Bridgette burst through the crowd, her eyes wide and rimmed with red. She looked exactly like a startled, innocent deer.

She threw herself onto the pavement, wrapping her arms around the sobbing Eleanor. She looked up at Alanis with an expression of profound betrayal and sorrow.

Ashley stepped firmly in front of Bridgette, puffing out his chest and glaring at Alanis as if she were a monster.

"Don't blame my sister!" Bridgette's voice trembled beautifully. She looked at the cameras, tears spilling over her lashes. "Even though Alanis tried to seduce Ashley tonight... I forgive her. The bone marrow... that was a bond of sisterhood! I thought we loved each other!"

Her masterful manipulation worked on some of the onlookers. A few people muttered that Alanis was being ungrateful and cruel.

Ashley seized the moment. "I only love Bridgette!" he announced loudly to the press. He pointed a disgusted finger at Alanis. "She stripped off her clothes in my hotel room! She tried to use her body to climb the social ladder!"

The paparazzi immediately swung their lenses back to Alanis, hungry for a shot of her breaking down in shame.

Alanis didn't break. She stood with both hands buried deep in the pockets of Kane's jacket. She looked at them like she was watching a poorly acted high school play.

Her brain automatically engaged its behavioral psychology matrix. She dissected Bridgette's face muscle by muscle.

Alanis suddenly took a sharp step forward. The sheer predatory intent rolling off her body was palpable.

Ashley, remembering the agonizing pain of his dislocated shoulder just twenty minutes ago, instinctively flinched and took a step back.

That cowardly step completely removed him as Bridgette's physical shield. Bridgette was left totally exposed to Alanis's gaze.

"Look at her," Alanis said coldly, pointing directly at Bridgette's face. "Notice how the muscle under her left eyelid is twitching? That's an involuntary nervous system response. She's lying, and her body knows it."

Bridgette's heart hammered against her ribs. She tried to force her face to relax, but the panic was setting in. "I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

Alanis didn't let her breathe. "Why did you use a prepaid burner phone ending in 7492 to send a text message tonight?"

Bridgette's pupils dilated massively. Her breath hitched in her throat.

"I saw the phone you left on the nightstand to frame me," Alanis continued, her voice ringing out like a judge reading a death sentence. "The message was sent at exactly 8:14 PM. You used Ashley's name to lure me into Suite 704."

The crowd fell dead silent. The whispers started again, this time filled with dark suspicion.

Ashley froze. He turned his head slowly, looking down at Bridgette. "Bridge... did you send a text?"

Bridgette squeezed her eyes shut, forcing more tears to fall. "No! Ashley, she's making it up! I don't even know what a burner phone is! She's trying to destroy us!" She grabbed his pant leg, weeping pitifully.

Alanis looked at the pathetic display and let out a dark, mocking sneer.

She slowly pulled her hands out of the jacket pockets.

In her right hand, she held the cheap, cracked smartphone.

Under the blinding flashes of the paparazzi cameras, Alanis's thumb tapped the shattered screen three times.

Alanis typed the final execution command into the cracked screen.

Using the dormant backdoor script she had meticulously planted in the hotel's network back in Suite 704, she sent a simple, localized activation signal. The pre-compiled code instantly bypassed the hotel's firewall and bridged a connection to the external commercial grid, hijacking the massive digital billboard hanging over the corner of Fifth Avenue.

The giant LED screen, which had been playing a high-end perfume commercial, suddenly flickered and went black.

The street fell into a confused, two-second silence. Everyone looked up.

Then, a crystal-clear, black-and-white security video flared onto the massive screen.

It was the feed from a hidden camera in the hallway outside Suite 704.

Bridgette looked up. All the blood drained from her face. She looked like a corpse.

On the giant screen, Bridgette-wearing her stunning engagement gown-was seen shoving a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills into the hands of a hotel waiter.

The waiter bowed and handed her a spare magnetic keycard.

A collective gasp of horror erupted from the crowd on the street.

Richard panicked. He spun around, screaming at the two beat cops standing nearby. "Turn it off! Cut the power! Do something!"

The cops just stared at him. It was a wireless cyber hijack. There was no plug to pull.

Alanis stared at Bridgette's terrified face and coldly pressed the audio sync button on her phone.

The billboard's massive speakers crackled to life. The audio had been scrubbed and enhanced by Alanis's software.

Bridgette's arrogant, venomous voice echoed across the New York night sky.

"Put the powder in her water. Make sure she drinks it. And make sure Ashley walks into that room at exactly nine. I want that little Appalachian blood-bag ruined by tomorrow morning."

That sentence was the final nail in the coffin.

The street exploded. The paparazzi went absolutely feral, the flashes of their cameras strobing like a violent lightning storm over Bridgette's head.

Ashley looked like he had been struck by a physical blow. He stared at the woman he thought was a pure, innocent angel. His stomach violently churned with the realization that he had been played for an absolute fool.

