Chapter 1

I was born with an incurable hero complex. A knight-errant code hardwired right into my marrow. Where others saw self-preservation, I saw honor.

When I was five, the girl next door grew so green with envy over how pale and porcelain my skin was that she sold me to the town recluse on the edge of the woods—a limping, bitter old man—promising me that I was being sent away to live like a pampered princess.

The moment I heard such marvelous luxury awaited, my conscience flared up: "Good fortune was meant to be shared."

Fighting through the haze of the cheap sedative she’d slipped into my juice, I hauled my little legs five miles back down the dirt road in the pouring rain, knocked her out with a chunk of firewood, hog-tied her with clothesline, and dragged her straight to the hermit’s shack to take my place in paradise.

When her weeping parents finally tracked her down the next morning, they packed up their U-Haul and skipped town that very night. I cried myself to sleep by the window, heartbroken, genuinely believing I just hadn't shown enough neighborly hospitality.

Years later, in high school, my desk mate stared at her report card—solid straight A’s, top of our class—and dissolved into quiet, tragic sobs, whining that being too brilliant made people hate her and that no one would ever want to sit with her at lunch.

I took that to heart. I practically inhaled textbooks morning, noon, and night, drilling AP exams until my nose bled and I landed in urgent care twice from sheer exhaustion. From that semester on, I swept every single number-one spot in the district.

She never spoke to me again. I spent weeks staring at the back of her head, deeply perplexed, concluding that I simply needed to study harder so she wouldn't feel so alone in second place.

Then, at eighteen, the social workers and private investigators came knocking.

It turned out I wasn't an orphan after all. I was the stolen heir of the Kingsleys, one of the wealthiest dynasties on the coast.

The girl who had been raised in my place—Tabitha—took one look at my file and broke down into theatrical, cinematic hysterics. She sobbed to our mother that a terrifying bad-boy biker with bleached-blond hair had been stalking her, swearing that if she were thrown out of the estate now, she’d end up murdered in a ditch before sundown.

My biological mother immediately fired off a curt, frantic text instructing me to delay my arrival indefinitely to give Tabitha "emotional space."

I smacked my forehead.

"Is that all?" A deadbeat stalker? "Say no more, sis. I’ve got this."

The following afternoon, the wrought-iron gates of the Kingsley manor swung open, and the entire household gathered on the manicured lawn to bear witness to my grand homecoming:

I rolled up on the pillion seat of a roaring, straight-piped Harley-Davidson, sporting neon-green hair, a grease-stained leather battle jacket, and a face pierced with enough stainless steel to set off every metal detector in North America.

"Hey, baby sister! Is this your bleached-blonde nightmare?"

I slapped the back of the rider’s matte-black helmet, beaming at her with radiant, sisterly affection.

"Good news! He’s your brother-in-law now! I tamed him for you, so pack your bags with peace of mind. You’re free to go! And if he ever gives you side-eye again, just page me—I’ll take a wrench to his kneecaps myself!"

...

My biological mother let out a shrill, air-raid siren of a shriek. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed onto the imported flagstones in a pristine heap of pastel cashmere.

My father’s manicured hands trembled so violently he nearly shredded the DNA dossier and legal identification papers he held. Over and over, he choked out, "God help us... What cosmic sin did we commit?"

While Axel—my supposed biker boyfriend—and I exchanged exaggerated, sickeningly affectionate coos on the driveway, I blinked over his shoulder at Tabitha.

"Well, little sis? Problem solved. When are you calling your movers? Oh, stop the waterworks! If you’re low on cash, just holler. Your new brother-in-law here runs the yard down on Fourth—he’ll hook you up with a rental truck, free of charge!"

The second the words "brother-in-law" left my lips, Dad’s polished patriarch veneer shattered completely.

"Tabitha!" he snapped, turning on the trembling imposter. "The social worker's file explicitly noted that this girl has a stubborn, literal-minded streak! Why on earth did you provoke her with that ridiculous stalker nonsense?!"

