Chapter 13: Two Slaps, No Apology

"Sister." Rebecca's voice cracked on cue, soft, trembling, perfectly pitched for an audience. "I didn't do it. You've misunderstood me. I swear, I don't know why you fell. I was trying to catch you"

"Trying to catch me." Vivian's smile didn't reach her eyes by a mile. "Or trying to figure out why the car didn't finish the job?"

Rebecca flinched.

Just slightly. Just enough for Vivian to see it.

She recovered fast, pressing her lips into a wounded line. "I didn't, sister, that's not fair"

Vivian looked at her. Looked at the trembling lip, the glistening eyes, the entire flawless performance, and felt nothing but a cold, clear contempt.

Rebecca still had cameras to worry about. Reporters everywhere, lenses already swinging in their direction. She couldn't afford a scene, not here, not in front of Stellar Entertainment's front doors with her image freshly gilded by a national award. She needed to play this soft, play it sympathetic, let Vivian look like the unstable one.

Endure, Rebecca was telling herself behind those wounded eyes. Just endure.

"I even had Daniel go looking for you," Rebecca continued, her voice carrying just enough distress to be convincing. "We checked every hospital nearby and couldn't find you anywhere." A delicate pause. "The driver who stopped, it looked like a man. Sister, are you sure you were... alright? Last night?"

There it was.

Delivered so gently. So innocently. Wrapped in the language of concern.

You were picked up by a strange man. What exactly happened to you last night?

Vivian had known it was coming before Rebecca even opened her mouth. This was the playbook, imply, insinuate, let the reporters' imagination do the rest. No fingerprints. No accountability. Just a seed planted in public soil, watered by Rebecca's doe eyes and trembling voice.

Vivian raised her hand.

CRACK.

The backhand landed clean across Rebecca's other cheek.

The street exploded.

Every paparazzi within thirty feet snapped out of their collective shock and lunged for their cameras simultaneously, shutters firing in rapid succession, flashbulbs strobing white across the pavement.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Rebecca's composure cracked down the middle. Both cheeks burning, cameras everywhere, the carefully maintained mask slipping dangerously, she was running out of face to save and she knew it.

Vivian caught her chin between two fingers and tilted her face up, unhurried, her own expression serene and merciless in equal measure.

"You want to know what I learned while I was away, Rebecca?" Her voice was quiet. Conversational. Not a single waver in it. "Five years of dealing with every kind of snake taught me one thing, with people like you, the ones who smile while they're sharpening the knife, talking is a waste of breath." Her grip on Rebecca's chin didn't tighten. Didn't need to. "So I'll keep it simple. Every time you pull one of your little tricks on me, every time this is what happens. I don't argue. I don't explain myself. I just respond." A beat. "With the back of my hand."

She released her.

Stepped back.

Rebecca's eyes had gone from wounded to something rawer, a rage she could barely contain behind her teeth, burning in her gaze like something feral. Her hands clenched at her sides.

"This is outside Stellar Entertainment," she said through gritted teeth. "I have bodyguards. You're making a scene on public property." She enunciated every word carefully, each one a barely concealed threat. "You're behaving recklessly."

Vivian glanced at the bodyguards.

Then at the reporters.

Then back at Rebecca, with a smile so slow and so sharp it could have drawn blood.

"I can see the bodyguards." She tilted her head. "I can also see every camera pointed at us right now." She reached into her jacket pocket and rested her fingers lightly on her phone. "So here's a question for you, Rebecca. What do you think happens to your Golden Star image if I connect my phone to that news van's speaker system" a casual nod toward the media truck parked at the curb "and play the recording of you and Daniel in the Rong family guest bathroom?" She paused. "You were seventeen. Very... vocal."

The color drained from Rebecca's face.

Her hand, which had been half-rising toward her bodyguard, stopped mid-air and dropped.

She stared at Vivian.

Vivian stared back, cap pulled low, expression open and pleasant.

Around them, the cameras kept firing, capturing Rebecca's ashen face, Vivian's composed one, the charged silence stretching between them like a wire pulled too tight.

Rebecca had always been the one with the power in New York. The name. The connections. The carefully constructed image that the public adored and the industry respected.

But she was staring at Vivian now, really staring and feeling something she hadn't felt since she was ten years old, standing in the doorway of the Rong family mansion for the first time.

Vivian had been seven then. Dressed like a little princess, completely at home in the grand foyer, turning to look at the new girl with curious, unguarded eyes.

Rebecca had hated her from that very first moment.

Hated the easy belonging. The effortless warmth. The way she moved through her own life like it had been made for her.