Hospitals are built to preserve life—but they smell like death.
Bleach, old flowers, and despair.
The fourth floor of Rosehaven Medical was quiet this morning. I stood at the end of the hallway, staring at the door marked 421. My name wasn't on the chart, but I visited more than anyone else.
Inside was Maya. My little sister. My once-loud, once-sharp, once-laughing Maya.
I didn't move yet. I just… watched the door. For the briefest moment, I entertained the fantasy that when I walked in, she'd be sitting up in bed, rolling her eyes, ready to tell me she was tired of hospital food and wanted greasy fries and a stupid Netflix binge.
But I knew better.
Reality didn't hand out miracles for free.
When I finally stepped inside, the chill of the room hit me harder than usual. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and unspoken truths.
Maya was curled on her side, facing the window. Her face was pale, too pale, and dark circles sat like bruises beneath her lashes. The IV in her arm beeped with mechanical indifference. Her wrist—bandaged and trembling slightly—rested beside her head.
Seeing her like that always made it hard to breathe. Because I remembered too clearly what she looked like before. Before the pills. Before the tears. Before she stopped answering my calls.
Before him.
I sat down in the chair beside her, the vinyl seat stiff beneath me.
"Morning, Maya," I whispered, brushing a loose strand of black hair from her forehead. She didn't stir. She rarely did anymore. She'd wake, sometimes, drift into half-sentences or hum something from when we were kids. But mostly… silence.
A silence that screamed.
I looked at her wrist again.
She'd worn long sleeves for weeks before it happened. Said the apartment was cold. Said she had scratches from her cat. Lied with the smoothness of someone who really didn't want me to see.
But I'd seen them now. The scars were real.
I leaned forward, my voice trembling. "I should've noticed."
She didn't move.
"I should've been here."
Still, nothing.
The weight of guilt pressed down like iron shackles. I had been too far away—chasing a story in Brussels about a corrupt biotech firm while Maya's world crumbled here. By the time I landed and checked her messages, the one she left was already hours old.
"I can't do this anymore, Lee… I tried. I really did. But they broke me. And no one will ever believe it."
That voicemail was still saved on my phone. I'd memorized every breath, every stutter. Every time her voice cracked into silence.
And I knew who she meant by they.
Cassian Wolfhart. His board. His investors. His entire circle of demons in three-thousand-dollar suits and branded virtue. Maya had been an intern at Wolfhart Dynamics—bright, promising, excited to work in the tech space. They said she showed "initiative."
What they didn't say was how someone from HR "suggested" she be friendly with her manager. Or how that manager made her drinks stronger than they should have been. Or how they buried the complaint she filed beneath a mountain of red tape and corporate denial.
She was left alone to bleed while the wolves threw a gala.
I looked out the window, past the industrial skyline, jaw tight.
"I won't let him get away with it," I whispered.
My fingers curled into fists in my lap.
"You hear me, Maya? I'm not going to stop until he loses everything."
A soft knock broke my spiral. I turned as the door creaked open and Mom walked in, wrapped in her old beige coat. Her hair had gone grayer in the last few months. She looked exhausted—like her bones were tired of holding her up.
"You're here early," she said.
"I couldn't sleep."
She sat in the chair beside me, not quite looking at Maya.
"I brought her that poetry book she used to love. The one with the handwritten notes?"
I nodded.
"She still hasn't read it."
I didn't say anything. Neither of us wanted to admit that Maya might never read anything again.
Mom glanced at me. "You've lost weight."
"I'm fine."
"You're not. And you shouldn't be carrying this alone."
"I'm not—"
"Leona." Her voice cracked, but she caught it. "This crusade you're on… I know you think it's helping her. But revenge doesn't heal."
"This isn't revenge. It's justice."
She looked at me the way only mothers could—seeing everything I tried to hide.
"She needs a sister who believes she'll get better. Not someone planning a war."
I stood, unable to sit still anymore.
"I've already started, Mom. I'm in too deep to stop now."
Her voice was quiet, firm. "Just promise me you won't lose yourself in the process."
I didn't promise.
Because I wasn't sure I could keep it.
Back in my apartment, the city groaned through cracked windows and the hum of late-night traffic. I poured a shot of whiskey and sat at my laptop, pulling up the file that had become my new Bible.
Subject: Reyna Lancaster
Age: 27
Background: Stanford dropout, heiress to Lancaster Ventures, orphaned at 19
Assets: $43 million across private equity holdings, gold reserves, cryptocurrency
Known associates: A-list investors, philanthropists, reclusive tech elites
Everything forged. Every photo doctored. Every trace built to withstand scrutiny.
Reyna was everything Leona Vale wasn't. Polished. Powerful. Entitled enough to walk into Cassian Wolfhart's life without raising a single eyebrow.
My fingers hovered over the encrypted browser. A message from The Sentinel Tribune blinked in:
Confirmed: Invite secured. Black tie gala, Friday night. Wolfhart Tower. Go in as Reyna. Eyes on the prize.
My throat tightened. This was it. The first step into the den.
But it wasn't fear that made my hands shake. It was anticipation. The kind that lives on the edge of fury and obsession.
I closed the laptop, rose, and walked to the mirror that hung crooked above my dresser.
Reyna stared back.
I touched the glass.
"You're going to make him fall for you," I whispered. "And then you're going to destroy him."
Because monsters didn't deserve happy endings.
Not after what they did to girls like Maya.