Taming the billionaire's heart

The belt cracked against the doorframe inches from her head.

"Get back here, you ungrateful little bitch!"

Kyrie didn't look back. She couldn't. If she saw his face red, the same face that had promised her the world when she was six and destroyed it by the time she was sixteen, she might freeze. And freezing meant dying. Maybe not tonight. But someday.

She flew down the stairs, her bare feet barely touching the worn carpet. Behind her, the door slammed open, and her father's voice chased her into the night.

"You'll be back! You hear me? You'll crawl back!"

The gravel driveway shredded her soles, but she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. The beat-up sedan was where she'd left it, keys hidden under the front tire like she'd planned for three months, seventeen days, and every sleepless night in between.

The engine coughed to life. Her hands shook so badly she could barely shift into drive.

In the rearview mirror, her father stood in the doorway, a silhouette backlit by the yellow porch light. He wasn't running after her. He didn't need to. He'd spent 23 years convincing her she had nowhere else to go.

She pressed the gas until the house disappeared.

Six hours. Two gas station bathrooms. One terrifying moment when the engine sputtered and she thought this is it, this is where it ends .

But the sedan held. And now, finally, the city rose around her like something from another planet.

Kyrie had never seen so many lights. They bled into the sky, turning the night a sickly orangepink, erasing the stars she'd used to navigate back home. Buildings clawed upward, glass and steel and neon, each one taller than the last. The traffic was a living thing honking, swerving, screaming in a dozen different languages.

She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white.

12B , Mandy had said on the phone three days ago. Apartment 12B, building seven, Riverside Complex. Don't forget, girl. Write it down.

She hadn't written it down. She'd been too afraid her father would find the paper.

Now she circled the block for the third time, peering at building numbers that seemed to jump around 7, 9, 11, then suddenly 15. Where was 12? Where was anything ?

She parked illegally, hazards blinking, and dragged her suitcase from the trunk. The thing was ancient, a faded floral pattern that might have been pretty in 1987, now held together by duct tape and prayer. Inside: three dresses, two trousers, 2 blouses ,her grandmother's notebook, forty-three dollars, and a photograph of a woman who used to smile.

The sidewalk was alive. People streamed past her in suits and high heels. A man in a tailored coat glanced at her bare, bleeding feet, then looked away so fast she might as well have been invisible.

She found building 12. Or maybe it was 21. The number was scratched, half the paint peeled away.

She climbed the steps and knocked.

Nothing.

Knocked harder.

Still nothing.

"Lost?"

Kyrie spun. A group of teenagers leaned against a parked motorcycle, watching her with the flat, hungry eyes of sharks circling blood.

"Maybe she's a runaway," one girl said, loudly enough to carry. "Look at that suitcase. My grandma had one like that. In her coffin ."

Laughter. Cruel, practiced, the kind that came from years of sharpening cruelty into a sport.

Kyrie turned back to the door. Knocked again.

"21B's empty," a boy called out. "Old lady died in there last month. They found her after the smell got bad."

Kyrie's stomach dropped.

12B. Not 21B.

She'd written it wrong in her head. Or Mandy had said it wrong. Or she'd been too terrified to listen properly.

She stumbled back down the steps, suitcase thumping behind her. She found the right building eventually. 12B. The letters were small, almost hidden behind a potted plant someone had abandoned to die.

But the door was dark. No answer. No light in the window.

Mandy wasn't home.

Kyrie lowered herself onto the cold concrete steps, pulling her knees to her chest. The night air cut through her thin coat—her only coat, purchased at a church rummage sale for three dollars. Her feet throbbed. Her stomach had stopped growling an hour ago, which she knew was a bad sign.

She reached into her suitcase, fingers finding the worn notebook by feel. Its pages smelled of graphite and something else her grandmother's vanilla perfume, still lingering after three years.

She sketched to stay alive. It was the only way she knew how.

Her grandmother's face emerged first the soft lines around her eyes, the gray hair she always wore in a bun, the hands that had held Kyrie's when everyone else let go.

"You have a gift, child. One day, people will pay for your paintings. You'll see."

Kyrie pressed harder with the pencil, as if she could draw herself into that memory. Into a world where love wasn't something that left bruises.

"Since when does our block have homeless people?"

Kyrie looked up. Two women paused at the curb, silhouetted against the glow of a streetlamp. They were magazine beautiful hair that fell in perfect waves, bodies poured into dresses that probably cost more than Kyrie's car, faces sculpted by professionals who charged by the hour.

One of them reached into a designer bag and pulled out a sandwich, still sealed in plastic. She tossed it onto the step beside Kyrie without breaking stride.

"Here," she said. Not cruel. Not kind. The way you might address a stray cat you didn't want touching you. "Hope it helps."

Kyrie stared at the sandwich. Turkey and swiss, from the smell of it. Fresh bread. Her mouth flooded with saliva so suddenly she had to swallow twice.

Across the street, the teenagers had multiplied. Five of them now, phones out, recording. Waiting to see what the homeless girl would do.

Eat it , her body screamed. Eat it now.

But her father's voice was louder.

"You'll crawl back. You'll always crawl back. Because you're nothing without me."

If she ate that sandwich, she was proving him right. Proving she couldn't survive on her own. Proving she was exactly what those women thought she was a stray, a beggar, a thing to be pitied and forgotten.

Her fingers curled into fists.

She would rather starve.

She nudged the sandwich away with her foot, turning back to her sketch. The pencil moved faster now, angry strokes that tore tiny holes in the paper.

