Ana was shaking too hard now to answer properly, the panic attack fully in control of her body, her breath coming in short, useless gasps.

"Hahh—" She forced herself upright, pale and trembling, and opened her bag with hands that wouldn't stay still.

Her paycheck. She'd just picked it up from the minimart that afternoon. Helen knew that — of course she knew that, that was the entire point of tonight's performance.

Ana pulled the envelope out and held it toward her stepmother, her vision blurred and unfocused, her heart still hammering from the attack that hadn't fully passed.

Helen snatched it out of her hand without a word of thanks and turned to leave — then paused in the doorway, looking back at Ana's ashen, tear-streaked face with something that might have passed for satisfaction on anyone else's features.

"You should be grateful I haven't thrown you out onto the street." Her voice had gone almost pleasant now, which somehow made it worse. "You know that, right? After your father died, a girl like you really should have followed him."

"But I'm a generous woman. I gave you a reason to keep living — work yourself to the bone, hand over every cent, and understand that happiness was never going to be part of your story. Not with a fate like yours. People around you don't survive long, do they?"

"You should be thanking me," Helen said, smiling now, sharp and satisfied, "for giving you a purpose at all."

Ana said nothing. Couldn't. Her head stayed bowed, her breath still ragged, until the door finally clicked shut and she was alone.

Then she collapsed entirely.

"Haaahhh—"

She pressed both hands against her chest, sobbing as quietly as she could manage, biting down on her own lip to keep the sound from carrying.

Her face had gone bloodless. Her eyes, wet and hazel and utterly hollow, stared at nothing.

"That's right," she whispered, the words worn smooth from years of repetition. "I'm a curse. I'm worthless. This is what I deserve."

It wasn't a thought so much as a scripture, one she'd had recited into her since she was young enough not to know any better — every time her father left for work, every time it was just the two of them in the house, Helen had chipped away at her a little more, patiently, methodically, until the lie had fully replaced the truth.

Ana sat on the floor for a long time afterward, staring at nothing, hating herself quietly and thoroughly for existing.

...

Down the hall, Helen had already returned to the couch, laughing to herself as she flipped the television back on.

"Stupid brat." She counted through the envelope with satisfaction. "Bring up her parents and she falls apart every single time. Sixteen years of work, and it never fails."

"Best investment I ever made," she murmured, "marrying that idiot man."

To Helen, Ana had never been a daughter. She was a mechanism — a reliable, self-loathing little machine that generated income and asked for nothing in return, because she'd been taught for sixteen years that she didn't deserve to ask.

"Mom!" A bright voice cut through the room, and a young woman came bounding in, throwing her arms around Helen's neck from behind. "Can I get some money? I want to go out with my friends."

Vexia — twenty-one, a year older than Ana, and Helen's actual daughter in every sense that mattered to Helen.

Helen peeled several bills from Ana's paycheck without hesitation and pressed them into her daughter's hand.

"Here you go, sweetheart. Have fun. Don't stay out too late."

"You're the best, Mom!" Vexia was already halfway to the door, money in hand, practically skipping.

The contrast wasn't lost on anyone in that house except, perhaps, the two women who benefited from it.

...

Outside, a car was already waiting at the curb, engine idling.

"Baby!" Vexia dropped into the passenger seat and threw her arms around the driver, pressing a kiss to his cheek before he'd even fully parked.

"Why'd you have me pick you up here?" Damian glanced anxiously toward the house behind her, already pulling away from the curb. "What if Ana sees us?"

"So what if she does?" Vexia crossed her arms, pouting. "She's not the one satisfying you, is she? I am. How much longer am I supposed to be your dirty little secret, Damian? When are you actually going to end things with her?"

Damian Farlon — twenty-one, and, as far as Anastasya knew, still very much her boyfriend of two years.

They'd started dating back in high school, and Ana, ever the traditionalist, had made it clear from the beginning that she wasn't sleeping with anyone before marriage. Damian had gone along with it at first, out of love or patience or some combination of both.

