The parking garage was quiet except for the hum of fluorescent lights. May's heels clicked against the concrete, unhurried, almost lazy — like a woman strolling through a garden instead of walking away from the wreckage of her own name.
April jogged to catch up, April's sister instincts refusing to let May be alone right now. "You don't have to pretend with us," she said. "Not with me and August."
"I'm not pretending." May pulled out her phone, checked it, then slid it back into her clutch without reading whatever notification had lit up the screen. "I really am tired."
August fell into step on her other side, quiet as always, watching May's profile in the half-light. "Your cheek's red."
"It'll fade."
"That's not what I meant."
May finally stopped walking. She turned to face her sisters — the two who had never once looked at her like she was something borrowed, something that didn't quite belong in the family photographs. Not like Luciana. Not like the reporters. Not like the whispers that had followed her since she was nine years old and newly arrived with a suitcase and a last name that wasn't originally hers.
"I know what you meant," May said quietly. "And I'm telling you — I'm fine."
"You're never this calm when you're actually fine," April said. "You get chatty. You make jokes. Right now you're—" she searched for the word. "Still. You're never still."
May's mouth curved, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Maybe I'm growing up."
Behind them, the elevator dinged. June emerged, heels in one hand, phone in the other, already barking something efficient and clipped at whoever was unlucky enough to be on the other end of the call. She hung up as she reached them.
"Car's coming around," June said. Then, softer, studying May's face the way she might study a contract with fine print she didn't trust: "Luciana's going to regret that slap."
"She already regrets it," May said. "She just doesn't know it yet."
The four of them stood there a moment, the garage light flickering faintly overhead, and none of them said what they were all thinking — that the old May, the one who absorbed insults like a sponge and cried quietly in bathrooms so no one would hear, had not walked out of that ballroom tonight.
Someone else had.
The car pulled up. May slid into the back seat first, resting her head against the window, eyes closing like she truly meant to sleep.
But her fingers, hidden in the folds of her coat, were already typing a message.
*Do you have the footage from the hotel corridor. All of it. I want to see who let Zander's PR team leak that story before the ring was even on the table.*
She hit send before opening her eyes again.
"Home," she told the driver, voice soft, almost sweet. "I have an early morning."
In the front seat, June caught her gaze in the rearview mirror and said nothing at all.
The city blurred past the window in smears of gold and red. May kept her eyes shut, but she wasn't asleep — her mind had already left the car, already back in that ballroom, replaying the exact second Zander's smile had flickered before the reporters descended.
He'd known. Not suspected. *Known.* Someone didn't tip off half the city's press to ambush a "mistress" story at a hotel gala by accident. That kind of leak took planning, timing, a name on a payroll somewhere.
Her phone buzzed against her palm.
**Wren:** *Pulling corridor footage now. Give me an hour.*
**Wren:** *You okay?*
May typed back three words: *Get me names.*
Then she opened her eyes.
"You're not sleeping," August said from the seat beside her. It wasn't a question.
"I'm resting my eyes."
"May." August's voice was low, careful, the way it always was when she chose to actually speak instead of simply observe. "Whatever you're about to do — don't do it alone."
May turned her head, studied her sister's face in the passing streetlight. August rarely offered opinions unprompted. When she did, it meant she'd already seen further ahead than anyone else in the car.
"I'm not doing anything," May said. "I'm going home to sleep, remember? Boring party."
"Right." August didn't push. She never did. But she reached over and squeezed May's hand once, briefly, before letting go.
Up front, June was still scrolling through her phone, jaw tight. "The story's already up," she said. "Three outlets. 'Adopted Heiress Caught in Love Triangle with Married Tycoon.' They used the photo from six months ago — the one at the charity dinner where he cornered you by the bar."
"Of course they did." May's voice stayed even. "It's a better photo. More scandal, better lighting."
"This isn't funny."
"I'm not laughing."
June twisted around in her seat, and for a moment the composed, efficient older sister looked almost afraid. "May, if this spreads the way I think it will, the board is going to ask questions. Dad's board. Grandfather's board. They've been looking for a reason—"
"I know what they've been looking for," May said, and there it was again — that quiet, glacial edge beneath her words. "I've known since I was nine."
The car went silent.
April, squeezed between June and the door, finally broke it. "So what are you going to do?"
May looked out the window again, at the city lights sliding by like a fuse burning down toward something none of them could see yet.
"Tonight?" she said. "Nothing. I'm going to go home, take off these heels, and sleep like the harmless, tired, humiliated girl everyone thinks I am."
She let the silence stretch just long enough.
"Tomorrow," she added softly, "is a different matter."