Abigail sat in the driver's seat of her Porsche.

Her hands gripped the leather steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned a stark, bone-white.

The phone on the passenger seat vibrated. The screen lit up.

Preston.

Bile rose in the back of her throat. Her stomach twisted into a violent knot. The urge to vomit was overwhelming.

She closed her eyes. She forced her facial muscles to relax. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

She tapped the speaker button.

"Hey, beautiful," Preston's voice filled the car. It was smooth, warm, and sickeningly gentle. "How was the trip? Did you land the investment?"

Abigail swallowed the acid in her throat.

"Everything went perfectly," she said. Her voice was steady. Professional. "I'm on my way back to the office right now."

"Wait, don't come in just yet," Preston interrupted. His tone shifted. It became urgent.

"Why?"

"I need a massive favor. You need to call Julian Finch. Right now."

Abigail stared at the dashboard. Julian Finch was Hollywood's most elusive director. He was her personal contact.

"Julian is casting for 'Echoes of the Dark'," Preston continued. "Lorelai needs that lead role, Abigail. You have to make it happen."

Abigail let three seconds of dead silence pass.

"Preston, Lorelai doesn't have the acting chops for a Finch movie. It's a heavy drama. She'll be eaten alive on set."

Preston's voice dropped an octave. The warmth vanished. The manipulative, authoritative edge bled through.

"She is my sister, Abigail. She is family. And soon, she'll be your family, too. We don't hold back resources from family."

The scar on Abigail's left cheek pulsed with a sharp, stabbing pain.

She looked up at the rearview mirror. She stared at the jagged, angry red tissue that ruined her face.

A cold smile stretched across her lips.

"Fine," Abigail said. "But a favor from Julian costs. Are you willing to give up ten percent of the company's backend profits for the fourth quarter to secure this?"

"Yes," Preston answered instantly. He didn't even hesitate.

"That's a lot of money, Preston."

"I don't care," he snapped. "As long as Lorelai gets what she wants, I'll pay whatever it takes. Just get it done."

The absolute desperation in his voice solidified everything. Lorelai was his priority. Abigail was just a tool.

The ice in her veins froze solid.

"Okay," Abigail softened her voice, faking a sigh of defeat. "I'll go see Julian this afternoon."

"You're the best, Abby. Truly. The perfect partner."

Before the call disconnected, Abigail heard a faint, breathy giggle in the background.

The line went dead.

The silence in the car was suffocating.

Abigail slammed her foot down on the gas pedal.

The Porsche roared to life, tearing down the Los Angeles freeway. She rolled the windows down. The wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her cheeks.

She pulled into the private garage of her apartment building.

She walked through her front door and hurled her car keys onto the entryway console. They hit the wood with a loud crack.

She marched straight to the liquor cabinet.

She grabbed a bottle of neat whiskey, poured a generous measure into a crystal glass, and threw it back.

The alcohol burned a fiery trail down her throat. It numbed the shaking in her hands.

She walked over to the marble kitchen island. She pulled the silver USB drive from her pocket and set it down.

It sat there, gleaming under the pendant lights. A loaded gun.

She opened her laptop.

She navigated to the internal PR coordination portal for the Star Awards.

As the senior crisis consultant for the event, she had a backdoor login credential to the live broadcast routing system.

She pulled up the minute-by-minute run of show.

Her eyes scanned the spreadsheet until they locked onto the 9:45 PM slot.

Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Lorelai Thorne was the frontrunner.

The corner of Abigail's mouth twitched upward.

She opened the administrative broadcast terminal. As the senior crisis consultant for the event, she possessed the emergency override credentials designed to cut the feed in case of a live disaster. She didn't need to write complex code; she just needed to redirect the feed. Her fingers began to fly across the keys, re-routing the emergency broadcast protocol to pull from the hidden video file she had just uploaded. She set a delayed execution timer.

She was going to give them the biggest audience they had ever had.

The Star Awards bathed the Dolby Theatre in blinding white light.

Camera flashes exploded like strobe lights across the red carpet.

Abigail sat in a VIP box on the second tier. The lights inside the booth were turned off.

She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved black gown. Her dark hair was swept to the left, deliberately hiding the scar on her cheek.

She looked down at the floor.

Preston and Lorelai were sitting in the front row. Lorelai wore a glittering, custom-made dress. Preston had his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. The perfect, supportive brother.

The ceremony dragged on. The television ratings hit their absolute peak.

A veteran actor walked up to the microphone on the main stage.

"And now, the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role."

Abigail opened the small laptop resting on her knees. The blue light illuminated her cold, unblinking eyes.

She hit the enter key.

The pre-programmed override deployed. It seamlessly hijacked the control room's mainframe using her high-level security clearance.

Behind the presenter, the massive LED screen split into four boxes to show the nominees.

When it was Lorelai's turn, the screen violently glitched.

A loud, piercing screech of static ripped through the theater's sound system.

The audience gasped. People shifted in their seats.

In the control booth, technicians were screaming, slamming their fists against locked keyboards.

Abigail's code had frozen the master override.

The LED screen went black for a fraction of a second.

Then, the high-definition security footage from Preston's office filled the massive display.

