I did not sleep that evening.
How could I? Each time that I closed my eyes, I could see the face of Ethan, hear the voice of Ethan, feel the ground give away beneath me. The wedding dress still hung in the closet, taunting me with its unblemished white. At about 3 AM, I pulled it down and jammed it into the back of the closet, refusing to look at it any longer.
My phone wouldn't quit buzzing. Messages from relatives I hadn't heard from in years, all with the same message: how lovely it was that Ethan was living Victoria's final wish. How beautiful. How sacrificial.
No one asked how I was.
Before the sun came up, having bathed the tiny apartment in grays, I had made up my mind. I was attending that wedding. Not because I wanted to see the man I loved marry my stepsister, but because I needed to see it for myself. I needed to know how this was actually happening.
And perhaps, somewhere hidden inside my broken heart, I'd hoped Ethan would notice me and understand what he was giving up.
The location was the Grandview Estate—aptly, a house my family possessed, though they weren't aware that I knew that. I'd monitored the Hart Empire even as I've pretended to be penniless. Old habits.
I dressed in a plain black dress, the only dressy thing I had that wasn't from a bargain store. Walking through the elaborate gardens toward the ceremony area, I felt like a phantom stalking my own existence.
"Sophia?"
I faced her to see Maya hurrying to me, her expression a blend of shock and worry. "What are you doing here? I thought—after what Ethan did—"
"I have to see it," I whispered. "I have to see her."
Maya caught my arm. "This is a terrible idea. Your family is here. Victoria is acting the dying bride perfectly. And Ethan." She paused. "He looks happy, Soph. I'm sorry, but he does."
The words slap like a punch, but I continued to walk. The ceremony was taking place in the rose garden, with white chairs lined up precisely and flowers as far as the eye could see—the precise configuration Ethan and I had planned together six months prior. My eyes watered.
"Sophia Hart."
My mother's words froze me. I turned and caught sight of her standing by the door, poised in a designer gown that had cost more than six months' worth of my rent. My father stood next to her, his face hewn from displeasure.
"Mother. Father." I maintained a level tone despite shaking hands.
"I warned you not to make a scene," my mother spat, looking around to see if anyone was watching. "What brings you here?"
"I was invited to a wedding," I replied. "Or have you forgotten that it was originally going to be mine?"
My father advanced, his face stern. "That is enough. Victoria is dying, Sophia. For once, in your self-centered life, consider someone else."
Selfish. He was accusing me of being selfish.
"I sacrificed everything for him," I said in a whisper. "Six years of my life. And you're accusing me of being selfish because I'm hurt?"
"You sacrificed nothing we didn't offer you in return," my mother snapped. "We pleaded with you to leave that nobody and come home, to marry the man we had chosen for you. You refused. You made your choice, and now you live with it."
"The man you picked?" I laughed harshly. "You mean the business deal you desired. I was never your daughter to you—but an exchange. Your daughter, I must say."
"And Victoria?" My father's tone was cold. "She's been nothing but thankful for all we've provided her. She's established a career, made us proud, and now she's dying. She deserves happiness in her last few months."
"Doth she?" The words slipped out before I could catch them. "Do you know for certain that she's really dying?"
My mother's palm cracked across my cheek.
The slap rang in the garden, and instantly a few heads swiveled in our direction. I reached up and touched my burning cheek, feeling the salt of blood where my lip had broken against my teeth.
"How dare you," my mother spat, her voice trembling with anger. "How dare you say that Victoria lied about having cancer. You're jealous, bitter, and pathetic. I'm ashamed to have you for a daughter."
"Then don't." The words slipped out steady, icy. "Don't call me your daughter anymore."
"Fine." My father's tone was final, absolute. "You're no longer part of this family, Sophia. We gave you everything, and you threw it away for a man who didn't even want you. Now you want to destroy your sister's last chance at happiness? You're dead to us."
Dead to them.
The words ought to have stung more, but I was numb. Perhaps because a part of me had always suspected they'd never actually looked at me. Victoria had been their child since the day they'd adopted her. I was merely the biological inconvenience they'd been lumbered with.
"The ceremony is beginning," my mother said, already walking away. "Get out before you humiliate yourself further."
