Chapter 3

Mila did not sleep that night.

She lay in the dark with the tiny bracelet in her fist and let her mind work. In her first life she had been too tired and too grateful to ask questions. Now every question stood in a row like a lit window, and she meant to open every one of them.

But questions cost nothing. Answers cost money and she only had two thousand dollars to her name.

She needed more fast and she had to secure it where no one in the Collins house would ever look.

The answer came to her the way every memory did now, clear as printed ink. She remembered a regional lottery, three weeks away. A jackpot that had rolled over for two months. A headline she had read once thinking that some people were simply born lucky.

She remembered every winning number. She chose to get her tickets in a small town two hours away. She chose a corner shop with a tired clerk and a flickering sign. Wearing a gray hoodie with her hair tucked under a cap, she paid for four tickets in cash and registered her winning numbers for all four.

Her hands did not shake until she was back on the bus.

She hid the tickets inside a library book, tucked the book between two dusty encyclopedias and told herself the hardest part was over but she was wrong.

When she stepped through the front door that evening, her mother was sitting in the dark hallway, perfectly still.

"Where have you been?"

The lamp clicked on. Margaret's face looked carved from stone.

"The library," Mila said softly.

"For nine hours?"

"I lost track of time."

Her mother stood and held up a small slip of paper between two fingers. It was the bus receipt, crumpled and creased, with the name of that small town Mila

"Then why does this say Millbrook?"

Mila's stomach dropped.

She went through my coat.

"I wanted some air," she said quietly. "I took a bus. That's all."

"That's all?" Margaret's voice rose. "You are nineteen years old, you have a sister who needs you and you are sneaking off to other towns like a common girl with a boyfriend?"

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"Then what are you hiding?"

"Nothing, Mother."

A heavy step sounded on the stairs. Richard appeared in the doorway with his tie loosened and his jaw already tight.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Your daughter has been lying to us," Margaret said.

Richard's eyes moved slowly to Mila.

"Empty your pockets."

She obeyed. A pen, a tissue, a few coins. Nothing else.

"Your bag."

She handed it over. He dumped it on the hallway table and went through it, shaking out every notebook. He found nothing, and his frustration only grew.

"Where is the money?" he demanded.

"What money?"

"Don't play stupid. Your account was closed. The bank called this morning to confirm a change of address."

Mila kept her face very still.

"I moved it," she said. "I wanted to keep it safe."

"Safe from whom?" her father snapped. "That money belongs to this family."

"It was my savings."

The slap came so fast she barely saw it.

Her cheek burned, and her head turned with the force of it. For a moment the hallway rang with silence.

Margaret lowered her hand and smoothed her sleeve as if nothing had happened.

"transfer it back tomorrow," she said coldly. "And do not leave this house without permission again."

Mila touched her cheek slowly. Some years ago she would have cried. In her first life she had cried over a hundred slaps exactly like this one and thanked them for being strict.

Now she only lowered her eyes.

"Yes, Mother."

It was the most dangerous thing she had ever said.The punishment began at once.Her phone disappeared into her father's pocket. Her bedroom door lost its lock. Her mother cut her allowance to nothing and assigned her the scrubbing of every floor in the house, as if Mila were a maid who had stolen the silver.

Sophia watched from the staircase with a delicate little frown.

"Mother, please don't be too harsh," she said sweetly. "Mila must have had a reason."

"You are too kind, darling," Margaret sighed.

Mila knelt on the marble with a brush in her hand and said nothing. She could feel Sophia's gaze resting on her, light and curious, like a cat watching a mouse that had stopped running.

At dinner that night, Sophia gave a small, fragile gasp and pressed a hand to her chest.

"I feel dizzy," she whispered.

Margaret was out of her chair in an instant. "Sophia? What is it?"

"It's nothing. It's only that the shouting upset me." Sophia's lashes fluttered. "I know Mila didn't mean to."

Every head turned toward Mila.

"Look what you've done," her mother hissed. "Your sister is ill and you creep around causing stress."

"I haven't said a word," Mila said evenly.

"Don't speak to me in that tone!"

Richard slammed his palm on the table. "Apologize to your sister. Now."

Mila looked at Sophia, who sat curled against their mother with her cheek resting on her shoulder. Beneath those long lashes, a pair of calm eyes met hers for exactly one second and Sophia smiled.

It was small and smug.

Oh, Mila thought. You enjoy this.

She rose slowly, folded her hands and bowed her head.

"I'm sorry, Sophia," she said gently. "I never meant to upset you."

"Of course you didn't," Sophia murmured, and she buried her face against Margaret's shoulder to hide her grin.

Mila sat back down and picked up her fork.

Enjoy it, she thought. It will be the last time.

The drawing was on a Friday night.

Mila spent it in the kitchen elbow deep in dishwater while the cook hummed over a small radio on the counter. The numbers were announced at 9:15.

She heard the first one and kept scrubbing.

She heard the second and set down a plate.

By the fifth, her hands had gone perfectly still beneath the water. By the sixth, she had stopped breathing altogether.

"Well, would you look at that," the cook said, shaking her head. "Somebody's life just changed."

"Yes," Mila whispered. "Somebody's did."

She finished the dishes, wiped the counter, thanked the cook and walked upstairs with her heart pounding in her throat. In her room, she pulled the library book from beneath her mattress, opened it to the page where four slips of paper lay tucked inside, and held them up to the lamp.

Every number matched! She sat on the edge of the bed and laughed once, a low, shaky sound, with tears she refused to wipe away. Then she folded the tickets into a plain envelope, slid it into the lining of her coat and lay awake until the house went completely quiet.

She collected the prize two days later, slipping out through a window while her family was at church. The lawyer she had found by mail asked no questions. The winnings went into a company with no history and a name that belonged to no one.

After taxes, it was more than four hundred thousand dollars.

She read the number on the page, then read it again. She thought of a hospital room, an orange being peeled one slow segment at a time and and the sound of a door closing.

This is only the beginning.

Over the next weeks she did what she had sworn to do. She placed careful bets on a handful of sporting events whose outcomes were burned into her memory, risking large amounts through private accounts that could not be traced. Each one paid off, and by the end of the season she had more money than her father had made in ten years.

She told no one. She walked into the Collins house each evening with her eyes lowered and a smile for her mother. She scrubbed the floors, held her tongue and accepted every insult with perfect grace.

But at night, alone in her room beneath the crooked brown stain, she opened her notebook and wrote a name at the top of a clean page.

Nova.

A star that burns brightly, then leaves something new in the dark.

Within a week, she had a registered company, a private account and her first real investment. A small payments startup called Kestrel Pay, which no one in the market had taken seriously yet.

She remembered what it would become.She bought in quietly and waited.Three weeks later, the company announced a partnership that sent its shares climbing by forty percent in a single morning.

In a tower across the city, a young man in a dark suit stared at a line of data on his screen. An account with no history that seemed to appear out of nowhere placed a perfect trade days before the news.

CavanWendellleaned back in his chair and tapped one finger slowly against the desk.

"Find out who Nova is," he said.

"Sir, we've tried. There's nothing."

"Then try harder."

A slow, dangerous smile touched his mouth.