3

Kaia’s POV

“They’ll regret it,” James said once we were in the car, the doors closed behind us like a final sentence. “Sorry if I overstepped. I just can’t wrap my head around it. What kind of brothers choose a stranger over their own sister?”

I stared out the window, watching the rain smear across the glass. “They didn’t always,” I whispered. “They used to treat me well.”

I was a surprise baby. A late-in-life miracle.

My parents had already been buried neck-deep in the Renner empire by the time I came along, well into their forties. Raising me? That became my brothers’ job.

There was a time I got in trouble at school—nothing major, just some stupid prank. The principal called for my parents, but Asher showed up instead. Dressed to the nines, tie crooked, pretending to be our dad.

He always protected me.

And Jace? He was reckless, loud, and loyal in the way only little boys can be. One night, I told him I wanted to see shooting stars. At midnight, he snuck me out through the garage, knowing full well Asher would skin him alive if he found out.

We lay on the damp grass in the park, counting stars like we had all the time in the world.

Back then, they were my whole universe.

Then it came just before my sweet sixteen, Mom and Dad left on what should’ve been a routine business trip. A quick meeting with some high-profile cartel leader in the South. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Their plane crashed. Both of them. Dead on the spot.

Asher was the one who brought their bodies back. He was barely thirty—and overnight, he had to become the new backbone of the Renner empire.

Dad’s most trusted man, Ary, died with them that day. Ary had a daughter—supposedly the same age as me. Her name was Sylvie.

So my brothers brought her home and told me we’d treat her as one of our own. “Family,” they said.

What they didn’t know—or didn’t care to find out—was that the girl they brought back wasn’t Ary’s daughter.

She was Ary’s niece. The sickly one. The one whose real name was Anna.

I stumbled across it by accident during a hospital visit. Her records.

The new Sylvie found out I knew. She and her mother worked overtime to erase Anna and replace her with Sylvie. The new and improved version. The pitiful orphan who needed protection. The girl with a sob story they could rally around.

I told Asher. I begged him to look deeper.

He did. And then he came home and accused me of lying.

“Don’t do this, Kaia,” he said, his voice cold and tired. “Don’t turn into that kind of girl—the one who makes up stories out of jealousy. I’ve seen Sylvie’s file. She is Ary’s daughter. And after what she’s been through, we owe it to her. If her father hadn’t died saving ours, she’d still have a real family.”

He didn’t see how Sylvie had wormed her way into our lives—one false sob at a time.

She was smart, I’ll give her that. Smart enough to know exactly how to pit me against my brothers. How to play innocent when I found her snooping around Dad’s study. I told her to leave, to respect the space.

But of course, by the time my words filtered through to my brothers, they were twisted. Warped. And since I’d apparently “lied once,” it was easy to believe I’d lie again.

Sylvie had rewritten me. Turned me into the spoiled brat. The drama queen

And my brothers bought every word.

Even when she jumped into the freezing pool herself—middle of December, no one else around but me—I was the one blamed.

I pushed her, apparently. Because that’s the kind of girl they believed I was now.

“Are you alright?” James asked, starting the car, eyes flicking toward me between shifts.

“Fine.” I turned my face toward the window. I wiped the tears away quietly, fingers trembling.

Just a few more days. And then I’d be gone.

If they couldn’t honor my truth, then what was the point of being honest at all?

Let them keep their pretty little lies.

I had a new life to build—one that didn’t need them in it.

…

I returned to the Renner lab the next morning, back to work.

I was halfway through finalizing the new compound when I heard voices echoing down the corridor.

Asher had brought Sylvie.

I’d told Asher once that no matter how much he doted on her, the lab was off-limits. This place held the Renner family’s most sensitive projects.

It wasn’t a playground.

But logic never stood a chance against Asher’s desire to spoil her.

“She can’t be here,” I said sharply, removing my safety goggles as I stepped out from behind the testing partition. “We’re in the middle of product trials.”

“I know,” Asher replied, completely unfazed. “She just wanted to look around. That’s all.”

I didn’t argue. I excused myself to the rooftop for a cigarette. A bad habit I rarely indulged.

When I came back, the compound I’d been working on was gone.

I searched everywhere. Top shelves. Bottom drawers. Finally found it—shoved deep into the farthest trash bin.

My hands shook as I retrieved the vial, its contents ruined.

There were no cameras. Too much of our work was classified. But I didn’t need footage to know who had done it.

I found Sylvie in the breakroom, nursing a cup of tea like she belonged there.

“Did you throw out the new compound?” I asked quietly.

Sylvie blinked—then smiled. And just as quickly, her lips trembled, eyes filling with perfect, glittering tears.

“Please, Kaia… I didn’t do anything…”

Her voice cracked like porcelain. Right on cue, Asher appeared, footsteps rushing as soon as he saw her cry.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped at me.

“She dumped our new formula in the trash. It's unusable. We’ll have to start over.”

His jaw tightened. “Do you have proof?”

“I—”

“If you don’t, then don’t treat her like a criminal. You’re interrogating her over nothing.”

“Because I know,” I hissed, “even if I can’t prove it, I know.”

Asher turned to Sylvie, his voice softening. “Did you do it?”

She sniffled and shook her head. “No…”

That was enough.

If the new formula couldn’t be completed before I left… maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

Asher caught up to me near the elevator. We walked in silence, but I felt his eyes on me. Always watching.

“You’ve been strange lately,” he said. “Look, I know you’re upset. But you cannot lash out on Sylvie like that.”

I stopped. Turned to face him.

“Brother,” I said quietly, “you don’t need to keep making excuses for Sylvie. If she didn’t do it, then fine—I was wrong. But if she did… what exactly are you protecting?”

I met his gaze without flinching. “The sheep? Or the wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

The elevator dinged behind me. Before he could answer, I stepped inside and let the doors close.