Chapter 4

Katherina

“We’ll need six surgeries, minimum,” the plastic surgeon said, flipping through my file without emotion. “Maybe ten. Your jaw is fractured, cheekbones collapsed, nasal structure completely gone. There’s nerve damage, tissue trauma, scarring,”

“I don’t want to look like her again,” I wrote with a shaky hand on the notepad.

He stopped reading. “You don’t?”

I shook my head and underlined the words before adding:

"She’s dead.”

The doctor looked up at me, surprised at my lack of hesitation. But there was no part of me that wanted to look like Katherina Vance ever again. That girl was soft. Naive. Blind. She trusted people who smiled at her while sharpening their knives. She believed in love. She believed in family. She believed in Lysander and Seraphina. And all it got her was a wrecked body and a baby-sized hole in her soul.

I didn’t want to be that woman anymore.

So I let them cut her away.

The first surgery took over twelve hours. I woke up to a pain that made death feel like mercy. My face felt like it had been flayed and stapled back together. Every inch of skin burned and throbbed. Tubes ran through my nose and mouth. I couldn’t breathe without machines. I couldn’t sleep without sedation. But I endured it. Because pain reminded me that I was still alive. And being alive meant I still had a chance to make them pay.

Ryan stayed through the first weeks. He brought soup I couldn’t eat, books I couldn’t read, and stories I barely listened to. 

The next surgeries came quickly. They rebuilt my cheekbones, reshaped my jawline, and reset my nose. They even altered my brow, but I told them to keep my eye color. Green. Deep, sharp sea green. I wanted them to look into my eyes one day and recognize me… even if they couldn’t understand why. I wanted them to feel haunted by something they couldn’t name.

My voice didn’t return for almost a year. Speech therapy became part of my routine. Every day, I sat in front of a mirror, practicing syllables like a child, teaching my body how to speak again. My old voice was soft, warm, almost musical.

I built a new one, low, smooth, deliberate. A voice that didn’t shake. A voice that could command rooms.

I didn’t just rebuild my body, I rebuilt everything else too.

Therapists tried to coax me back into my old life, but I refused. I didn’t want to heal from the trauma. I wanted to shape it into a blade. So while they tried to get me to talk about my pain, I studied psychology instead. I studied micro-expressions, learned to read faces the way a hunter reads the wind. I took courses online, business, finance, cyber security, voice modulation, corporate espionage. I devoured everything I could find.

Then came the posture training, the etiquette coaching, the speech refinement. I watched hours of videos on how powerful women walked, sat, dressed, laughed. I trained my body to move like someone who had never once been ignored.

I lost weight. I built muscle. I learned how to fight. Not street fighting, not brawling. Real, precise self-defense that could take down a man twice my size with one hit to the right pressure point.

I created a new identity from the ground up.

Her name was Scarlet Wilde.

Scarlet was the kind of woman who made people uncomfortable, not because she was loud, but because she was quiet and still and dangerous. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t apologize. She walked into a room like she already owned it and made people believe it.

I was no longer Katherina Vance, daughter of a billionaire, betrayed fiancée, grieving woman. That woman had died. And in her place stood someone who had no mercy left to give.

Five years passed in a slow burn of pain, discipline, and relentless study. Every scar, every sleepless night, every scream behind closed doors, all of it fed the fire inside me.

And when I was finally ready, I made my move.

I crafted the perfect resume. Top schools, elite internships, flawless experience. Oxford degree, fake, but convincing. Letters of recommendation from CEOs who didn’t exist. Everything designed to pass any background check. Everything designed to get me exactly where I wanted to be.

Inside his empire.

ThornTech.

Lysander’s company.

The one he built on the grave of mine.

I walked into the lobby of ThornTech like I had been walking into that building all my life. Chin high. Back straight. Every step was deliberate. The sharp click of my heels echoed across the marble floor, drawing eyes without effort. I didn’t glance at anyone. I didn’t need to. My presence did the work for me.

The receptionist barely looked up from her screen before offering a polished smile. “Good morning. Welcome to ThornTech. Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes,” I said, voice cool and even. “Scarlet Wilde. Ten a.m. with Mr. Thorne.”

She scanned her tablet, then nodded. “You’re expected. Please have a seat, Ms. Wilde. Would you like some water?”

“No, thank you.” I didn’t sit. I wanted to stand. To feel the tension in my muscles, the power in my posture. I needed to control the energy in the room, even if it was just a lobby.