I crossed my arms, offended. "Excuse me? Who are you calling stubborn? I don't care if you're the guy who supplied half my chromosomes—disrespect my cognitive process again and see if I don't check you into the nearest wall, old man!"

Axel, playing his part to perfection, revved the throttle and spat toward the hydrangea bushes. "You got a mouth on you, pops! Nobody talks to my girl like that unless they’re shopping for a dirt nap!"

Before a full-scale riot could ignite on the gravel driveway, my newly minted older brother, Damian, took a long, ragged breath and roared, "Enough!"

His dark, patrician eyes bored into mine with pure venom. "Playing the feral psycho just to run Tabitha out of the house? Roxie, I truly underestimated your calculating cruelty."

He pivoted to Dad, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Get her inside before the neighbors’ security guards call the country club. And as for Tabitha... the Kingsley family isn't hurting for grocery money. She stays."

Tabitha, clutching a lace handkerchief, retreated to her chandelier-draped sanctuary on the second floor, shoulders shaking with practiced grace.

Meanwhile, two grim-faced private security guards dragged me away from Axel, while I wailed like a banshee about true love torn asunder, kicking all the way to the ensuite bathroom to have my war paint scrubbed off.

Two hours before the formal welcome dinner, the family butler stood at the bottom of the grand curved staircase, dabbing cold sweat from his temples. He escorted me down, clad in a stiff, bespoke designer gown.

"Mr. Kingsley... the green dye came out of her hair, but..." The butler swallowed hard. "The ink she used on her face is military-grade waterproof tactical marker. It will fade over the next seven days, but for tonight... my deepest apologies, sir. We used half a bottle of solvent. We did everything we could."

The butler bowed ninety degrees, his eyes squeezed shut in absolute despair.

I rounded the landing and faced the parlor.

A collective, jagged gasp sucked the oxygen right out of the room.

They had braced themselves, certainly. But nothing could have prepared them for the reality.

Thick, grease-pencil monobrows. Frosted magenta lips. A constellation of jagged black stars scrawled across my eye sockets. And running down my right cheekbone, in bold, crooked, sharpie block letters: CHAMP.

The genetics counselor had told me back at the clinic that I possessed high-fashion bone structure—that I looked like a classic starlet, the spitting image of my mother's lineage. If those lab techs saw me right now, they would have eaten their clipboards before repeating the compliment.

"That... that grotesque creature cannot be my daughter!" Mother gasped, curling her arms protectively around Damian and Tabitha like a mother hen shielding her chicks from a rabid dog. "Damian warned me about you. You think this freak show will bully my Dolly into leaving? Not a chance in hell!"

"Dolly."

Deep in the fog of my earliest childhood memories, before the crowd separated us, there had been a voice like warm honey whispering that exact pet name in my ear. "My little Dolly." I had once lived inside the circle of those cashmere-wrapped arms.

Swallowing down the sudden, bitter burn in the back of my throat, I yanked back a heavy dining chair with an obnoxious screech of wood against marble and dropped into it, propping my combat boots on the edge of the rung.

"Take me or leave me, lady. Axel told me I’ve always got a cot down at his garage anyway. He’s got half a sleeve of scar tissue down his arm, and I told him I’d ink myself up so he wouldn't feel out of place. You wash this off, I’ll just draw it right back on—"

"Roxie! Whatever game you are playing, I forbid you from seeing that delinquent ever again!" Dad’s voice shook, vibrating with suppressed fury. But catching the cold, unyielding wall in my eyes, his tone wavered, suddenly sounding hollowed out.

"Your mother and sister are... adjusting," he murmured, looking at his pristine silver cutlery rather than my face. "We aren't throwing you out. And Tabitha stays. We can afford both of you. You will be compensated for your years away. Tomorrow, Tabitha will take you to the academy. Etiquette, corporate finance, social decorum. You will learn how to behave. We are going to sand down these... rough edges."