But I did not leave.
I spotted an empty seat in the very last row, partially concealed by a huge floral display. Maya sat down next to me, gripping my hand so tightly it was painful. Good. At least I could still feel something.
The music began.
Ethan marched down the aisle first, heartbreakingly handsome in his tuxedo—the very same tuxedo he was originally going to wear to our wedding. He seemed nervous but unshakeable, like a man embarking on something noble and just.
Then Victoria emerged.
She was lovely. She had to be. Her dark hair was intricately upstyled, her makeup flawless. The wedding gown—my wedding gown design, I suddenly realized—was custom-fitted to perfection. But it was the way she moved that sent icy blood through my veins.
She wasn't fragile. She wasn't weak. She walked down that aisle with the strength and poise of a woman in her perfect health, her smile shining, her steps sure.
"Maya," I whispered. "Does she resemble someone dying to you?"
Maya's hold on my hand tightened. "No. No, she doesn't."
I saw Victoria make it up to the altar, saw Ethan grasp her hands in such sweetness, and something snapped inside my head. The way she was acting the tragic bride, squeezing every second for maximum sympathy and notice. The way my family had stared at her with such compassion and reverence.
This wasn't about a terminal wish.
This was Victoria helping herself to what was mine because she could. Because she always did.
The officiant started talking, but I hardly heard what he said. My brain was racing, things clicking into place. Victoria had always competed with me, always had to have what I had—even when I'd been the ignored daughter. My successes, my friends, my chances. She'd all taken them with a smile and an outcry.
And now she was taking Ethan.
"If anyone has a objection to this marriage," the officiant stated, "speak now or hold your peace forever."
I rose to my feet.
The creak of my chair against the floor seemed deafeningly loud. Every eye swiveled in my direction. Ethan's face turned pale. Victoria's smile wavered for a moment—but I caught it. I saw the flicker of victory in her eyes.
"Sophia, sit down," my father spat from several rows back.
But I was finished with being quiet. Finished with being invisible.
"I object," I declared, my words echoing over the garden. "I object because Victoria isn't dying."
Gasps spread through the group. Victoria's eyes went wide, and she staggered theatrically, holding on to Ethan's arm. "Sophia, how could you? I'm dying, and you—"
"Produce your medical records," I dared her. "Now. Demonstrate that you have cancer."
"This is outrageous!" My mother stood up, her face aflame with anger. "Security! Take her away!"
"No, wait." It was Ethan who interrupted, his voice hesitant. He gazed at Victoria, and for the first time, I saw a look of doubt cross his face. "Victoria, perhaps you should—"
"I don't have to prove anything!" Victoria's voice cracked, her face streaming with tears. "My own sister—my own family—and she's blaming me for lying about dying! What kind of monster are you, Sophia?"
But still she hadn't produced any proof.
Two security guards dragged me toward the door. I didn't resist. I'd said what I had to say. I'd sowed the seed of doubt.
"You're crazy!" Victoria shouted after me, her voice cracking. "You're crazy and jealous, and I pity you!"
The other guests nodded in agreement. Poor Victoria. Heartless Sophia.
They pulled me out of the garden and literally threw me onto the pavement outside the estate gates. I scraped my palms and knees hard on the ground. The black dress ripped at the hem.
Maya came running out behind me, down on her knees beside me. "Oh my God, are you alright?"
I wasn't alright. I was as far from alright as it's possible to be.
But sitting there on the hard asphalt, bleeding and humiliatied, something inside me shifted. The numbness was searing away, being replaced by something hot and sharp and completely merciless.
My phone vibrated. My father's text: "You're officially disowned. Don't contact us again. Don't use the Hart name. You're nothing."
A second text, this one from my mother: "We've frozen your trust fund. You'll get nothing from us. You made your choice."
I looked at the messages, then at my skinned and bleeding hands.
Nothing. They'd left me with nothing.
No family. No fiancé. No money—well, no access to the Hart fortune, anyway. The trust fund my grandmother had given me was now somehow "frozen," though I suspected they didn't have the right to do so. But attorneys cost cash I didn't possess.
