Rhea stepped closer again, pointing at Ling's chest.
"You left," Rhea said through clenched teeth. "You vanished. You flew away while I kept running—running, you heard my voice behind, telling you to stop. And when I reached —"
Her voice broke.
"You were gone."
Ling flinched.
Rhea saw it. And it only made her angrier.
"So don't stand there pretending you care now," Rhea hissed. "You don't. You just hate losing control."
Ling's breath came shallow. She looked away for half a second, jaw flexing, then looked back at Rhea.
"You think this is about control?" Ling asked lowly.
"Yes!" Rhea shouted instantly. "Everything with you is control. Fear. Violence. Punishment."
Ling took a slow step forward.
Rhea didn't move back.
"I punish myself more than I ever punished you," Ling said, her voice suddenly sharp, edged with something dangerous. "But you don't see that. You never want to."
Rhea scoffed through tears. "Oh please. Poor Ling Kwong. The trillionaire heiress who destroys people and then cries about it later."
Ling's eyes darkened.
"Say it again," Ling said quietly.
"What?" Rhea snapped.
"Say you hate me again," Ling said, voice steady but strained. "Look at me and say it."
Rhea's lips trembled violently. Tears fell harder now.
"I hate you," she said again—but this time it came out weaker. Broken. "I hate what you do to me."
Ling's chest rose sharply. She stepped closer until there was barely space between them.
"Good," Ling said hoarsely. "Then hate me."
Rhea's eyes widened.
"Hate me," Ling repeated. "Because if you didn't, you wouldn't still be standing here screaming instead of walking away."
Rhea shoved her again, harder this time. "Stop acting like you know me!"
Ling grabbed the desk behind her to steady herself—not from the shove, but from the truth cutting too close.
"I know you don't hate me," Ling said softly. "You're just trying to survive me."
That did it.
Rhea let out a sob so raw it hurt to hear. She slapped Ling's arm—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to sting.
"Get away from me!" she cried. "I don't want you near me. I don't want your guilt. I don't want your obsession."
She turned sharply toward the door.
Ling didn't stop her.
She stood there, rigid, watching Rhea's back retreat like it had so many times before.
At the door, Rhea paused.
Her shoulders shook.
Without turning around, she said in a broken whisper, "You should have let me freeze that night. It would've hurt less than this."
The door slammed shut.
Ling stayed where she was.
The torn applications lay scattered across the floor.
Ling went back to the mansion without a word to anyone.
The gates opened automatically. The guards straightened. No one spoke. No one dared.
She walked straight past the living room where Dadi and Rina were sitting. Rina opened her mouth to tease, then stopped the moment she saw Ling's face—empty, drained, eyes hollow like something had been scraped out of her chest.
Ling didn't remove her coat.
Didn't change.
Didn't eat.
She went straight to her room and shut the door.
Locked it.
Then she collapsed onto the bed fully clothed, shoes still on, face turned into the pillow like she was trying to suffocate her own thoughts.
She didn't cry loudly.
Just silent tears soaking into the fabric, jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
"I hate her," Ling whispered into the pillow, voice flat, exhausted.
The words didn't convince even her.
Her body shook once, sharply, like a suppressed sob—and then she went still.
Sleep came fast. Brutal. The kind that wasn't rest but escape.
Rhea's mansion was loud in comparison.
Too loud.
The clinking of cutlery. Kane's controlled voice discussing something trivial. Roin trying—failing—to joke. Amaya babbling softly in Shyra's arms.
Rhea sat stiffly at the dining table, barely touching her food.
Her eyes burned. Her head throbbed. Her hands still cramped from writing.
Kane noticed. Of course she did.
"You're not eating," Kane said coolly.
"I'm not hungry," Rhea replied flatly.
Roin glanced at her. "You okay?"
Rhea didn't answer.
The moment dinner ended, she stood abruptly.
"I'm going to my room."
Kane frowned. "Rhea—"
"I said I'm tired," Rhea snapped, voice sharp with restraint.
She walked away before anyone could say more.
The door to her room closed behind her—and that was it.
She broke.
Her knees buckled, and she slid down the door, hands covering her face as sobs tore out of her chest violently, uncontrollable, like she'd been holding them back with her teeth all day.
"I hate her," Rhea cried brokenly. "I hate her so much."
Shyra heard it.
She rushed in moments later, Amaya already asleep in her arms. One look at Rhea on the floor and Shyra's heart clenched.
"Rhea…"
She quickly laid Amaya in the crib and crossed the room, kneeling beside Rhea.
Rhea clutched at Shyra's shirt like a child.
"She humiliated me," Rhea sobbed. "She made me write a hundred applications—people laughed at me, Shyra. They laughed."
Shyra's eyes filled instantly. She pulled Rhea into her arms, rocking her gently.
"I know. I know."
"And then she held me," Rhea continued through tears, voice shaking with fury. "Like she didn't just destroy me. Like she cared."
Shyra stroked her hair softly. "You're allowed to be angry."
"I told her I hate her," Rhea whispered, choking. "I meant it. I didn't. I don't know."
Her hands trembled.
"She always does this," Rhea cried. "She leaves. She comes back. She hurts me. Then she looks at me like I'm her whole world."
Shyra closed her eyes, holding her tighter.
"You still love her," Shyra said quietly. Not accusing. Just truth.
Rhea shook her head violently. "No. I can't. If I love her, I'll disappear. I'll disappear like before."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I almost died alone. She didn't even know."
Shyra swallowed hard.
"She didn't know," Shyra repeated gently. "And that doesn't erase what happened. But it doesn't mean you didn't matter."
Rhea laughed weakly through tears. "She matters more than I do. She always will."
"That's not true," Shyra said firmly. "She's just louder about her pain."
Rhea curled into Shyra's arms, exhausted beyond words.
"I told her I hate her to death," Rhea whispered. "I wanted it to hurt her the way I hurt."
Shyra kissed the top of her head. "Sometimes we aim for pain because we don't know how to ask for mercy."
Rhea's sobs softened into quiet crying.
"I don't want to see her," she murmured. "But I don't want her gone."
Shyra didn't answer immediately.
She just held her.
Miles away, in a dark, silent room, Ling slept like someone who'd been wounded too deeply to feel it yet.
And in another mansion, Rhea cried herself empty in someone else's arms.
Neither knew the other was doing the same.
Both told themselves the same lie in the dark:
I hate her.