Across the table, the triumphant smirk on Tabitha’s face abruptly hardened.

Enrolling me in the academy meant admitting me to their inner circle. It meant that in the cutthroat chess game of trust funds and boardroom successions, I had officially been handed a seat at the table.

Later that night, as we passed each other in the cavernous hallway, Tabitha clipped her shoulder hard against mine.

She leaned in, her voice dropping its trembling baby-doll pitch to reveal something razor-sharp. "The academy is my kingdom, Roxie. Just you wait."

I watched her sashay down the corridor, silk robe trailing behind her.

A slow grin crept across my inked lips.

"Her kingdom?"

Funny. Back in my old district, the "Roxie Coalition" ran the whole damn county. Sounds like it was time to open recruitment.

...

By noon the following day, the flyers I’d taped to the academy's oak bulletin boards—"ROXIE COALITION: SEEKING SOLDIERS, ALL SKILLS WELCOME"—had been shredded into confetti.

The trust-fund princes and private-equity princesses didn't deign to get their hands dirty confronting me directly. Their weapons were far more pedigree-approved: the chilled air of generational cruelty.

"Is that the lost stray the Kingsleys dredged up from the gutters? Forget the clown makeup, she’s clearly missing half her brain cells. A 'coalition'?"

"I give the Kingsley stock six months before it tanks with an heir like that."

They formed a tight, protective cordon around Tabitha in the quad. If I walked down the hall, the sea parted, people pressing against lockers to avoid brushing my sleeve. They wiped down desks I leaned against. If I inhaled, they crinkled their noses as though the very air I shared with them carried the stench of cheap diesel.

I didn't lose a wink of sleep over it.

I’d spent my whole life proving that being under my wing was the safest place on earth. They’d figure it out eventually.

During Art History, I casually picked up the silicone prank-snake someone had left on my velvet chair and tossed it into the recycling without blinking.

During physical conditioning, when a quiet girl in tennis whites suddenly froze in terror at the crimson blooming on the seat of her skirt, I moved smoothly behind her, unknotted my academy blazer to wrap around her waist, and discreetly slipped an extra-absorbent pad from my pocket into her palm without a word.

In deportment class, my spine was a steel rod, every movement crisp, precise, and effortlessly grounded. Even the terrifying French instructor found herself nodding: "Miss Kingsley possesses an undeniable... vitality. A formidable posture. If only the canvas of her face were not currently an urban hazard..."

And on Wednesday, at the equestrian club, an over-strung thoroughbred lost its mind in the training ring, bucking wildly toward an elite heiress named Courtney who had frozen in the dirt, paralyzed with terror.

I vaulted the fence, grabbed the trailing lunge line, and used my body weight to divert the beast, bringing the lathered horse to a shuddering halt inches from her face.

Courtney stared up at me, her cheeks blotchy, her blue eyes rimmed in red. "Roxie... you knew that was the horse I requested for you. You knew I rigged the saddle cinch to snap so you'd eat dirt! Why the hell did you jump in front of it?!"

I crouched down in the paddock dirt and ruffled her immaculate blowout, dusting off her riding cap.

"Protecting the squad is the boss's job, kid," I said, offering her a hand up. "You ever find yourself in a ditch, call me. Later."

"Who the hell is calling you boss?" she sputtered, though a fierce crimson flush crawled up her neck as she dusted off her breeches.

Within forty-eight hours, the social weather at the academy shifted violently.

The whispers in the marble corridors were no longer about the feral stray with the marker on her face. They were about the golden child who had weaponized a thousand-pound animal against her own sister.

"Honestly, Tabitha acting like the tragic victim when she stole the girl's entire childhood is getting a little stale."

"I can't stand girls who smile in your face and sabotage your stirrups. Roxie is actually... kind of real?"

"I’m unironically Roxie-pilled. Did you see her bench press?"