The lease on the apartment was going to be done in two weeks. I had perhaps three hundred dollars in my own checking account. And I was pregnant with a baby whose father had just married my stepsister.
"Come on," Maya said softly, standing up with me.
"Let's get you—"
"I'm fine," I said reflexively, dusting off my destroyed dress.
"You're not fine. You're—"
"I said I'm fine."
But I wasn't. And we both knew it.
Maya took me home in silence. When we got there, I discovered all of Ethan's few belongings packed up in boxes outside the door. Thorough. He'd likely hired someone to bring them away while he was at the ceremony.
There was a note at the top: "Sorry it ended this way. I hope you can be happy for us. - E"
I folded up the note and let it drop to the ground.
Within the apartment itself, it was empty. The wedding dress was still jammed in the closet. The last night's pasta sauce still sat on the stove, dried and cracked. The smoke alarm battery was dead.
My whole life, boiled down to this.
I sat on the couch—our couch, which we'd found together at a second-hand store—and let myself cry for the first time. Not soft tears, but great, ragged sobs that ripped through my chest and shook my entire body.
Maya wrapped her arms around me, not speaking, just holding me.
When the crying finally subsided, I felt hollow. Empty. Like someone had scooped out all the insides of me and left only a shell.
"What am I going to do?" I asked quietly.
Maya's mouth opened to respond, but before she could, there was a hard knock at the door.
We both stopped moving.
"Sophia Hart?" A deep, unfamiliar male voice called through the door. "I have to talk to you. It's an emergency."
Maya and I looked at each other. "Who is it?" we called out.
"My name is Damien Blackwood. And I'm here to make Ms. Hart an offer she won't want to refuse."
Blackwood. That name made me shiver. Everyone was familiar with the Blackwood name—one of the richest and most influential families in the nation, going head-to-head with the Harts in power and money. Ruthless. Deadly. Untouchable.
What in the world could Damien Blackwood need me for?
Maya headed for the door, but I reached out and caught her. My intuition was screaming at me that this was important. This was the precipice, and I could either retreat back into my unhappy existence or leap towards the unknown.
I stepped over to the door and opened it.
The man standing in my doorway was devastating. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and darker eyes that seemed to see straight through me. He wore a suit that probably cost more than a year of my rent, and he looked at me like I was a puzzle he was determined to solve.
"Ms. Hart," he said, his voice smooth as expensive whiskey. "We need to talk about your future."
"I don't have a future," I spat.
His mouth twisted into something that could have been a smile. "That's where you're wrong. You have exactly the future you're willing to fight for." He stopped, his eyes burning. "I know what happened today. I know about Victoria. About Ethan. About your family disowning you."
"How—"
"I take it upon myself to know things." He produced a business card and offered it to me. "I'm willing to give you something your family never gave you: a true choice. Power. Revenge. All of it that you have been denied."
I gazed at the card, my hand shaking.
"What's the catch?" Maya asked warily behind me.
Damien never took his eyes off me. "The catch is easy. You do as I tell you. You take your place as the rightful Hart heiress. And you allow me to assist you in destroying everyone who ever doubted you."
My heart was thudding so loudly, I could hear it through my ears.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why would you assist me?"
"Because, Ms. Hart," he replied, his voice going low, "I've been waiting for someone just like you. Someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Someone who is hungry enough to take what's theirs."
He inched closer, and I smelled expensive cologne and something else, something dangerous.
"So what is it?" he said. "Do you remain here in this apartment, penniless and shattered, standing back and letting your stepsister live your life? Or do you take my hand and become the woman they'll all regret ever messing with?"
I glanced down at the card in his palm. Damien Blackwood, CEO, Blackwood Enterprises.
Maya whispered behind me, "Sophia, I don't know if I can do this."
But I wasn't listening anymore.
I was remembering Victoria's victorious smile. Ethan's sorry eyes. My mother's slap, and my father's icy rejection. Six years lost to people who never had cared for me.
I was remembering the baby in my belly, and the life I wanted to create for them.
I reached for the card.
"Tell me what I have to do," I said.
Damien Blackwood's grin was blade-sharp.
"First," he said, "we make them wish for the day they discarded you."