All Chapters of Reborn Queen: The Hollywood Code: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

The wind was a blade against her skin.It sliced through the thin silk of her borrowed dress, a cruel reminder of how utterly exposed she was. Below, Los Angeles sprawled like a galaxy of fallen stars, a city of dreams that had chewed her up and was now preparing to spit her out onto the unforgiving pavement fifty stories below."Please, Scarlett," Ava Monroe whispered, her voice a fragile thread against the howling symphony of the rooftop. Her fingers, numb with cold and terror, scrabbled for purchase on the smooth, unforgiving marble of the ledge.Her stepsister, Scarlett Vance, stood a few feet away, a vision in crimson against the glittering skyline. The wind whipped at her perfectly styled blonde hair, but her smile remained placid, almost beatific. It was the same smile she had worn on the cover of Vogue, the same smile she’d used to accept the Oscar that should have been Ava’s."Please?" Scarlett repeated, the single word dripping with a saccharine poison that had coated their

The notebook was closed, its secrets safely locked away, but the name echoed in my mind: Leo Keller. My first target. My first building block.Finding him, in my first life, would have been impossible. I would have had to go through agents, managers, a dozen layers of industry gatekeepers who existed solely to say "no." But this was 2005. The world was more analog, more beautifully, chaotically accessible. And I remembered a detail from a long-forgotten industry blog post about the early, hungry days of the Paranormal Footage creator: he practically lived at a place called "The Grind," a 24-hour diner in Burbank that was an unofficial office for aspiring writers who couldn't afford a real one.I didn't bother with the pathetic costumes in my closet. I pulled on the simplest things I owned: a pair of worn-out jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I was not here to audition. I was not here to impress. I was here to deliver a prophecy. Oracles do not need to be fashionable.The walk to the di

My words dropped into the greasy air of the diner like a block of ice."We're throwing out the entire script."Leo stared at me, the dawning awe on his face instantly replaced by a fresh wave of betrayal and horror. The fragile trust I had just spent ten minutes building threatened to shatter into a million pieces."Throw it out?" he choked out, his voice a strangled whisper. "My script? That's… that's the whole thing! That's my story! What are we even investing in if not the script?"His reaction was exactly what I expected. The panic of a creator whose creation is about to be murdered. In my past life, I would have sympathized. I might have even backpedaled, softened the blow.But that Ava was dead.I didn't move. I didn't raise my voice. I held his frantic gaze with a look of absolute, unshakeable calm. It was a look that said, You are panicking because you are still thinking like a writer. I am thinking like a god."Your script was brilliant, Leo," I said, my voice quiet but firm.