Tabitha tried to hold her ground, chin high and lips painted petal-pink, but by Thursday afternoon, the ostracization she had spent years perfecting turned inward on her. She broke down sobbing halfway through Macroeconomics and fled in a town car before the final bell.

Before heading home, I tracked down Conrad in the advanced boardroom seminar hall.

Conrad—scion of the monolithic Beaumont enterprise, heir to half the city's commercial real estate, and theoretically, the most eligible bachelor in three states.

I unrolled a crumpled, hand-drawn blueprint across his mahogany desk, spending twenty minutes walking him through my raw, late-night analysis of the West End urban revitalization project. Having had only forty-eight hours to cram zoning laws and commercial tax incentives, my pitch was rough. It was blunt. At times, hilariously informal.

Conrad didn't interrupt once. He just leaned back, his slate-gray eyes fixed intently on my ink-stained face.

"Roxie," he said softly when I finally ran out of breath. "Why are you killing yourself to secure this municipal parcel for the Kingsleys? Is it to prove your claim to the inheritance?"

I blinked, genuinely surprised. "What? No."

"Then why?"

"Because last night I couldn't sleep—the mattress in that mausoleum feels like sleeping on marble—and your father... I mean, "my" father, sent the maid up with a mug of warm milk and honey."

I shrugged, adjusting the cuffs of my oversized blazer. "People don't give me much. So when someone hands me a kindness, even a little one, I pay it back tenfold. It's just the code."

What I didn't tell him was that later that night, I had walked past Dad’s study, trying to punch in the old keypad code I remembered from childhood. It flashed red. I asked the head butler what the new sequence was.

It was Tabitha’s birthday.

I supposed ten years was an eternity. The four digits Dad had sworn would never change, the ones I had chanted like a holy mantra in foster homes whenever I was scared, had been overwritten a long time ago.

Conrad’s gaze turned impossibly complicated. "And if you hand them this multibillion-dollar municipal contract, and they still treat you like an embarrassment? Won't you be devastated?"

"Why would I be?" I gave him a wide, uncomplicated smile. "I give because I want to give, not because I'm buying affection. If they turn out to be decent people, great. If they treat me like garbage after this, I have two working hands and a whole country to explore. I'll pack my rucksack and walk out the front gate. Principles first, pride second. Get it?"

Conrad stared at me, the cool, untouchable aristocrat slowly melting into a quiet, genuine laugh.

"You are nothing like the stories they tell," he murmured. He rose from his leather wingback chair, gathering my crude charcoal maps with surprising reverence. "I don't give a damn about surface pedigree, Roxie. Which is why... regarding the ancestral alliance our families have discussed... I’m hoping..."

He walked me all the way to the academy gates, leaving that sentence dangling in the evening air like an uncashed check.

"I’ll review the West End allocation with the board," he said, holding the passenger door of my rideshare open. "I’ll consider your terms. See you tomorrow, Roxie."

I gave him a crisp military salute, grinning as the cab pulled away. "It worked." Dad was going to lose his mind when he found out the Kingsleys were back on the municipal bidding list.

I burst through the double mahogany front doors of the Kingsley estate, eager to share the news—and stepped directly into the blast radius of a flying porcelain vase.

It shattered against the baseboards, shards grazing my leather boots.

"You unnatural, spiteful monster!"

Mother was standing in the grand foyer, her arm wrapped tightly around a sobbing Tabitha. Her face was contorted with pure, unadulterated loathing. "You dare come back under this roof after what you did to your sister today?!"

Tabitha wept so hard she could barely draw breath, feebly tugging at Mother’s sleeve with trembling fingers. "Mom, please... don't be mad at her. The social status was hers by right anyway... I should just give it all back. I didn't mean to cry, Mom, honestly, the tears just... they wouldn't stop..."

Dad stood by the fireplace, looking down at me with heavy, disappointed eyes.