He violently ripped his leg out of Bridgette's grasp. The look he gave her was one of pure, unadulterated disgust.

Bridgette's legs gave out completely. She collapsed onto the dirty pavement, her perfect makeup ruined by real, hysterical tears of panic.

Eleanor tried to throw her body over Bridgette to block the cameras, but the ruthless reporters simply shoved her aside.

Alanis stood tall, looking down at the absolute destruction she had orchestrated.

She pressed the enter key one last time, wiping every single trace of her digital intrusion from the servers.

The billboard instantly snapped back to the perfume commercial, as if the nightmare had never happened.

But the damage was permanent. The Copeland family's pristine reputation was burned to the ground.

Alanis didn't waste another second looking at them. She turned on her heel and walked toward a yellow cab that had just pulled up to the curb.

She opened the door and slid into the backseat, slamming the door shut.

The thick glass cut off the screaming and the flashing lights.

As the cab pulled away from the curb, Alanis leaned her head back against the worn leather seat and closed her eyes, preparing for the war that would inevitably start tomorrow.

The next morning, the Long Island Copeland estate was suffocatingly quiet.

Alanis walked into the extravagant formal dining room wearing a simple gray tracksuit.

The massive flat-screen TV mounted on the wall was tuned to a national morning news network.

On the screen, a top-tier crisis PR executive hired by the Copeland Group was speaking rapidly.

"The video circulated last night is a textbook example of a malicious deepfake," the PR mouthpiece lied smoothly. "This is a minor misunderstanding between sisters regarding a fiancé, which was cruelly exaggerated by anonymous hackers."

The scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen showed that the Copeland Group's stock had stabilized in pre-market trading. Capital always found a way to protect itself.

Alanis walked over to the long mahogany table. She pulled out a chair, sat down, and poured herself a cup of black coffee. Her face was entirely devoid of emotion.

Richard sat at the head of the table. His eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night managing the fallout.

He looked at Alanis. The panic from last night was gone, replaced by the cold, ruthless arrogance of a patriarch who had regained control of his empire.

"You are grounded indefinitely," Richard stated, his voice hard. "All your credit cards are canceled. If you do anything to jeopardize Bridgette's recital at the Lincoln Center next month, I will throw you out onto the street with nothing."

Alanis took a slow sip of her coffee. She didn't even blink at his threat.

The dining room doors swung open. Bridgette walked in, wearing a pristine white silk robe.

Her face was pale, but her eyes gleamed with the smug satisfaction of someone who knew her family's money had just saved her skin. She wasn't going to risk a direct confrontation today. She was far too calculating for that. Instead, she was going to play the grieving, forgiving sister, while executing a perfectly deniable 'accident'.

Bridgette walked over to the table, acting as if the brutal confrontation on Fifth Avenue had never happened.

She picked up a delicate bone china plate and used silver tongs to place a freshly baked croissant on it.

With a sickeningly sweet smile, Bridgette slid the plate across the polished wood toward Alanis.

"You must be exhausted from your little stunt last night, sister," Bridgette said, her voice dripping with fake concern. "Eat something. Keep your strength up."

Alanis lowered her coffee cup. Her eyes dropped to the pastry on the plate.

Alanis reached out, her fingers lightly brushing the surface of the croissant as if preparing to break it apart. The moment her skin made contact, her highly trained tactile senses registered an anomaly. The bottom layer of the flaky pastry was unnaturally damp and slightly sticky, the undeniable residue of a dissolved powder injected into the dough. She lifted the pastry slightly, bringing it just inches from her face. Beneath the overwhelming, rich scent of baked butter and yeast, her refined olfactory senses finally isolated a faint, sharp chemical bitterness.

Her brain rapidly accessed her own medical files—the records she had memorized during years of being treated as a resource.

She had a severe, lethal anaphylactic allergy to any form of almond extract. Her throat would close up in less than two minutes.

Bridgette knew this perfectly well. This wasn't a peace offering. It was an assassination attempt disguised as a tragic breakfast accident, a calculated move to eliminate the threat while playing the innocent victim of a kitchen mix-up.

Alanis slowly lifted her gaze. She stared at Bridgette with the cold, dead eyes of a mortician looking at a corpse.

She didn't say a word. She simply raised the back of her hand and casually swiped it sideways.

Smash.

The bone china plate flew off the table and shattered violently against the marble floor. The poisoned croissant rolled into the dust.

Bridgette let out a shrill scream and jumped back, her hip crashing into a chair.

Richard slammed his fists on the table, his face turning purple. "What the hell is wrong with you? Have you lost your mind?"

Alanis ignored him. She stood up, placing both hands flat on the mahogany table. She leaned forward, her presence suddenly filling the room with a suffocating pressure.

She locked eyes with Bridgette and spoke in a low, terrifying whisper that only the two of them understood.

"Your poison is cheap."