LOGINLiliana MillerOne month changed more than I expected.Not in a loud way. In the kind of way you only notice when you reach for pain that used to be automatic and find it slower to arrive.Rhea still did not soft-pedal me. She still left early sometimes. She still called me by my full name when she was irritated. But she called. She came. She let Grey put a better job in her path and accepted the surgery money after three days of arguing like the help itself offended her pride.When the bandages came off, she stared at her reflection longer than she spoke. I did not ask what she saw. I only knew that something in her posture had eased, and every time I noticed it I felt grateful in a way that made my throat tight.I was still learning how to hold that gratitude without turning it into another apology.The wedding fitting was supposed to be simple. Me. Grey. Jessica. No big audience.The atelier was private, bright with mirrors and pale fabric, and the woman handling the appointment ke
Liliana MillerGrey did not let the panic sit for long.The second I said Viktor had committed murder, his hand came to my back and steered me inside, away from the open driveway and the men still cleaning up the far end of the hall. His voice stayed low, controlled, as if the night had not just cracked open in front of me."It was a traitor," he said once the door shut behind us. "One of ours sold a route. Viktor handled it before it spread.""On the grounds?""Better here than in public."I stared at him. "That is not the comfort you think it is.""It's the truth." His eyes moved over my face, then down to the half-wrapped burn on my finger. The shift in his expression was immediate. "What happened to your hand?""It's nothing.""Liliana.""I cooked," I said. "For Rhea. The chef didn't know the dish, so I made it myself. I burnt it a little. Me. Not the food. Or… both."Grey took my wrist with far more care than the rest of the night deserved and examined the mark under the light. H
Liliana MillerI barely slept the night before.Knowing Rhea was coming made the estate feel less like home and more like a test I could fail in real time. I kept picturing her face in the alley, the way she had looked at me without offering comfort, the way apology had poured out of me and still not been enough. By morning I was already tense enough that even the sound of staff moving through the halls put me on edge.I went to the kitchen early and asked the chef to prepare a specific meal.He listened carefully, then hesitated. “Madam, I can approximate it, but I don’t know that version.”Of course he didn’t.It was not a restaurant dish. It was memory. Oil, pepper, the exact way the sauce had to cling, the little things our mother never measured and Rhea always noticed. The kind of food that belonged to a cramped kitchen and not a private estate.“I’ll do it,” I said.The chef looked scandalized. “Madam—”“I’ll do it.”So a few hours before she arrived, I sent most of the kitchen
RheaThe number sat on my screen longer than it should have.I had not given it a name. No contact photo. No label. Just a line of digits that somehow carried more weight than any message I had received in months. My thumb hovered above the call button, pulled back, hovered again.If I called, I would have to hear her voice in private.If I did not, I would spend the whole night inventing versions of what she might have said.I put the phone face down on the counter and walked away from it.The apartment was small enough that walking away never lasted long. I opened the fridge, took out what little I had, and made dinner with the kind of concentration people use when they are trying not to think. Oil in the pan. Eggs. Leftover rice. Salt. The ordinary sequence of a woman feeding herself after a shift. I plated the food, sat down, and ate in silence.Halfway through, my eyes went back to the phone.I finished the meal anyway. Washed the plate. Wiped the counter. Dried my hands twice.O
Liliana Miller I got home with Rhea's face still stuck behind my eyes. The estate was quiet in the way it always was when Grey was in his study, controlled and almost unnaturally still, as though the entire house knew better than to disturb him. I went to the kitchen first, poured myself a glass of fresh orange juice, then carried it upstairs because I needed something to do with my hands before I went completely insane thinking about everything that had happened. Grey was sitting behind his desk when I walked in, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, one hand resting beside a stack of documents while the other moved across the screen in front of him. He looked up immediately, and his eyes softened when he saw me. "How was it?" I placed the glass beside him. "I found her." His expression changed slightly. "Rhea?" I nodded. "And?" I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. "It was... weird." "Weird?" "Awful. Good. Awful again." I sighed. "I don't know. We tal
Liliana MillerThe address burned in my mind the entire drive.Grey had not stopped me. That alone unsettled me more than if he had argued. He only assigned two guards and told them to keep their distance unless something went wrong. They stayed at the far end of the street when I stepped out of the car, close enough to watch, far enough not to crowd what I was about to do.The restaurant was ordinary. A little worn. The kind of place people entered for cheap food and left without remembering the staff’s faces. I walked in, ordered something I already knew I would not drink, and sat near the side where I could see most of the floor.My hands would not stay still.Every worker that passed made my pulse jump. Every dark-haired woman forced me to look twice.Then I saw her.Rhea was cleaning a table near the back. Sleeves rolled. Movements efficient. Face lowered until a customer shifted and the light caught the scar.My lungs forgot their job for a second.This was not the sister from m
Liliana Miller: The hotel lobby was quiet when I stepped out of the elevator. The woman at the front desk smiled politely as I crossed the marble floor, and I found myself smiling back automatically, the way people do when they're running on habit instead of thought. The expression felt wrong on my
The phone wouldn’t stop ringing.It pierced through the thick fog of sleep like a distant alarm, pulling me reluctantly from the deepest, most dreamless rest I’d had in years. My body felt heavy, boneless, wrapped in warm sheets that smelled faintly of cedar, smoke, and something unmistakably mascu
Liliana Miller “Would you fuck me, Daddy?”The words left my lips like a reckless prayer. I stayed pressed against his chest, swaying, waiting for him to push me away or pull me closer.He stiffened. His large hands gently but firmly held my shoulders, creating just enough space between us. His vo
Liliana Miller The night air in coastal Italy was merciless. It sliced through my thin blouse like icy knives, but I barely felt it. My legs moved on autopilot, carrying me away from the luxury villa, away from the moans still echoing in my skull, away from the two people who had just carved out m







