Beginning of revenge.

From the other end of the line came Ivy's voice ....calm in a way that was almost frightening.

"Maya, I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about. I moved out and left you the house. You should be THANKING me."

"THANKING YOU?!" Maya shrieked. "YOU TOOK EVERY PIECE OF FURNITURE! You didn't leave so much as a BED! WHERE are we supposed to SLEEP?!"

No matter how Maya screamed, Ivy's voice remained cold as ice.

"You better calm down Maya or you're going to hurt your baby and yeah I apologize for not clarifying sooner but the contract states it quite clearly. What I sold was the house and its physical structure. Furniture, appliances, personal property.... none of that was ever included in the sale. Those items belong to ME. I bought every single one of them with my own money."

Maya sputtered, momentarily struck speechless, her hand rested on her stomach.

Adrian seized the phone from her, his voice dropping into something low and threatening.

"Fine. Then tomorrow we go in and file for the property transfer. And you WILL cooperate."

Ivy sounded as though she had been expecting exactly that.

"Of course," she said, with just the faintest edge of mockery. "I've already moved out. The house is yours. It's just the transfer itself..."

She paused .... deliberate, unhurried.

"...that may take a little while."

"WHAT?!" Adrian's voice cracked.

Ivy continued, utterly unbothered.

"My due date is coming up. The baby could arrive any day now. Even if you tried to sue me, it wouldn't matter ....my doctor has already confirmed I cannot engage in strenuous activity. So the transfer paperwork will have to wait until AFTER I give birth. Approximately twenty days from now."

"IVY!" Maya wrenched the phone back and screamed into it. "YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO US! We already PAID! You can't back out NOW!"

The only response was a flat, dead tone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She had hung up.

Maya's fingers shook as she dialed again.... and this time, it went straight to voicemail.

Just like the Ivy who had once stood outside a door in another life, unmoved by all the hysteria thrown at her. Completely unreachable.

CRACK.

Maya hurled her phone against the floor. The screen exploded into splinters.

"SHE TURNED IT OFF!" she screamed, her voice unraveling. "That WITCH turned her phone OFF!"

Adrian stood very still. The color had drained from his face entirely, leaving something gray and hollow behind. When he finally spoke, his voice trembled.

"We were played... We were COMPLETELY played..."

Five hundred thousand dollars... gone.

And what did they have to show for it?

An empty shell of a house and a vague promise of a property transfer that might happen in twenty days.

Meanwhile, Ivy held every single card.

Jack wrapped himself around Maya's legs and wailed.

"MAMA!"

Looking at her son's tear-streaked face. Looking at the bare, echoing walls around them.

Maya and Adrian finally understood.... truly understood what they were dealing with.

The opponent they had so casually underestimated was FAR more dangerous than either of them had ever imagined.

And in the very first round of this fight?

They had already LOST.

What they didn't know .... what was so far beyond their shallow imaginations they never could have guessed was that things had gone much, much further than they realized.

While the two of them had been rushing around securing their loan, Ivy had already walked into a different bank entirely.

As the legal owner of a property worth one million dollars, she had taken out a mortgage against it.

And walked out with another million dollars in funding.

When she hung up on Maya's hysterical screaming, Ivy was standing on the front steps of that bank, one hand holding Aria's, the other holding Lila's.

Night had fallen over the city. The streetlights cast a soft, golden glow across her face.... calm, composed, and quietly satisfied.

One house.

One point five million dollars in NET PROFIT.

And more importantly.... she had finally, for the very first time, made those monsters feel even a fraction of despair.

Not bad, she thought. For a start.

"Mama," Aria said, tilting her head up, small fingers tightening around Ivy's hand. "Why was she screaming on the phone?"

Ivy stroked her daughter's hair, her voice soft as a feather settling to the ground.

"Because she finally got a taste of exactly what she planted, baby."

On her other side, Lila looked up with wide, curious eyes, her little face glowing in the lamplight.

"Are we really not going back?"

Ivy crouched down.

She gathered both girls gently into her arms, and when she looked at them, something blazed in her eyes that had never been there before.... a fierceness so absolute it could not be shaken.

This time, she swore silently, no one touches them. No one.

"No, baby," she whispered, pressing her lips to each of their foreheads. "We are NEVER going back. Mama promises our new home will be safer and warmer than anywhere we've ever been. No one will EVER hurt us again."

The girls were still young. But children feel things that can't be put into words.

They felt the certainty in their mother's arms.... something solid and unbreakable, something that had not been there before.

They believed her.

The way you believe the sun will rise.

Ivy stood.

She took her daughters' small, warm hands in hers and felt the full weight of their trust pressing gently against her palms.

This.

This was everything she would fight for.

Everything she would burn the world down to protect.

She spoke silently to the system:

{Take us somewhere safe.}

[Instruction received, Host. Navigating to optimal shelter location.]

Ivy turned for one last look at the city behind her..... neon signs blazing, lights glittering across a skyline that had no idea what was coming.

The corner of her mouth curved up.

Cold. Sharp. Certain.

Right now, those three greedy fools were sitting in an empty house, stewing in the humiliation of being outplayed by the woman they had written off completely.

Five hundred thousand dollars, gone.

Four bare walls, and nothing but regret to keep them company.

But this was only the BEGINNING.

When the apocalypse came and it was coming ...they would finally learn what REAL despair felt like.

And she would be watching.

Safe behind walls they would never find, her daughters at her side, as every single monster who had ever hurt them was swallowed, one by one, by the world they had never seen coming.

The real revenge had only just begun.