"Kyrie? Oh my God ."

The voice cut through her fog like a knife through silk.

Kyrie's head snapped up. A woman stood at the base of the steps, takeout bags dangling from one hand, keys glinting in the other. For a terrifying second, Kyrie didn't recognize her.

The Mandy she'd known had dreadlocks down to her waist, wore jeans with more holes than fabric, and laughed so loud the teachers would shush her in hallways. She'd been the only person in their dead-end town who'd looked at Kyrie like she was worth something.

This woman was a stranger.

Her hair was cut short and sleek, framing cheekbones that could cut glass. Her skin glowed under the streetlights not the glow of health, but the glow of money, of products with French names and prices that made Kyrie dizzy. She wore a cropped silk top that showed a sliver of toned stomach, ripped jeans that had probably cost three hundred dollars to look that destroyed, and heels that added four inches to her height.

Her nails were long, glossy, the color of pink champagne.

"Damn, girl," Mandy laughed, but her eyes weren't laughing. They were moving over Kyrie's bare feet, her thrift-store coat, her ancient suitcase, cataloging every inch of disaster. "You look like you walked through a war zone to get here."

"I..." Kyrie's voice cracked. She hadn't spoken in six hours. "I got lost. The building numbers..."

"I hope you didn't wait long. Salon was insane today, some influencer bridezilla losing her mind over highlights." Mandy climbed the steps, her heels clicking a rhythm that said I belong here, I own this sidewalk, I am not afraid of the dark.

Then she saw the sandwich.

Her expression didn't change. Not really.

Without a word, Mandy set down her bags, grabbed the handle of Kyrie's suitcase, and kicked the sandwich. It sailed into the street, landing near the curb where a rat immediately investigated it.

"Come on, babe." Mandy's voice was light again, too light. "Let's get you inside. I got Thai food with your name on it."

Kyrie stood on legs that trembled, brushing dust from her dress. As they reached the door, she squinted at the number.

Then she laughed. It came out broken, half-hysterical, the sound of someone who had forgotten how.

"Mandy... I think I knocked on the wrong door earlier. 21B, not 12B."

Mandy stared at the number. Then at Kyrie. A slow, tired smile pulled at her lips the first real expression Kyrie had seen since she arrived.

"Of course you did." She unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Welcome to the city, babe. Try not to get murdered before breakfast."

The apartment was small but fierce. Every surface fought for attention velvet pillows in jewel tones, gold-framed mirrors, a neon sign above the kitchen counter that read Good Vibes Only in cursive pink. It smelled of vanilla candles and hair products and something else, something Kyrie couldn't name but associated immediately with freedom .

Mandy kicked off her heels and collapsed onto a fuzzy white couch that looked like it had never known a stain. "Sit. Eat. Shower. In that order. You look like death's uglier cousin."

Kyrie lowered herself onto the couch, too overwhelmed to argue. Mandy unpacked containers of pad thai and green curry, the smell making Kyrie's vision blur at the edges.

"TV?" Mandy grabbed the remote without waiting for an answer. "I need noise. This place gets too quiet."

The screen flared to life. Not N*****x. Not Hulu. A twenty-four-hour news channel, all urgent graphics and serious anchors.

"—breaking news from the Reynolds Group," the anchor was saying, voice pitched to convey history in the making. "Sources confirm the board will announce the next CEO within thirty days, ending months of speculation that has gripped both Wall Street and Main Street."

Kyrie's chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth.

The screen exploded with images.

A mansion that looked like it had been carved from moonlight and arrogance, sprawled across acres of manicured perfection. A glass tower downtown, Reynolds Group in letters ten stories tall. Men in suits climbing from black SUVs, cameras flashing like lightning.

"Cassian Reynolds," the anchor intoned, "the eldest grandson, currently serving as CFO, is widely considered the frontrunner. But sources close to the family suggest his cousin Lucian Reynolds may be positioning for a surprise challenge."

Social media comments scrolled across the bottom in real-time: CASSIAN IS THE ONLY CHOICE #ReynoldsDynasty

:Lucian would burn the company down in a year lol!

:Old money vs. new energy. WHO WILL WIN?

:I would let EITHER of them ruin my life tbh ...

Kyrie stared. She'd never seen people who looked like that outside of movies. They didn't seem real. They seemed like something carved from marble and ambition, placed on earth to remind everyone else what they could never be.

"Who's that?" she asked.

Mandy laughed, a sharp sound that said you're adorable, you poor country mouse .

"Girl. That's the Reynolds family ." She pointed at the screen with a spring roll. "Old money, new money, doesn't matter. They're basically royalty around here. Cassian runs the finance side, Lucian plays the charming fuckup, and their parents pull strings from whatever throne room billionaires retire to."

The anchor continued: "The decision is expected to reshape not only the company's future but the country's economic landscape. The Reynolds Group employs over two hundred thousand people globally, with interests in real estate, technology, energy, and media."

More images. The estate again, this time aerial, revealing a compound the size of a small town. A magazine cover: THE COUNTRY'S MOST POWERFUL FAMILY .

"They're everywhere," Mandy said, scrolling on her phone without looking up. "News, billboards, trending every other day. If one of them sneezes, it'll trend before lunch."

She looked away.

"Doesn't look like my kind of world," she said.

Mandy smiled, scrolling through her phone, already half-distracted by whatever glittered on her screen.

"Trust me," she said. "It isn't."