Chapter 4 - The Deal Begins

Lilia POV

Morning came way too swiftly.

The alarm on my cracked phone buzzed feebly, more noise than sound, but it still managed to jolt me out of bed. My eyes felt heavy, burning with that kind of exhaustion no amount of sleep could shake off. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and the floor met my feet with its familiar chill.

For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the peeling paint on the wall. I let myself briefly imagine that maybe life would give me just one more day of grace. Just one. But then, from the next room, came the sound that always crushed me: my mother’s deep, raspy cough, rattling through her chest like chains dragging on stone.

That thought shattered.

I got up.

My morning routine was practically automatic by now. Boil some water. Slice the stale bread thin so it lasts. Put on a smile to wake my siblings, even though it never felt genuine. My little brother blinked up at me, his curls sticking out all over, eyes heavy with sleep. My sister tugged at my sleeve, asking if we’d ever have pancakes again.

I told her, “One day.” I always said “one day.”

By the time I pulled on my worn jacket and laced up sneakers that were barely holding together, the city was buzzing with honking cars and hurried footsteps. It felt like everyone was doing better than me. My shift at the grocery store was waiting, followed by three hours of scrubbing marble floors in an office that wouldn’t even notice if I vanished.

Life was heavy. But mine felt heavier.

And that odd memory of the woman in the rain—the one who looked just like me—had faded into something I pushed deep down, into the place where I hid feelings I didn’t want to deal with.

I buried it.

Or at least, I believed that I had done so. 

Peter POV

The estate was strangely quiet the next morning. Too quiet.

But silence has its own way of screaming.

Lisa’s body was gone now, wrapped up in secrecy. I made sure of it. The waiter had called me, his voice shaky, words stumbling over each other. By the time I got there, it was too late.

She was already gone.

The story I got was simple: she slipped. Fell into the pool after drinking too much. Samuel had been just as drunk, barely able to stand. No one witnessed the actual events, and what about the cameras that were supposed to capture everything? Blank. Faulty. Someone said the system glitched, and I didn’t push back on that too hard.

Because, honestly, I didn’t want to.

It felt easier to accept it was a tragic accident than to chase down shadows I couldn’t grasp.

Samuel never knew. To him, Lisa was merely unconscious, overcome by the heat of the night or the haze of too much wine. He had dazed himself too much to grasp the truth. He didn’t see the lifeless stillness in her chest, didn’t feel the icy silence in her pulse.

Only I knew.

Only I carried the knowledge that Lisa was truly dead.

And with that secret came the power to decide what would happen next.

I was left with the weight. It's not just the weight of plans gone awry or dreams scattered—it's the weight of her absence, a blade twisting in my chest.

Lisa was more than just my dream partner. She was my heart. She was the one who saw me when the world overlooked me, who laughed when no one else got the joke, the one who made me feel like I was more than the shadows I came from.

We hadn’t just shared plans; we shared secrets, nights thick with whispered promises, touches that lingered, and a love that carved itself into my very bones. Lisa loved me. I knew that. And I loved her—fiercely, desperately, in ways words could never fully capture.

Now she was gone. Torn away from me. 

The spark that had lit every dark corner of my life was snuffed out. Without her, our dreams of revenge and empire lay in ruins.

But the fire inside me? That wasn’t gone. It’d never be gone. For Lisa, for our love, for everything they took from us—I would burn this world down.

But before she died, Lisa had said something that stuck with me.

“I swear, Peter,” she laughed, tossing her hair back, “I saw someone once—in one of your family’s department stores, a girl who looked just like me. A spitting image. Can you imagine? Like the universe has a backup plan.”

At the time, I shrugged it off.

Now those words felt like a fire.

If there really was another Lisa, perhaps the universe had provided me with a backup plan.

And I would use her.

Lilia POV

The grocery store had that distinct smell of oranges mixed with bleach.

My day went on in the same old rhythm: straightening cereal boxes, mopping up spills, and ringing up customers who didn’t even glance at me. The monotony usually numbed me, but today, it gnawed at me, sharp and tense, like a taut string pulling at the back of my skull.

At lunch, I sat behind the store chewing on bread that crumbled like dust in my mouth. A woman in a red coat walked by, her expensive perfume lingering sweetly in the air. It made my throat ache.

I was still stuck on thoughts of pancakes.

Then a shadow fell over me.

“Lillia.”

I looked up, startled.

The man standing there was tall and impeccably dressed, his presence so commanding that even the dumpsters behind me seemed to shrink away. His eyes—sharp and dark—locked onto me with a focus that made me want to run.

My heart raced. “Do I… know you?”

He smiled. But it wasn’t a friendly smile. It felt like one that pinned me in place.

“Not yet,” he said softly. “But I know you.”

I felt so uneasy from within.

Peter POV

Up close, the resemblance was striking.

They both have the same eyes. The same mouth. She even has the same faint scar above her brow, just as Lisa does.

But softer. Where Lisa had been refined steel, this girl was clay—cracked and scarred but held together by sheer determination.

Perfect.

She looked at me like she already knew she was trapped. Her shoulders curled inward, her hands gripping the edge of her seat as if she might bolt.

I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “You’re wondering how I know your name. Don’t you?”

Her lips parted, confusion washing over her face. She was already caught in my web, even if she hadn’t realized it yet.

“You want money,” I said, keeping my tone steady. “You need it. For your family.”

Her eyes widened—the first real crack in her defenses.

“Yes,” I murmured, my voice slipping into the silence she created. “I know. I can give it to you. More than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

Lilia POV

I should’ve stood up and walked away.

Every instinct screamed at me to get up, to disappear into the noise of the city. But I couldn’t move. His words pinned me down.

“How do you—” My throat felt tight. “How do you know about my family?”

He tilted his head, watching me with what looked like amusement.

“I know a lot of things, Lillia. Including this: your life as it is now… it’s crushing you. One shift at a time. One unpaid bill at a time. One night spent listening to your mother’s cough at a time.”

My chest tightened.

“Stop.”

But he pressed on.

“What if I told you there was another life?” he said. “One where your siblings never go hungry. One where your mother’s surgery is fully paid for. One where you don’t have to fight every single day just to breathe.”

It sounded crazy. It had to be. And yet—my chest ached because part of me wanted to believe him.

I let out a brittle laugh. “Sounds like a fairy tale.”

“No.” His voice softened, almost gentle. "It's not a story from a fairy tale." A deal.”

Peter POV

Her eyes flickered.

Hope. Fear. Desperation.

She was already halfway mine.

“You will step into a life that isn’t yours,” I said carefully. "You will assume her name, occupy her place, and enter into her marriage, and in exchange, I will give you everything you’ve been starving for."

Her lips trembled. “Her?”

I smiled, slow and sure.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Lisa.”

Lilia POV

The world shifted.

Lisa.

The name resonated in my mind. And then—faintly, like lightning in a storm far away—I remembered.

A limousine.

A boutique window.

A woman stepping out, her face exactly like mine.

My stomach dropped. My hands turned cold.

He leaned in closer, his breath brushing my ear.

“She’s gone, Lillia. And you’re going to take her place.”

My whole body stiffened, my throat was dry, and my pulse was pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it.

It was impossible. Insane. Unthinkable. 

And yet…

A single thought clawed its way through the chaos:

What if I said yes?