Se connecterPrism Tower at 8:30 AM.I have a full schedule. Magazine cover shoot at ten. A phone interview at eleven. A fitting for an event next week that I keep forgetting exists.Amy is at her desk when I walk in, and her face tells me everything I need to know before she opens her mouth."Have you seen the news?" she says. "You're on the headlines again.""I've been on the headlines every day for two weeks. What's different about today?"Amy stands up. Her hands are clasped in front of her, the specific posture of someone delivering bad news they've been rehearsing since they woke up."This time it's different. The hospital incident is everywhere. The fan confrontation. Cherry Scoop's article. You should talk to George about crisis PR. Also, Mia Stone is his sister. If he mediates, this could blow over quickly."I sit down at the makeup station."I was the one being chased through the streets," I s
I understand now. The crowd. The signs. The matching shirts. The organized, coordinated energy of people who showed up at a specific hospital at a specific time to confront a specific person. They're Mia Stone's fans. I should have guessed. The language on the signs, the terminology, the specific vocabulary of celebrity fandom: "Heavenly Empress," "get out of the entertainment industry," "home wrecker." These aren't random strangers with opinions. These are devoted followers who have been told, online, in real time, that the woman they love is being wronged by the woman standing in front of them. I can argue with three people. Maybe five. I cannot argue with ten women who are screaming and throwing water bottles and swinging promotional boards like weapons. The first bottle hits the ground beside my foot. The second grazes my shoulder. The promotional board catches the edge of my arm and the plastic cuts a thin line across
I sit back down. "I want to ask you one thing," I say. "Directly. And I want a direct answer." Mia watches me. Her guard is down, but not all the way. I can see the hairline fractures in her composure, the places where the mask cracked when Catherine was in the room, but also the places where it's already rebuilding. Mia Stone doesn't stay unprotected for long. "Was it you," I say, "who put the Heart of the Kingdom in my bag?" The question lands between us. Mia snorts. A short, sharp sound. The closest thing to a laugh she's managed all day. "Thief crying stop thief," she says. "That's your trick, isn't it? Frame me, then turn around and accuse me of framing you. Look at you now, so bold. Liam hasn't seen this side of you." I feel my jaw tighten. "How can you say that?" I lean forward. "Five minutes ago I threw a woman across a hospital room for you. I dislocated her wrist. I recorded her confession. I gave you the evidence. And now you're going to sit there and call me a lia
Catherine's face changes."Stop slandering me," she says. Her voice has lost its composure for the first time since I walked into this room. It cracks at the edges, the specific sound of a woman who has just realized she's in a fight she didn't prepare for. "Stop threatening me. I'll get a lawyer. I'll sue you for defamation.""You're welcome to hire a lawyer, Mrs. Stone. But by the time this reaches a courtroom, your reputation won't be worth the filing fee."I hold up the voice recorder.Catherine's voice comes out of it. Clear. Unmistakable. The specific, high-fidelity capture of a recording made in a small room at close range."So what if I pushed you off the roof? You deserved to die. You just got lucky and survived when you were five..."The words play through the speaker. Then silence.Catherine's face goes from gray to white. The color of someone who has just watched herself confess to a crime on an
Catherine doesn't leave.She circles back. Returns to the bed. Stands over Mia with the specific, predatory posture of someone who has been waiting for this moment for a long time and is not finished.Mia is still in the corner. Smaller now. The way people get when they've been hit and the hit has reminded them of other hits, older ones, the kind that leave marks you can't see.Catherine's voice is vicious. Controlled. Each word placed with the precision of someone who has practiced this speech."I don't know what my brother and his wife were thinking. They rushed back to celebrate your birthday and died for it. A plane crash. Because of you. Because of a child they shouldn't have adopted in the first place."Mia says nothing."And George." Catherine's lip curls. "Foolish boy. Defending you all these years. Protecting a bastard sprung from who knows where.""I'm not a bastard," Mia says. Her voice is quiet.
A hundred questions. A thousand suspicions.Why does everything happen in sequence, each event feeding the next like pieces on a board? Someone frames me for the necklace. Then a gunman shows up at a rooftop. Then a media campaign launches against me with the speed and precision of something that was planned in advance.Each incident, on its own, could be coincidence. Together, they form a pattern. And the pattern has a shape that I can almost see but not quite, like a face pressing against frosted glass.The first person I think of is Mia.But the math doesn't work.Liam trusts her. That's one problem. The bigger problem is the hostage situation. Mia was on that rooftop with a gun to her head and a man holding her by the throat. She nearly died. She did nearly die. If the gunman hadn't slipped, if Liam hadn't caught her, if the crowd hadn't pulled them back, Mia Stone would be dead.Nobody orchestrates their own near
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