"The headmaster called, Roxie," Dad said, his voice flat with cold disgust. "He reported that Tabitha was a model student today—quick, poised, brilliant. And that "another" Kingsley daughter orchestrated a vicious, underground intimidation campaign, driving students to target Tabitha. What do you have to say for yourself?!"

I stood frozen in the drafty hall.

Even though I had spent eighteen years telling myself I didn't need validation from strangers, a sudden, blinding heat flared behind my eyelids.

Our names sounded identical when muttered through country club gossip. They had adopted Tabitha as a placeholder, a doll to dress up in my ghost's clothing. And now, every accolade I bled for was credited to her; every sin she committed was pinned to my chest.

Before I could breathe, the heavy oak doors banged open behind me. Damian walked in, completely bypassing my frozen frame, his face flushed with an ecstatic grin as he headed straight for Tabitha.

"Tabitha, you absolute genius!" Damian laughed, unbuttoning his tailored suit jacket. "The Wellington, Chambers, and Radcliffe boys—the ones who wouldn't give me the time of day at the club—personally invited me out for scotch tonight! All they wanted to talk about was 'the brilliant Kingsley sister.' I told them my sister was an absolute powerhouse!"

He pulled an emerald-velvet box from his breast pocket, looping a shimmering Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra pendant around Tabitha’s neck. "You've been begging for this limited edition piece all semester. How’s that for a big brother, huh?"

"The Wellington and Radcliffe boys."

My mind flashed back to the academy archery range that afternoon. A bunch of arrogant trust-fund jocks who had placed five-figure bets on how quickly they could make the "feral girl" snap. I had taken up the recurve bow and dropped ten arrows dead into the bullseye in sixty seconds flat, leaving their jaws in the grass.

The price? A severed blister on my drawing fingers that was currently bleeding into the lining of my pocket.

Just then, Dad’s private cell phone chimed. He glanced at the caller ID, his face instantly transitioning from grim disapproval to utter shock.

"Mr. Beaumont? Yes, sir! Wait... truly? The Kingsley Group is cleared for the West End development summit?" Dad let out an uncharacteristic, booming laugh, sweeping Tabitha up into a celebratory twirl right there on the Persian rug. "Our little lucky charm! We’re back in the game, baby!"

Tabitha giggled, the guilt that had briefly flickered in her eyes vanishing like smoke in a gale. Mother wiped away her tears, beaming with radiant pride, while Damian applauded.

I stood completely still in the shadows of the vestibule. A ghost rattling chains in a house that didn't know I was dead.

I could have pulled out the architectural drafts. I could have held up my shredded, bleeding fingers. I could have demanded the phone and called Conrad directly.

Instead, a profound, crushing exhaustion settled into my bones.

I quietly slipped past the foyer and took the stairs two at a time. As I brushed past Mother, she looked down her nose at my mud-splattered combat boots.

"A face only a mother could stomach," she muttered, "and manners fit for an alley."

The sounds of champagne corks popping echoed through the floorboards late into the night.

In the privacy of my cold, white bathroom, I scrubbed the sink with a sponge. The waterproof ink was finally starting to lift around the edges, shedding its crude black shell to reveal the high cheekbones and delicate arch of my jaw underneath.

Around midnight, a light knock rattled my door.

Tabitha slid inside, carrying a small jar of antiseptic ointment—sent by Dad to soothe his conscience, no doubt. She leaned against my dresser, eyeing my bandaged hand with a cruel, knowing smirk.

"Stings, doesn't it?" she whispered, her voice honey-sweet and utterly hollow. "Must be so exhausting, working yourself to the bone just so I can wear the crown."

I looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror, my voice chillingly even.

"A crown stolen from a corpse still belongs to the dead, Tabitha. What isn't yours will never stay yours."

I was generous by nature. If a friend liked the coat on my back, I’d take it off and drape it over their shoulders. I loved giving.

