Bloodlines & Betrayals
POV: Prestige
They always said the truth would set you free.
But as Prestige Belle stood on the edge of it, wind clawing at her coat on the twenty-third-floor balcony, all she felt was the cold choke of invisible chains.
Her breath fogged in front of her, short and shallow.
Once, she had burned with belief, a glowing ember of naivety tucked behind polished heels and lipstick smiles.
Now?
She flickered with something else…wrath, confusion, and a desperation that tasted like rust on her tongue.
Sleep had become a stranger. Every time she closed her eyes, Kate's voice whispers, loud and relentless like a crashing wave:
"Dan is just a pawn. The real monster never left the board."
Noah Ellis.
She loudly screamed that name, just to taste the weight of it. It stuck in her throat like a splintered bone.
Her hands trembled as she opened the folder Monroe had slipped her earlier. The paper inside was rough beneath her fingers, smelling of dust and secrets.
She forced herself to look at the Autopsy photos.
The lifeless face of a woman she never met but somehow already mourned.
Alicia Monroe.
Dark bruises, pupils blown wide.
Cause of death: cardiac arrest under suspicious conditions.
Beside it lay a torn, stained letter.
"He said he'd protect me. But if I disappear, tell my daughter he was lying.
Tell her it was Noah Ellis."
A gust of wind stole into her lungs, sharp and cold.
And just like that, her past uncurled.
Flashback – Age 12
Her mother's perfume filled the air, a mix of crushed roses and lemon zest. The clink of plates echoed in the tiled kitchen.
"Don't ever deal with Ellis," her mother hissed, scrubbing a wine glass as if scrubbing blood. Her jaw clenched, eyes far away.
Prestige stood in her school uniform, still gripping her backpack strap. "Did one of them hurt you?"
A beat.
Then a smile. But it wasn't warm but cut like broken glass.
"One of them hurt someone I loved."
POV: Dan
Dan's penthouse reeked of expensive cologne and panic. The lights were too bright. Every reflection seemed like an accusation.
He paced, barefoot on marble, his shirt halfway unbuttoned. Sweat slicked his collarbone despite the AC humming low.
His phone lay on the table, screen dark. He tapped it. No reply. Prestige hadn't answered in hours.
He ran his hand through his hair, yanking hard. Every room in the apartment felt like it was shrinking.
Even Ava had gone silent, her therapy sessions stretching into shadows.
But he knew.
He knew what Prestige had found.
The digital alert had pinged the moment she'd cracked into the sealed file, the one Monroe helped bury over a decade ago.
He slammed his fist into the wall.
Crack.
Blood bloomed across his knuckles.
He stared at it like a prophecy.
The game he thought he controlled was playing him instead.
Pawn to Queen. Check.
POV: Prestige
The chapel smelled of incense and wood polish. Light filtered in through stained glass, splashing red and gold onto Monroe's weary face.
"I don't want just facts anymore," she said, voice low, but steady. "I want the truth of Every word."
Monroe exhaled slowly, fingers folded over a worn Bible. His eyes looked older than his face like a man who'd seen too much and confessed too little.
"Noah Ellis funded underground networks. Bribed Wall Street into silence. But Alicia Monroe… she could've brought it all down. She had names. Evidence. She was going to testify."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial, the kind you'd keep medicine in. "Days before the trial, she overdosed. But…"
He tapped the label with a thick finger.
"The tox report didn't match."
Prestige leaned forward, heartbeat hammering.
"You mean…?"
"She didn't take the pills herself. Someone gave them to her."
Her breath caught. "And Dan knew?"
Silence stretched.
Monroe nodded once, solemn.
"He was just sixteen. But yes. He was there."
Flashback – Dan, Age 16
The hallway was dim, lit only by flickering sconces.
He heard the shouting.
A woman crying.
The sharp click of a syringe cap.
Then his father's voice; cold, decisive:
"It was an accident, Daniel. But if we didn't stop her, she would've messed up everything."
Dan had frozen by the doorframe. His heart pounded against his ribs, wild and disloyalty.
He never spoke of it again.
Instead, he buried it beneath silk sheets, empty champagne bottles, and the illusion of control.
Until Kate came.
And shattered it all.
POV: Dan
The safe clicked open, revealing a single velvet box and an old brass key, curved at the edges. His fingertips brushed the cool metal.
The yacht key.
The place where everything began, Kate's first kiss. Prestige's betrayal. His first real sin.
Now? It felt like the anchor pulling him under.
He stared at his reflection in the glass and saw a stranger wearing his smile.
POV: Prestige
The hospital walls whispered of silence and second chances. Soft beeps echoed faintly down the corridor, and the scent of antiseptic clung to everything sharp, sterile, unforgiving.
Prestige pushed slowly pushed the door open.
Ava sat by the window, legs tucked beneath her like a child, sunlight brushing her pale skin in watery streaks. Her frame was smaller than Prestige remembered thinner, fragile like blown glass. She wore long sleeves, though it was warm inside. One of them had slipped just enough to show the edge of a healing scar.
She didn't look up right away.
Prestige's throat tightened. This wasn't therapy. This was a retreat. Recovery.
This was survival.
"You knew," Prestige said, voice barely above a breath.
Ava nodded slowly, still watching the clouds.
"Not everything. But enough. We're not just a wealthy family... we're cursed one."
She reached into her handbag with trembling fingers and pulled out a black thumb drive slick, cold, and heavier than it should've been.
"My father's confession. Before he disappeared. It's encrypted. But Kate… Kate cracked part of it."
Prestige took it gently, as if it might break.
"Where is Kate?"
Ava looked away, lips trembling slightly. Her voice, when it came, was soft. Barely stitched together.
"She's going to finish what our mother started. Whether we survive it or not."
POV: Kate
The Manhattan wind clawed at her coat as she stared up at the skyscraper glass, steel, and lies stacked into the clouds.
The Ellis Foundation.
Its logo gleamed like a crown.
Inside, Noah Ellis still played king.
In her bag: voice clips. Handwritten confessions. Thumb drives encoded with sins.
Her fingers curled around a photo of her mother.
But she needed Prestige. Not as an ally but as a sword.
POV: Prestige
The pier groaned under her boots. Water lapped against the wooden posts, whispering secrets.
Her phone buzzed in her coat.
Kate: "Midnight. Again. Come alone. This time, you'll get everything."
She didn't hesitate.
POV: Unknown (Watcher)
Inside a black SUV parked half a block away, the man adjusted the mic in his ear. The interior smelled of leather, gun oil, and intent.
He watched Prestige move toward the pier one silhouette in the blur of shadows.
His fingers hovered over a red switch.
"Phase Three begins now," he whispered.
On his screen, files flickered names, numbers, videos too damning to breathe daylight.
If the truth escaped, the world would burn.
Noah Ellis's voice crackled through the line:
"Make sure neither of them leaves alive.
The moon hung low, a pale coin above the churning water.
Kate stood at the far end of the dock, a folder clutched in her arms. Her coat whipped behind her like a flag.
Prestige slowed, every footstep echoing like a countdown.
Their eyes met.
No more grief. No more games.
Only war.
Kate's voice was barely louder than the wind.
"Are you ready to take down the Ellis name?"
Prestige nodded once.
Kate handed over the thumb drive. "Every truth you need is here. But
once you open it… you don't come back."
Behind them, the creak of wood.
The metallic click of a hammer pulled back.
From the shadows, movement.
Prestige turned sharply, heart thudding.
Kate's lips barely moved.
"RUN"
A flash.
A bang.
Everything went black.