POV: Elise Carter (Past)
Five Years Ago
It started with a text.
Liam: Meet me on the terrace at midnight. I need to talk to you. Alone.
I had stared at the screen for ten seconds too long, heart thumping in my throat. Back then, I still believed in fairy tale endings and white lies wrapped in affection.
Still believed that Liam Hunt was mine.
The terrace was quiet when I arrived, wind brushing my hair back from my face. I stood in my pale blue satin dress—the one Tiffany had insisted I wear—thinking it made me look fragile and feminine.
"Liam?" I called softly.
He stepped out of the shadows, hands in the pockets of his tailored tux, eyes unreadable.
"You came," he said.
"Of course. What is it? You sounded… urgent."
He hesitated, then walked toward me slowly. "There's something I need to tell you."
My throat tightened. Was he going to propose early? Was he nervous?
He reached for my hand.
"I think we should postpone the engagement party."
My smile faltered. "Postpone?"
His voice was careful. "Just for a few weeks. Your father's company is under scrutiny, the press is watching, and—"
"And you're embarrassed to be tied to my name?" I interrupted, yanking my hand back.
"No! Elise, that's not what I meant—"
"Then say what you do mean."
His jaw clenched. "Tiffany told me things. About your family. About… your mother's accident."
I went cold. "What did she say?"
"That the Carter Foundation isn't as clean as it seems. That your father—"
"My father made mistakes," I snapped. "But he didn't deserve to die with his reputation in shreds."
He sighed and looked away.
And suddenly, I knew.
This wasn't just about postponement.
It was about betrayal.
POV: Tiffany Carter
I watched from the upper balcony, drink in hand, pretending to enjoy the string quartet. My stepfather's charity gala was the perfect cover—an event where everyone wore masks, both literal and emotional.
Elise stood on the terrace below, her posture stiff with disbelief. Liam's hand hovered in the air where hers had been.
Good. Let her feel it. Let her ache.
It wasn't enough to steal her fiancé.
I wanted to steal her future.
She had always been too beloved, too perfect. Even after my mother married her father, Elise had the world. I was the side character, the background shadow.
Not anymore.
The Carter name would fall.
And I would rise from the rubble wearing her crown.
POV: Elise Carter (Past)
I left the terrace without another word.
I remember the burn in my throat, the hollow in my chest. I remember storming into the powder room, slamming the door, and gripping the marble sink until my fingers ached.
Then I saw the envelope.
It was sitting on the counter, addressed to me in a scrawl I didn't recognize.
Inside were photographs.
Grainy. But unmistakable.
Tiffany and Liam.
Kissing. In the same suite we had once stayed in during our Paris trip.
My knees buckled.
I slid to the floor, clutching the photos like they might dissolve into nothing if I blinked hard enough.
My world didn't collapse in a roar.
It collapsed in a whisper.
And no one heard it but me.
POV: Adrian Blackwell (Past)
I wasn't supposed to notice her.
Elise Carter wasn't on my radar—until that night.
I'd only attended the Carter gala as a favor to my father, who once had dealings with them in the energy sector. My interest was in tech, mergers, and weaponizing information.
But then I saw her.
Not the radiant heiress from society pages—but a girl breaking apart in silence, eyes wide and tear-lined as she stumbled out of the side wing, a handful of photos falling behind her like broken wings.
There was something in her face.
Shock. Betrayal. Fire, not yet lit—but ready to burn.
I should've walked away.
Instead, I followed.
POV: Elise Carter (Past)
I made it halfway to the parking garage before my heels gave up and I collapsed on a bench in the staff corridor. I didn't care who saw me. I didn't care if the entire world did.
I had lost everything.
"Rough night?"
I looked up.
Adrian Blackwell stood there—taller than I remembered from the press clippings, eyes like winter steel.
"Go away," I mumbled.
He didn't.
Instead, he sat beside me, arms resting on his knees.
"You've just been betrayed," he said. Not asked. Stated.
I turned my face away.
"You can do one of two things," he continued. "Let it bury you—or turn it into your origin story."
"I don't need your advice," I said bitterly.
"No," he agreed. "You need revenge. But you're not ready yet."
He stood and walked away, not looking back.
And that was the first time I wondered who Adrian Blackwell really was.
POV: Present-day Elise Carter
I snapped the file shut and stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of my new office.
That memory played in my mind like an old film reel. A life torn at the seams by people I trusted. That girl on the marble floor had died that night.
And now?
Now she wore red silk and walked the halls of her enemy's empire with his own keycard in hand.
The devil may have opened the gate.
But I was the one who would burn it down.