My fitted black dress clung to me like armor, hugging every curve but giving away nothing. The fabric was expensive, the kind that whispered rather than shouted. My hair, long and dark, was pulled back into a braid tight enough to give me a headache, but I welcomed the pain. It grounded me. My eyes were framed by thick lashes and lined just enough to draw attention without looking desperate. My lips were blood red, the same color as war.

As I stood there waiting for them to escort me up, a young man in a navy suit appeared and smiled nervously. “Ms. Wilde? Mr. Thorne will see you now.”

I followed him into the elevator, his cologne sharp and clean, his hands fidgeting at his sides. He glanced at me twice during the ride up but said nothing. I didn’t speak either. I was too focused. Too close to the moment I had imagined for five long years.

The elevator doors opened to the top floor, and we walked down a hallway lined with glass walls and silence. At the end, there it was, his office.

Floor-to-ceiling windows framed a sweeping view of the city. The room was all steel and shadows, minimal yet commanding. And behind the massive desk, like a king seated on a throne, stood the man who ruined my life.

Lysander Thorne.

He looked different and exactly the same. Taller than I remembered. Lean but strong. His suit was tailored to perfection, and his jawline looked sharper than it used to. But his eyes... those eyes hadn’t changed at all. Cold. Calculating. Hungry.

He stood as I walked in, but I didn’t slow my pace. I walked right up to him and met his gaze head-on.

“Scarlet Wilde,” he said, extending his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

I shook it firmly, refusing to let my fingers tremble. “Likewise, Mr. Thorne.”

His grip was strong. Dominant. The kind that told most people he was in control. But I didn’t let go until he did. His eyes lingered just a second longer than necessary, searching for something he couldn’t name.

The interview began with simple questions, education, experience, previous employers, but it shifted quickly. He was testing me. Pushing me. Not just with his words but with his silences, the way he studied me like I was a riddle he couldn’t quite solve.

“You interned with the Weston Group?” he asked, raising a brow.

I smiled. “Yes. I handled their executive scheduling and oversaw three departmental projects. All successful.”

“And you left because...?”

“I don’t stay where I’m not valued.”

He gave a soft, amused hum. “Ambitious.”

“I don’t think ambition is a weakness.”

“No,” he said. “But arrogance is.”

I tilted my head slightly. “Only if it’s undeserved.”

He stared at me for a moment, then looked down at my resume again.

Every answer I gave was measured. Every breath, calculated. I smiled only when I wanted to disarm him. I looked down only when it served the illusion. 

I leaned forward to grab the folder from his desk, and my hand bumped the coffee cup. A small drop spilled and landed right on the cuff of his clean white shirt, leaving a dark stain on the fabric.

“Oh,” I said softly, already reaching for a napkin in my purse. “I’m so sorry.”

He held out his arm, eyes steady on mine. “Clean it.”

The air between us stilled.

I raised the napkin, then slowly dropped it at his feet.

“Clean it yourself,” I said, voice like silk and steel. Then I added with a smile, “Thief.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But something shifted in his eyes.

Not fury.

Desire.

It was subtle, but I knew that look. I had seen it before, right before he kissed me for the first time. 

He stared at me like I was fire and he wanted to get burned.

And then he smiled. Slow. Dangerous.

“You’re hired.”

I blinked once, calm as ice. “Excuse me?”

“You start Monday.” He adjusted his cuff, then turned his back to me and walked toward the window.

The conversation was over.

I walked out of the office with the same steady confidence I’d entered with. I didn’t smile until I reached the elevator. Even then, it wasn’t joy. It was satisfaction.

I had done it.

I was in.

The following day, I sat across from the HR manager as she reviewed the contract.

“Congratulations,” she said, sliding the papers toward me. “You start Monday.”

I reached for the folder and paused when I saw the title on the top page.

Positions: Personal Assistant to Mr. Lysander Thorne.

I stared at it, pulse pounding in my ears.

Assistant. To him.

The irony cut sharper than any scalpel. Five years rebuilding myself into a weapon, and I’d just agreed to serve him coffee.

“He hired me,” I whispered, my voice calm but ice-cold beneath.

The HR lady smiled politely. “Yes. And that’s not easy to do. Mr. Thorne’s very... selective.”

I signed the contract without looking up again.

My hand didn’t shake. My heart didn’t race. But somewhere deep in my chest, something curled, tight and coiled, like the pull of a loaded trigger.

She had no idea.

No one did.

But Monday would be the beginning.

I was going back into the lion’s den.

And this time, I wasn’t prey.

I was fire.