"But taking from me?"

That was an entirely different sport.

"I'd love to see you try," she sneered, slamming the door behind her.

...

The next afternoon, the moment I stepped off the municipal bus and crossed the estate's courtyard, two county sheriff's deputies rose from the stone bench by the fountain.

"Roxie Kingsley? Your sister, Tabitha Kingsley, has reported a grand larceny involving heirloom jewelry. We need you to accompany us downtown for questioning."

Tabitha stood on the terrace above, eyes brimming with manufactured tragedy. "Roxie, if you wanted the necklace Damian gave me, you could have just asked! Why did you have to break into my jewelry armoire? That makes you a criminal!"

Mother descended the stone steps, her disgust practically radiating off her. "I knew the moment we signed those custody papers that we were inviting poison into our lives! Street brawls, cheating, and now felony theft? What else did they teach you in those squalor camps?"

She looked at the deputies, her voice icy. "Take her. Lock her up for a few days to teach her a lesson. Let her see what happens when she preys on an honorable family."

She didn't ask for evidence. She didn't ask for my timeline.

My fingernails bit into the meat of my palms, drawing fresh blood through the archery bandages. "I didn't touch her room."

"Still lying through your teeth!" Mother sneered. "Look at that face—look at those prison scribbles! Deputy, do you have lie detector tests at the station? Or solitary confinement? Whatever it takes to break this delinquency—"

"Oh, for heaven’s sake, what in the world is this racket?"

A crisp, cultured voice cut through the courtyard. Mrs. Carmichael, our blue-blooded neighbor from across the hedge, strolled past the decorative gates, walking a portly, purebred beagle on a silk leash.

She paused, taking in the patrol car, the deputies, and my painted face.

"Stealing?" Mrs. Carmichael’s manicured brow rose with aristocratic disdain. "Claudia, don't be absurd. Accusing a child of grand larceny on the front lawn? Where did she allegedly take this trinket from?"

Tabitha stumbled over her words. "Her... her bedroom armoire, right after school dismissed at noon!"

"Physically impossible," Mrs. Carmichael said smoothly, adjusting her sunglasses. "This charmingly eccentric young lady has been walking my Buster around the community reservoir since one-thirty. She even helped the groundskeeper unjam the irrigation pump."

She pulled out an iPhone and tapped into the neighborhood WhatsApp group. "A girl with 'CHAMP' scrawled across her face in tactical ink is hardly inconspicuous, darling. Let me ask the ladies."

Within thirty seconds, the phone began pinging like a slot machine.

"[The girl with the face paint? She was at the corner market around three, helping Mrs. Appleton carry three crates of organic peaches to her trunk.]"

"[Oh, I saw her! At four, she was at the park gazebo giving old Judge Barstow pointers on his endgame chess strategy. The Judge practically begged her to come back for tea.]"

Mother looked like she had swallowed glass. "Could... could they have mistaken her for someone else?"

"[Mistaken her? Claudia, if someone forgets that face, they need an MRI. We all thought she was having an artistic crisis, but she’s the most polite child on this boulevard.]"

Five minutes later, a deputy retrieved the missing necklace from the dark crevice beneath Tabitha’s own platform bed frame, where it had clearly been kicked. The officers gave Tabitha a stern, humiliating lecture on the legal penalties of filing a false police report and departed with squealing tires.

Mrs. Carmichael pocketed her phone, giving Mother a long, pointed look that spoke volumes of high-society censure. "Get your house in order, Claudia. Don't be a fool."

Mother’s face flushed an ugly, mottled purple.

Before Mrs. Carmichael turned to leave, she stopped in front of me, letting out a low, appreciative hum. "Good instincts on the chess board, young lady. That boy Conrad has quite an eye."

Mother muttered under her breath, turning away. "How could she possibly share my blood? She behaves like an operative..."

The humiliation kept Mother quiet for three whole hours.

