2025-06-18 23:51:09
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Anthea clapped her hands once, sharply. “Hear, hear! About time we rid ourselves of instability.” “No!” Mrs. Morgan shouted, spinning toward them. “You don’t get to decide that!” Belen raised an eyebrow. “Oh, but we do. And so does the board. Alice just renounced her position. That makes her a liability.” “Liability?!” Ethan snapped. “She was the only reason this family still had any credibility!” Anthea scoffed. “Don’t embarrass yourself, darling. No one takes a street rat like you seriously. Go stand in a corner.” Ethan’s eyes darkened, but Alice placed a calming hand on his chest. “I don’t need to be defended, Ethan,” she said softly. She turned her attention to Belen, who was already strutting toward the mantle like he owned the place. “Do you think you’ve won?” she asked quietly, dangerously. “I have won,” he said smugly. “With you gone, the board will approve my appointment as the heir. I’ll be at the head of the table, Alice. Not you.” Her grandmother finall
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Alice was too stunned to respond at first. Her breath caught, not from fear—but from the sheer weight of finality in Belen’s words. Her mother, however, flew into a panic. “No—no, she didn’t mean that!” Mrs. Morgan said quickly, whirling toward the others in the room. Her eyes darted frantically from Lawrence to her mother-in-law, to Belen, and then back to Alice. “She’s emotional. Overwhelmed. She’s always been dramatic—just like her grandfather, rest his soul.” Alice’s gaze sharpened at the mention of her grandfather. Oh, how they all used his memory as a tool—when convenient. The very man who had trusted her, trained her, who once said, “You are the only one who sees clearly through all this smoke.” And now, they threw her to the wolves because she refused to be tamed. Her mother’s voice cracked with desperation. “Everything we’ve built—our name, our access, our power—it all depends on you, Alice. You’re the key, don’t you see? That’s why we chose you. That’s why we couldn’t l
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The silence after Alice’s declaration was sharp—cutting and full of disbelief. Every breath in the room seemed held, as though even the walls themselves waited to see what would happen next.Her father’s face hardened into stone. But it was her mother who erupted.“You selfish, ungrateful child!” Mrs. Morgan’s voice rose like a whipcrack. “Do you even understand what you’ve just done? Do you realize what’s at stake here?!”Alice didn’t flinch. Her voice remained firm. “Yes. For once, I understand everything perfectly.”Mrs. Morgan’s palm slammed against the table. “Everything we’ve built—everything your father has negotiated, every alliance—thrown away. For what? For a poor, disgraced nobody with no name and no standing!”Ethan stepped forward, calm but unmistakably dangerous. “Careful.”Alice lifted a hand, stopping him without looking. Her eyes were locked on her mother. “You mean everything you built on the backs of your daughter—that I am. You sold me for status. And I’m done. I’m
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After Paul’s dramatic exit, the room’s smug energy began to wane. The air shifted, suddenly brittle with tension.Alice stood still.Her expression darkened, her fingers curling slightly around the edge of the teacup she hadn’t sipped from. Her eyes weren’t on the door Paul had exited through, but somewhere distant—lost in flickering fragments of memory.They always did this. Always tried to marry me off to the highest bidder. A pawn. That’s all I ever was. Claire got choices. Belen got praised. Me? I got deals… dowries… decisions made over cocktails and stock prices.She could almost hear it all again—her mother’s shrill negotiations disguised as conversations, her grandmother’s veiled comments about “good matches,” Claire’s mocking smiles. A whole childhood of being groomed for a contract.But… why Ethan? Why had I ever been engaged to him in the first place?Her mind strained. The memory was there, foggy, buried. She had chosen him. Hadn’t she? Somewhere between survival and rebell
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Paul, still beaming with pride, didn’t flinch. Instead, he chuckled — low, confident, patronizing. “Nice speech, pauper Ethan. Really,” he said, adjusting his lapel as though he’d just accepted an award. “Very dramatic. Do you rehearse these monologues in front of a mirror? Because that one had all the fire of a rejected soap opera audition.”Mrs. Morgan laughed sharply beside him. “Oh, please. Ethan, must you always be so theatrical? The Bellanos finished? Don’t be ridiculous. That’s a fantasy you tell yourself to sleep better in your shoebox apartment.”Snickers followed. Claire smirked. Belen raised her wine glass in mock salute. Even Alice’s grandmother gave a condescending chuckle as she stirred her tea. Her father Lawrence exhaled heavily, muttering, “This again?” while her uncles exchanged unimpressed glances.Ethan simply shook his head, calm as ever. “You’re all clapping for a circus that’s already gone up in flames.”Then suddenly — buzz.Paul’s phone vibrated in his pocket.
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Following all the recent upheaval, Alice’s reputation had begun to spread among the upper class—some in admiration, some in scandal. And her mother, ever the opportunist, was quick to spin the story.In the lavish drawing room of the Morgan estate, Mrs. Morgan’s voice rang out like a bell of triumph.“Don’t look so surprised, Alice,” she said sweetly, brushing a strand of her perfect chignon back. “Paul here has been immensely helpful behind the scenes. The crises that nearly toppled our family name? All managed—quietly—thanks to him.”Alice’s brows drew together. “Crises?” she murmured, her voice unsure, eyes flitting between the faces in the room. She hated this fog in her mind—names she didn’t recognize, events she couldn’t place, emotions that lingered with no memories to anchor them.Ethan stood in the corner, arms folded, expression unreadable. Then he scoffed. “Managed? That’s a generous word for meddling.”Mrs. Morgan’s smile vanished like a candle snuffed out. “You shameless
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