เข้าสู่ระบบMaya's POV Jane my mother kept pleading. "Give me the chance," she said. "To make it up to you." I said nothing, and she took the silence as room enough to continue. "Your father," she said, "your late father Edwin and I were high school sweethearts. Our love story started when we were both sixteen years old. We were so in love, Maya. So many dreams. We believed together, we'd achieve something great." She looked at me. "I loved Edwin so much," she said. "Don't say his name ever again," I said, my voice sharp. "Don't you dare say my father's name out of your mouth." I stared at her. "You don't know the first thing about love," I said. She laughed. The sound landed somewhere between bitter and genuine, an unsettling combination. "You're mistaken," she said. "I know exactly what love is. I know what it means to cherish someone. What it means to fight for what you love." "Our wedding... ohhh ," she continued, "was beautiful. Everyone in town talked about it for months. Every
MASON'S POV Two months had passed since I'd walked into this house believing my father was dead. Two months of learning things I'd never wanted to know, of watching everything I'd built my identity around collapse and reform into something considerably darker than I'd ever imagined He handed me a file that morning. I opened it, and the first thing I saw was her name. Selina. "What is she her name doing in here," I said. "What relevance does she have to any of this?" My father looked at me evenly. "You'll be working with her," he said. "To accomplish part of the plan." "No...." I said immediately. "I want nothing to do with her. After everything....." He stood. "Are you objecting," he said, "to your very first assigned task?" I fell silent. The weight of the question landed harder than I wanted to admit.... the memory of that first conversation about the test, about obedience, about what it actually meant to serve someone the way he'd served his own
Selina's POV I tore a strip from my shirt and wrapped it around my hand as I ran, trying to slow the bleeding without losing pace. It didn't work.... The guard closed the distance fast, her hand finding my hair before I could pull away, dragging me backward. We collided into each other, fighting for space. She targeted my injured arm immediately, the calculated cruelty of someone who understood exactly where I was weakest and intended to exploit it fully. I found an opening and shoved her hard. She stumbled, hit the ground, and I ran. She recovered fast... Making sure I don't get away real quick I heard her footsteps behind me again within seconds, and I muttered something under my breath about her refusal to give up. She threw herself into me from behind, and we both went down together, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. "You're not going anywhere, and that's fact" she said, already rising into a fighting stance. "I'll make sure of it..." I stood s
Selina's POVI screamed as the weapon tore across my hand. It is the most hurtful bodily injury I have had since high school...The pain arrived sharp and immediate, the burning shock of skin splitting open, blood already welling and streaming down my wrist.Two guards spotted Juliet and Nora at exactly the right moment.They came from behind, hauling both women to the ground with great force, and in that single, narrow window of distraction, I saw it.The burner phone. It served as my story of lifeline, which I would have to protect as my life might depend on it....Half-buried beneath dust and debris.I lunged for it.My uninjured hand closed around it, ignoring the sharp sting still radiating from my other palm, the blood already slick enough to make my grip unsteady.The cut wasn't deep either.... I told myself that, again and again, as I forced my attention forward instead of down.Vivian wasn't finished with me yet...She saw me break free and charged immediatel
Selina's POV Lunch hour had been good to us that afternoon. Rice and fish patties was great and what I really carved for... As usual I collected my taxes more than I used to. The new girl from last week had finally learned her lesson, and my crew and I were still riding the particular satisfaction of another problem successfully handled. We sat in the cell, laughing about nothing in particular, the relaxed rhythm of women who understood exactly how much control they held over this small, contained world. Then the noise started... I didn't notice it at first One of my girls straightened first "You hear that?" she said. I heard it. The unmistakable rise of chaos building somewhere beyond our cell block.... the shouting, considerably larger than an ordinary scuffle. We moved toward the field. A riot had broken loose.... Inmates everywhere, throwing punches, bodies colliding, the overwhelming quality of controlled chaos suddenly becoming uncontrolled. Guards pour
Lucian's POV I contacted him again that evening. He answered quickly, the restless eagerness of a man whose desperation had finally overtaken his pride, exactly the state I'd been waiting for him to reach. "The first step toward joining us has been arranged," I said. He asked what it involved. I could hear the assumption already forming in his voice... something business-related, perhaps, a chance to demonstrate his ability to control a company again, to rebuild whatever version of his former life he still imagined salvaging. "This test," I said, "has nothing to do with money or business acumen." "Then what," he said. "Whether you can follow an order without asking unnecessary questions," I said. He asked what he had to do. I gave him only what he needed. Nothing more. "You won't be told everything," I said. "Members of the Association don't receive full explanations every time they're given a task. You'll learn to trust the person above you, and you'll complete what you're
Maya’s POVI stayed until the last possible minute.Not because there was work left. Because I needed time to rebuild the mask.By the time I stepped into the executive hallway leading to the private parking garage, my heels clicked with deliberate calm. My makeup was fresh, concealer over the red
Maya’s POV“She is two months pregnant.”“I can’t believe it,” Mason’s voice carried through the cracked boardroom door, low and reverent, the way he used to speak to me only in our earliest days before the miscarriages, before the silence grew between us like frost on glass. “Two months?”My fing
Maya’s POVThe air in Mason’s office thickened the second I turned back toward the door. Selina moved first quick, theatrical reaching out as if to grab my arm in some mockery of concern.“Maya, wait……”Her fingers brushed my sleeve.I reacted on instinct. A small, sharp push just enough to create
Maya's POV I lifted my chin, Selina is there beside Mason, in a romantic posture. “How do you sleep at night, Selina, with all that evil sitting on your chest like a stone?”She laughed soft, delighted. “Easily. Because I finally stopped pretending to be the good girl who waits for her turn”I lo