But when Tabitha dramatically refused her dinner tray, weeping that her nerves had been ruined, Mother marched straight into Dad’s study to demand blood:

"The academy has a four-day heat wave recess starting tomorrow! Throw Roxie out into the city without a dime! Let her try to survive in the real world for seventy-two hours! Let her see that without the Kingsley name, she is an absolute nobody!"

...

Three days later.

"Davis," Mother said over breakfast, dabbing a linen napkin to her lips. "Has Roxie called to beg for her allowance yet?"

The elderly butler paused, staring straight ahead with absolute neutrality.

"Ma'am... Miss Roxie appears to be preparing for an initial public offering."

When Mother finally tracked down my coordinates on an artisanal food truck app and stormed down to the boardwalk, she found Axel and me running a pop-up gourmet crepe and taco stand with the industrial efficiency of a military field hospital.

Sanitary masks and branded bandanas covered the lower halves of our faces, leaving only sharp, striking eyes and sleek athletic frames moving in lightning-fast synergy.

A line of tech executives, college kids, and tourists stretched around the entire city block. Our griddles were immaculate, our ingredients organic, and our flavors legendary. Customers adored the vibe: I rounded down their change, threw in extra crisp bacon if they looked exhausted from work, and laughed off accidental dropped plates by handing over free desserts.

We were clearing four figures a day in cash tips alone.

"Who needed a trust fund?" At this rate, I’d be buying out Dad’s logistics subsidiary before my nineteenth birthday.

"Roxie Kingsley!"

Mother’s voice screeched over the sizzling butter. She was shaking so violently her pearl earrings rattled. "Look at you—wallowing in the gutter! Degrading yourself! Degrading this family!"

I flipped a crepe with practiced ease. "I’m paying taxes and running a registered enterprise with my own two hands. How is that degrading?"

Mother lunged over the stainless-steel counter, her polished nails sinking into the sleeve of my chef’s apron, dragging me physically out the back door of the trailer.

"Did you ignore my messages?! Today is the formal dinner with the Beaumont family to finalize Tabitha’s betrothal! They specifically demanded to meet the 'biological daughter' before contracts are signed!"

She shoved me into the back of a waiting town car. "You will sit there, keep your vulgar mouth shut, and look modest! If you ruin your sister’s marriage into the Beaumont empire, I will personally see to it that you are erased from the family registry!"

I was still brushing flour off my knuckles when Mother shoved me into the secondary guest dressing room of the private country club.

The betrothal to the Beaumont family had been inked by our grandfathers decades ago. From what I had gathered from the kitchen staff, as the Beaumont family’s power soared and the Kingsleys stagnated, the alliance had stalled—the Beaumonts clearly felt marrying into our fading name was a bad investment.

"Why on earth had they suddenly agreed to push it forward?"

I stared into the vanity mirror.

Three days of sweating over blazing griddles had completely dissolved the military-grade tactical ink.

The "CHAMP" had washed down the drain with the dishwater. Today was day seven. The ink was gone.

I splashed cold mountain water over my face, patting it dry with a terry towel, and turned around just as the dressing room door clicked open.

Tabitha’s smug, sugary voice floated in from the hall:

"My sister? Oh, she’s right inside! You might know her as that viral 'crepe girl' trending on TikTok—everyone's raving about her waistline and her eyes..."

Tabitha’s voice carried that distinct, bitter edge she could never quite hide.

"Of course, she only wears that mask because her actual face is completely disfigured with gang ink!"

A snickering voice from the academy entourage chimed in: "The resident gargoyle!"

Tabitha giggled, practically bouncing on her designer heels. "I did warn everyone to brace themselves. If someone faints, the Kingsleys aren't covering the ambulance fee—"

She shoved the door fully open.

I turned around, wiping the dampness from my collarbone.

"You looking for me?"

A collective, jagged gasp hit the room like a sonic boom.

They had braced themselves.

"God, had they braced themselves."