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THE SMOKE NEVER SETTLES

Author: Grace Pearl
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-11 05:17:08

POV: ALINA

The city doesn’t sleep, but tonight, it feels like it’s holding its breath.

I sit by the floor-to-ceiling window of Ashen’s penthouse, barefoot, legs curled under me, a steaming mug of tea resting on the low glass table in front of me. I don’t drink it. It’s just there. Like me. Still. Quiet. Watching.

The headlines change faster than I can blink.

Sasha Moore Steps Down From Cross PR Campaign After Leak

Cross Family Faces Further Scrutiny Over City Funding

Anonymous Source Links Elena Cross To Misused State Funds

Cross Industries System Failure Disrupts International Deal

One by one, they drop like stones into water. Smooth ripples at first. Then waves.

I thought it would feel better.

It doesn’t.

I thought maybe, once I saw Sasha’s perfect image crack—her mascara-stained face behind tinted car windows, the reporters screaming her name, the silence from her Instagram—it might bring some relief. Even just for a second.

But it doesn’t. It feels too clean. Too neat.

And too fas
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  • HEIRESS REBORN   BENEATH THE SURFACE

    POV: ALINAI know when a storm is about to break. I can feel it in my bones.It starts quiet, like the way your body knows something’s off before your brain catches up. That’s where I am right now. Watching from a distance. Listening. Waiting.I sit in the back of a nondescript car, the engine off, Theo in the driver’s seat next to me. The windows are tinted, and we’re parked across the street from a Cross Industries subsidiary office, just one of the many branches Nathaniel uses to shuffle people and money around.He doesn’t know I’ve had someone inside it for the last six months. Someone quiet. Someone scared. Scared people are predictable. Loyal, in their own broken way.Theo says nothing, just hands me a small folder. Paper clipped. No digital copies, like always. I flip it open.Inside is a fake conversation well, real now. But fake in origin. A planted trail of emails and text exchanges between two of Nathaniel’s closest board members. Looks like they're planning to turn on him

  • HEIRESS REBORN   ECHOES

    POV: SASHAI can't fucking sleep. Can't eat. Can't work. I have a min on my neck and all I can think about is Kaia.I am staring at my laptop like it might give me a different answer if I blink hard enough. But it won’t. Because the numbers don’t lie.Hence my deep dive into investigating herI scroll again, slower this time. There.is a signature code tied to a fund offshore, Cayman-based, very dead looking on paper. Supposed to be gone after Alina died. Supposed to be closed. But something is wrong.Someone moved money through it.Last week.I am not breathing.I don’t say it out loud. I don’t even write it down. But it is there, pounding behind my ribs like a drum.Kaia.She is too careful. Too still. Too fucking familiar.And it all started with that stupid detail. A number buried in a contract I wasn’t even supposed to see. Alina's number tagged as one of the contacts —signed on something she had no business with. Because she is supposed to be dead. Her signature was too clean. He

  • HEIRESS REBORN   LINES IN THE SAND

    POV: ELENAI wake up to six missed calls, four text messages, and one headline that makes my stomach twist like it’s trying to eat itself.“Cross Campaign Faces Scrutiny Over Cabal Embezzlement.”I stare at it, blinking, like maybe the words will shift into something else if I just keep looking.They don’t.“Fuck,” I whisper under my breath, and it sounds too small for what I feel.I don't even remember walking to the mirror. But I see myself now. My hair’s a mess. Makeup smudged from whatever half-assed attempt I made last night. I slept in my office again. There's a tight line creased into my cheek from the couch pillow. I look like hell.A knock. Then the door opens before I answer.“Morning,” Simone, my chief of staff, says, too casually for what’s happening.I turn away from the mirror, holding her eyes. “How bad?”She shrugs. But not the normal kind. The nervous kind. The kind people use when they’re afraid of your reaction.“It’s everywhere. The senator from New Jersey already

  • HEIRESS REBORN   THE FIRESTARTERS

    POV: ALINAI don’t sleep. Not really. I just lie there in the dark with my eyes open, listening to the sound of the city going on without me. Cars, sirens, some couple fighting two floors down. My phone buzzes once. Theo, checking in. Just a text: Heard it hit. Clean.I smile a little.Yeah. It hit.Cross Industries is on fire, and everyone is so busy blaming each other that no one is even bothered to hold the hose. And I am not done. Not even close. This isn’t the part where I sit back and enjoy it. This is the part where I set the next flame. Give them no breathing space.By nine a.m., I am in the warehouse Margot uses for the private meetings. It is quiet. Empty. Smells like dust and rust. But it is secure. That is what matters. I sit at the metal table, waiting. I am in all black. Not to be dramatic. Just to blend. I don’t want attention today.The door opens.And I watch as he steps in like he is still not sure he should be here. Thin, nervous energy. Same face from the backgrou

  • HEIRESS REBORN   SHIFTING BLAME

    POV: NATHANIELI wake up to five missed calls and one message from my mother that just says:“Fix it.”No greeting. No explanation. No fucking patience. Just two words, clipped and cold, like she thinks snapping her fingers will make the fire stop burning.I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be fixing yet.My head is pounding. I don’t remember drinking that much last night, but I must’ve. There's a half-empty glass on the nightstand and a headache trying to hammer its way through the back of my skull.All thanks to Kaia.In all my life, no one, absolutely no one has ever stood me up.Until herI just can't crack her.With a groan, I eech for my phone and unlock it.Investor Two has withdrawn from the RYB funding pool.Investigative probe confirmed: financial branch under federal audit.Ashen Inc. halts all Cross-related contracts pending internal restructuring.I sit up too fast. The room spins.“What the fuck.”I read it again. Then again. Still doesn’t make sense. No warning. No

  • HEIRESS REBORN   HOUSE OF CARDS

    POV: ALINAI don’t go.Of course I don't. Why would I go just because he asked me. Summoned me like I am at his beck and call.Still, he is still waiting at some overpriced, dimly lit restaurant downtown,.the kind he always used to take me to after he made me cry. You know the kind. Crystal wine glasses. Chairs you sink into. Waiters trained to act like your silence is a status symbol, not a symptom of rot.He is probably checking his reflection in the cutlery, wondering if I will show up all excited. I won’t. I never intended to.I stay home.No, not even home. I am in Theo’s apartment. High floor, cold lighting, secure enough to hide the truth and wide enough for my guilt to pace.I sit on the couch, cross-legged, one of my Dad's old T-shirts clinging to me like memory. And I let Theo handle it.“He has been there forty-two minutes,” Theo says through the speaker. Calm. Dry. Amused, even. “Checked his phone seventeen times. Ordered whiskey, neat. Keeps straightening the cutlery like

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