Preston and Lorelai were on the screen. Naked. Tangled together on the leather sofa.

The audio was pristine.

"As long as I have that scarred, ugly bitch playing the perfect shield..."

Preston's voice boomed through the Dolby Theatre's state-of-the-art surround sound.

The entire auditorium went dead silent. Two thousand people stopped breathing at the exact same time.

Then, the room exploded.

Screams, gasps, and shouts tore through the air.

Down in the front row, all the blood drained from Lorelai's face. She looked like a corpse. She threw her hands over her face and tried to slide down into her seat.

Preston leaped to his feet. His face was purple with rage. He pointed at the stage, screaming at the producers to cut the feed.

Every single camera in the room whipped away from the stage. The red recording lights zeroed in on Preston and Lorelai.

Abigail's phone vibrated against her leg. Twitter had just crashed.

She sat in the dark box. She watched the absolute destruction of their lives.

She picked up a crystal flute of champagne from the side table and took a slow sip.

Her phone began to ring endlessly. PR executives, journalists, board members.

She switched the phone to airplane mode.

Security guards rushed down the aisles, but it was too late. The paparazzi had already swarmed the front row, trapping the fake siblings in a cage of flashing lights.

Abigail closed her laptop. She pulled the connector cable out and shoved the machine into her bag.

She stood up. She didn't look back.

She pushed open the door of the VIP box and walked down the private exit corridor.

She stepped out into the back alley of the theater. The cool night air hit her face.

She expected to feel triumphant. Instead, a hollow, gaping emptiness clawed at her chest.

A sudden, vicious spike of pain shot through her left cheek.

The nerve endings in her scar screamed. It was a blinding, agonizing throb.

Abigail gasped. She slammed her hand over her face, leaning her weight against the rough brick wall.

Her knees buckled slightly. She needed to numb this. She needed alcohol. Now.

She lifted her head and looked across the street.

The Grand Elysium Hotel loomed against the night sky.

Abigail pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and walked toward the underground bar.

The underground bar at the Grand Elysium was suffocatingly dark.

Low, heavy jazz music vibrated through the floorboards.

Abigail sat on a leather stool at the far end of the mahogany bar.

Four empty shot glasses sat in a neat row in front of her.

The whiskey burned through her bloodstream. It cast a thick, heavy fog over her brain, dulling the sharp, stabbing pain in her cheek.

Above the bar, a muted television played the breaking news. The chyron read: VANCE MEDIA STOCK PLUMMETS AFTER INCEST SCANDAL.

The bartender and the patrons around her were whispering excitedly, pointing at the screen.

Abigail stared at the television. A bitter, drunken laugh scraped its way out of her throat.

She pushed herself off the stool.

The room tilted violently. The floor felt like it was made of liquid. She swayed, her hand shooting out to grip the edge of the bar.

She pulled a crumpled hundred-dollar bill from her clutch and slapped it onto the wet wood. She waved off the bartender's attempt to hand her change.

She stumbled toward the elevator bank. Her vision blurred, splitting the hallway into double images.

She had a standard suite on the third floor. She rented it year-round for late nights. She just needed to get to a bed.

As she reached the elevators, she leaned heavily against the wall, fumbling blindly inside her clutch for her room card. Her fingers brushed against a thick plastic rectangle. She pulled it out, not realizing in her drunken haze that it was an old, deactivated VIP club card from a different hotel entirely.

She stumbled into the open elevator and slapped the card against the sensor panel. She clumsily jabbed her finger at what she thought was the button for the third floor. However, her hand slipped, hitting the unlabelled button at the very top of the panel.

The elevator doors slid shut. The machine didn't reject the invalid card; instead, a rare system glitch, combined with a maintenance mode left active by a careless technician earlier that evening, accepted the input. The button she pressed-the one marked 'PH'-lit up with a bright red glow.

The elevator shot upward at a terrifying speed.

It didn't stop at the third floor. It bypassed every level until it reached the penthouse.

The doors slid open with a soft chime.

Abigail stumbled out. The hallway was different. The carpet was thick, plush wool. The walls were lined with dark wood paneling.

Her drunken brain didn't register the change.

She walked up to the massive, double-carved doors at the end of the hall. Instead of fumbling with a lock, she leaned her weight against the heavy wood. To her surprise, it gave way. The highest security lock in the building hadn't engaged properly; the door was left slightly ajar by whoever had rushed inside earlier in a frantic state.

Abigail pushed the heavy door open.

The air inside was freezing. It smelled like sharp cedar and something dark, heavy, and dangerous.

The lights were off. The only illumination came from the sprawling Los Angeles skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Abigail kicked off her high heels. She walked barefoot across the rug, blindly heading toward where she assumed the bedroom was.

Her skin felt too hot. She reached up and unzipped the back of her dress a few inches, letting the cool air hit her spine.

A sound stopped her dead in her tracks.

It was a harsh, ragged breath. A wet panting coming from the deep shadows of the living room.

Abigail blinked hard. She squinted into the darkness.

On the massive leather sofa, a large, broad-shouldered silhouette was curled inward.

The man let out a low, guttural groan of pure agony.

Abigail's drunken mind misfired. She thought he was having a heart attack.

She took a shaky step toward the sofa.