Chapter 4

"Hey. Stop spacing out."

Ethan snapped me back to the present and pushed me into the car.

All four of us in one vehicle — it felt strangely like those old days when there was no tension between us, when everything was easy.

I felt exhausted. I leaned against the window, closed my eyes, and tried to rest through the pain.

The car was sealed. The thick, metallic smell of blood spread quickly through the enclosed space.

Caleb's brow furrowed slightly. He spoke carefully, like he wasn't sure he wanted the answer. "Is that… blood I'm smelling?"

Ethan, behind the wheel, frowned hard.

"Ask her," he said.

Caleb nudged me.

I nearly blacked out.

But I forced my eyes open and looked at him, not quite focused.

Caleb lightly pressed his fingertip to the blood on my forehead, then studied it. "Since when do they make stage blood this realistic?"

Looking at his expression, I couldn't help but let out a small, humorless smile.

"What's funny?" he asked.

I shook my head and said nothing.

I was laughing at how stupid they were.

No — that wasn't right.

All three of these men were intelligent. Highly intelligent.

They had simply decided, before they ever looked at the facts, that I was the villain.

I stayed quiet, and they didn't push. They figured the blood was fake and left it at that.

The car pulled up in front of a sleek high-rise apartment building not long after.

The moment I saw the building, it hit me like a physical blow.

I had grown up here. My family lived here — before everything fell apart, before my parents were forced to sell the unit to pay off the debt, before we had to leave.

From the passenger seat, Sebastian offered a flat explanation. "Don't look so surprised. Yvonne said she loved this place, so we bought it for her. A gift."

A bad feeling settled over me.

Standing at the door of the home I had grown up in, I finally couldn't hold it back.

I looked at the three men who had once promised to protect me always. "You knew I was saving up to buy this place back. That was the whole point — I wanted to give it to my parents. And you gave it to Yvonne as a birthday present?"

My parents had never really let go of that apartment.

Too many memories lived inside those walls — the three of us, back when life was whole.

That was why I had refused to take their money at twenty-six. I wanted to earn it back on my own terms.

The place wasn't cheap. I didn't want it handed to me by a man.

I had almost saved enough when they put me in prison.

And sometime during those two years, the apartment went to Yvonne.

Something small and aching stirred in my chest.

The three of them exchanged a glance. Something shifted in their eyes — not quite guilt, just a kind of settled certainty.

Then they answered me, as if the matter were perfectly obvious.

"It was Yvonne's birthday wish. Of course we made it happen."

"There are other units available in this building. If you want one that badly, just buy a different one."

"Besides, you're the one who put Yvonne in a wheelchair two years ago. Giving up a little for her is the least you can do. Think of it as making amends — we were actually doing you a favor."

And what — I was supposed to thank them for that?

It was almost funny.

Just then, the front door opened.

A girl appeared in the doorway, her face pale and delicate as porcelain. She was wearing a long white dress and sitting in a wheelchair.

When she saw me, Yvonne let out a soft, startled sound and turned her face away.

"She's… why did you bring her here…"

The tears came right on cue, sliding silently down her cheeks.

Two years, and nothing had changed. Yvonne could still cry on command.

If I had known how this would all unfold, I never would have made her my assistant. I should've pointed her toward acting — she clearly had the talent for it. Maybe none of this would have happened.

Yvonne's distress flipped a switch in all three of them. They turned to look at me with hard, watchful eyes, as if they expected me to lunge at her any second.

The crying made my head throb even worse.

I looked at Yvonne's legs — completely hidden beneath the long hem of that white dress. Those supposedly ruined legs.

I spoke first.

"Why don't you lift your skirt and show them the prosthetics?"