The duffel bag lay open on her bed like a gaping mouth. Eva moved through her room on autopilot, her hearing tuned to the hallway beyond her door. Her father's heavy footsteps had retreated, replaced by the low, furious murmur of a family meeting happening without her. The walls were thin; she caught the sharp edges of her name, Tyler's voice a toothed knife.
"…completely unhinged…embarrass us all…"
"…after everything we've done for her…" her mother's theatrical sigh.
She shoved a pair of jeans into the bag, her hands still humming with a residual tremor. This wasn't packing. This was triage. What did you take when you were fleeing your life? What was essential to the person you were trying to become?
She bypassed the shelves of delicate, pastel sweaters, costumes for the doll, and went for the practical stuff. A black hoodie. Sturdy boots. The few pieces of jewelry she'd bought for herself, not received as props. She unzipped the lining of her winter coat and pulled out the emergency cash she'd been stashing for years, a pathetic little roll of bills that felt suddenly like a fortune.
Her phone, face-up on the bed, lit up.
Maria: 10 mins out. Are you ready to blow this popsicle stand?
A hysterical giggle bubbled in Eva's throat. Blow this popsicle stand. Aunt Maria had always talked like she was in a cheesy action movie. It was the most beautiful thing Eva had ever read.
Eva: Born ready. She typed back, the lie feeling like courage.
She zipped the duffel, the sound final and terrifying. This was it. The point of no return. Walk out that door, and the life of Eva Sterling, the beautiful, breakable mess, was over. The thought was a free-fall sensation in her gut.
A different kind of fear whispered now, slithering under the door with the hallway light. What was on the other side? Maria's love was a given, but what then? Hiding in a small apartment, looking over her shoulder forever? Waiting for her family to inevitably find her and drag her back, weaker and more humiliated than before?
The cold, calculating voice that had spoken in the dining room stirred again. Is that enough? Running? Hiding? Is that what she deserved after what they did to you?
The memory wasn't a flashback this time. It was a physical phantom pain, a twist of agony deep in her core where a child had been murdered. It doubled her over, her hand flying to her stomach. The room swam.
No. She forced air into her lungs, straightening up. No. Hiding is not enough.
Running to Maria was step one. But it was a defensive move. A retreat. The voice in her head, the new one, the one forged in a future death, demanded an offense. It demanded a reckoning.
But how? She was one girl against a fortress of money, power, and influence. She was outgunned, outmanned, and out of her damn mind.
The answer came not as a thought, but as a name. A legend. A monster her father and Tyler spoke about in hushed, equal parts terrified and avaricious tones.
Leonard Cruz.
Alexander's uncle. The family's shadowy patriarch. The "Ice King." Her family wanted a Cruz alliance so badly they were willing to sell her to the nephew. What if she went straight to the source? What if she cut out the middlemen and her own family completely?
The audacity of the idea was so immense it felt like a physical blow. It was insane. Suicidal. He'd have her thrown out—or worse—before she finished her first sentence.
But… What if he didn't?
He was a businessman, first and always. Ruthless. Pragmatic. And he had no love for his nephew, Alexander; everyone knew that. What could she offer him? What did she have?
Herself.
Not as a wife. As a weapon.
She knew the Sterling family's secrets. Their weaknesses. Their dirty laundry. She was the one person they would never see coming because they had spent her entire life teaching her she was nothing. She was the ultimate insider threat.
She could offer him her mind, her rage, her utter lack of anything left to lose. In exchange for what? The power to burn it all down.
Maria: I'm here. Black sedan. Idling at the gate.
Eva's head snapped up. Her heart launched itself into her throat. This was it.
She slung the duffel bag over her shoulder. It was heavier than she expected. She took one last look around the pink room. The four-poster bed. The vanity. The perfect, curated prison.
She felt nothing for it. No nostalgia. No sadness. It was a stage set for a play that had ended badly. Time to walk off the stage.
She turned the lock. The click echoed in the silent room. She pulled the door open.
The hallway was empty and dark. She could still hear them, their voices a low, angry hum from her father's study downstairs. They were so sure she was in here, licking her wounds. Waiting for forgiveness.
She moved like a ghost, her boots silent on the runner rug. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like a gunshot to her ears. Her breath was tight in her chest, each heartbeat a drum counting down the seconds.
Down the grand staircase, one painstakingly quiet step at a time. The front door loomed, a huge slab of polished oak that seemed a mile away. Freedom. The unknown.
Her hand was on the cold brass of the doorknob when a voice sliced through the gloom from the living room archway.
"Going somewhere?"
Eva froze. Her blood turned to ice.
Tyler stood there, leaning against the doorframe, holding a glass of wine. She hadn't been in the study. She'd been waiting. A smug, victorious smile played on her lips. She'd won. She'd caught the little mouse trying to flee.
Eva's mind went blank, white noise filling her head. This was it. This was where it ended before it began.
But then, the new voice in her head, the cold one, spoke up. It didn't sound scared . It sounded bored.
You've already died once. What's the worst she can do?
Eva turned her head, slowly, and met her sister's gaze. She didn't smile. She didn't flinch. She let her own face go as blank and impassive as stone.
"Out," Eva said, her voice not much more than a whisper, but it carried in the vast, silent hall. It was flat. Final.
Tyler's smile flickered. She'd been expecting tears, pleading, excuses. Not this… nothingness. This unnerving calm.
"Dad's not going to like that," Tyler said, trying to regain her footing, taking a step forward.
Eva's eyes dropped to the duffel bag on her shoulder, then back to Tyler's face. A tiny, almost imperceptible shrug. "Tell him he can add it to my tab."
She turned the knob, pulled the heavy door open, and stepped out into the cool night air without a backward glance.
She didn't run. She walked, her steps steady and sure, down the manicured path toward the black sedan idling at the iron gate. She could feel Tyler's stunned, furious stare burning into her back, but she didn't care.
She had just declared war. And she was walking straight toward her only general.