Vexia had never respected that boundary, mostly because it wasn't hers to respect. She'd wanted Damian since the moment she met him, and she'd made absolutely no secret of it — not to Damian, not to herself, and certainly not to Ana, who remained blissfully unaware.

Eventually, Damian had stopped resisting.

"It's not the right time yet," Damian said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "Just be patient a little longer. I'll break things off with her, I promise."

Vexia's irritation melted instantly, replaced by something considerably more pleased. She leaned toward him, voice dropping into something low and inviting.

"Alright, baby. Tonight I'll make it worth the wait."

Damian smiled, satisfied, already anticipating the rest of the night. This was exactly what he liked about Vexia — the ease of it, the hunger, everything Ana had never once offered him and, as far as he was concerned, never would.

The car sped toward the hotel.

Once they'd reached the room, Damian reached for her almost immediately, but Vexia stepped back with a teasing smile, one finger against his chest.

"Shower first, baby. Don't rush."

He chuckled, a little disappointed but not surprised — Vexia liked her surprises, and he'd learned not to argue with the process.

"Whatever you want," he murmured, brushing his lips against hers before heading toward the bathroom.

The moment the door shut behind him, Vexia's expression changed entirely.

She snatched his phone off the nightstand, thumb already moving.

"If you won't end things with her," she muttered, typing quickly, "I'll just do it myself."

She smiled to herself, imagining Ana's face.

'Baby, come to the Grand Wall Hotel, room 40A. I have a surprise for you. Your birthday's in an hour, right? Come straight up, don't keep me waiting.'

She hit send, then immediately deleted the message from the thread, and set the phone back exactly where she'd found it, screen down, like it had never moved at all.

...

Back at the house, Ana was still sitting on her bedroom floor when her phone buzzed.

She wiped her face and checked the screen. Almost eleven at night.

"It's late. I should just sleep and get up early tomorrow."

She almost put the phone down. Almost.

But then she thought about how long it had actually been since she and Damian had spent real time together — not rushed calls between shifts, not brief texts, but actual time — and something in her chest ached at the thought of turning it down.

Damian was one of the very few people in her life who'd ever made her feel like she mattered. Whatever else was wrong with her world, she trusted him completely.

So she got up, wiped the last of her tears, put on a little makeup to hide the redness in her face, and pulled out the nicest dress she owned. Helen wouldn't notice or care — she had her money now, which was all she'd ever actually wanted — so Ana slipped out without telling anyone where she was going.

...

Across the city, in the back of a black car gliding smoothly through late-night traffic, a man sat listening to a report with an expression that had already curdled into something dangerous.

Alexander De Graham didn't need to raise his voice to make a room go still. His silence did that on its own.

He was, on paper, one of the wealthiest men in the country — a conglomerate built from nothing, holdings in more industries than most people could name. What wasn't on paper, what almost no one alive actually knew, was the empire running quietly underneath that one: an organization he'd built himself, piece by ruthless piece, in service of something far older and more personal than profit.

Whatever his subordinate was telling him now had done nothing to improve his mood.

The car slowed at a crosswalk.

And that was when Alexander's gaze, entirely by accident, landed on her.

Everything else in the world seemed to lose speed at once.

A young woman was crossing the street in a pale pink dress scattered with small flowers, her wavy brown hair catching the streetlight as it moved in the wind. Her face, even from this distance, stopped every thought in his head mid-formation.

He had never — not once, not with anyone — felt his chest do what it did in that exact moment.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Who is that," he said quietly, not really a question so much as a demand for information the universe owed him.

His eyes tracked her the entire way across the street, refusing to let go even after she'd vanished around the corner.

In the driver's seat, his subordinate had already seen enough to understand exactly what came next.

He didn't need to be told twice. He was already reaching for his phone, already beginning to build the file that would tell his boss everything there was to know about the girl in the pink dress.