LOGIN~Katia~The Monaco invitation arrived three weeks before the IG tech summit.Encrypted message, underground circuit contacts, the usual routing. The race was on a Thursday, the night before the summit's final day, which meant I would be sleeping two hours and presenting to four hundred people on the energy of pure adrenaline. Sam had looked at the schedule and said nothing for ten seconds and then said, "You're going to do it anyway.""Obviously," I said."I'll book a later checkout," she said.The old Grand Prix circuit at 2 AM was something I had been waiting two years to run. Not the modern circuit, but the original one, the one that existed before barriers and safety redesigns, the one that ran through the streets of Monaco the way the city itself ran — tight and unforgiving and absolutely beautiful. The underground circuit used approximately sixty per cent of the original layout. Enough to feel it.Sixteen riders. Invitation only. The kind of race that existed because enough seri
DeliaI’ve always been the "good" daughter. The one who wore the right dresses, smiled at the right donors, and never made a scene unless it was choreographed for maximum impact. But sitting in the plush, overly silent library of the Windsor estate, I felt like a background character in my own life.Julian was never home. And when he was, he looked through me like I was a piece of expensive furniture he’d inherited but didn't know where to place. I was a Kensington, raised to be the crown jewel of the family, yet here I was, playing house in a mausoleum while my sister, Katia, seemed to occupy every corner of Julian’s mind. It wasn't just the lack of attention; it was the erasure. I was his wife on paper, a secret contract meant to solidify the Kensington-Windsor alliance, but I was strictly forbidden from uttering a word of it to the public. To the world, I was just another socialite; to Julian, I was a ghost he’d paid to stay quiet.By Friday, the silence of the estate became deafen
~Julian~Reid put the full file on my desk at seven AM on Saturday."You're not going to like it," he said."Tell me anyway."He sat down. "Five years ago Victor Hale was shortlisted for a government AI logistics contract. UK Ministry of Defence, infrastructure management across three divisions. Significant money. Significant profile. The kind of contract that legitimises a company for the next decade." He paused. "He didn't get it.""Who did?""A startup called Meridian Systems. Eight employees, eighteen months old, operating out of a converted warehouse in Shoreditch. Nobody had heard of them. Nobody understood how they beat Halo's bid." Reid set a page on my desk. "The official review cited Meridian's proprietary algorithm for predictive logistics mapping. Victor's team filed a formal objection. It was dismissed. He appealed. The appeal was dismissed."I looked at the page. At the name Meridian Systems."Three years ago," Reid continued, "Meridian Systems was acquired. The founders
~Katia~Mother called on a Thursday with the warmth she deployed when she was about to do something I wasn't going to like."A spa weekend," she said. "Just you and me. Girls' trip. You've been working too hard, Katia; everyone can see it. Two nights at Rosewood. My treat."I looked at Sam across the office. Sam looked back."Just us?" I said."Just us," Mama said. "Mother and daughter. Long overdue."I should have said no. I knew I should have said no. I said yes because Dad had called me the week before and said quietly that Mother had been having a difficult few months, and he thought it would mean something if I made the effort, and because, despite everything, I was still capable of making efforts for people who had hurt me when I believed the effort was genuine.The effort was not genuine.I arrived at the Rosewood on Friday afternoon to find that the spa weekend had three additional guests.I discovered this when a man knocked on my door at seven PM holding roses. He was tall a
~Delia~I sat at the far end of the table and watched my marriage end in real time.Not legally. Not officially. Just the slow, excruciating process of understanding that the man you are contractually bound to has never once looked at you the way he looks at someone else, and that someone else is sitting three seats away, laughing at a story about a teddy bear with singed eyebrows.Julian laughed too. Not the managed version he used at events. The real one. The one I had never once heard him produce in eight months of living in the same house.I picked up my fork and put it down.He had put food on her plate.I had watched it happen. He had reached across without thinking about it — the lamb, because she had been looking at it — and placed it on her plate with the ease of someone who did that all the time. Who knew what she wanted before she said it. Who paid that kind of attention.He had not put food on my plate.He had not looked at my plate once.I was his wife. I was sitting at h
~Julian~My grandmother told me about the lunch at eight thirty in the morning.Not as a question. As information. "Katia is coming at noon. Gail will be here. I expect you at the table."I looked at my phone for a moment after she hung up. Then I called Zane."Did you know about this?""About what?""Grandmother. Katia. Lunch. Today."He had a way of making me wait while he processed God fucking knows what. "No. But I'm not surprised."I wasn't surprised either. Grandma Celeste had been moving pieces around a board since before I understood there was a board. She had arranged the Windsor family dinner that introduced Katia to the family. She had specifically requested Katia's presence at every significant family event since. She had told me, in a corridor after a dinner, that Katia was the woman I was supposed to marry.This lunch was not a coincidence.I told Delia at nine. She received the information with the composed stillness she had developed since Dubai, quieter than before, m







