Selina had barely made it through her front door when her adoptive mother's voice cut through the quiet house like a whip.

"Selina! Where have you been all night?"

Selina froze, one shoe removed, her body still aching from her quick trip down fifteen flights of emergency stairs. She'd hoped to slip in without being noticed, shower away the proof of her shame, and pretend nothing had happened.

But Mrs. Williams was waiting in the hallway, her silk robe perfectly tied, not a hair out of place despite the early hour. Her eyes, cold and judging as always, looked over Selina's messy appearance.

"I asked you a question, young lady."

Selina swallowed, falling back on the lie she'd texted last night. "I was studying at the library with my project group. We lost track of time, and then it was so late... Emma offered to let me stay at her apartment."

Mrs. Williams' lips got thin. "The library called. Your student ID was found after closing. They said you never picked up your books."

Ice formed in Selina's stomach. "I...."

"Don't lie to me," Mrs. Williams snapped, stepping closer. Her nose flared. "You smell like alcohol. And...." She grabbed Selina's chin, turning her face to show the bruise on her neck. "What is this?"

Selina pulled away, tears threatening. "It's not what you think...."

"Don't tell me what I think!" Mrs. Williams' voice got louder, her carefully kept calm cracking. "Your father and I took you in when no one wanted you. We gave you our name, our home, and the best education money could buy. And this is how you pay us back? By acting like a common whore?"

The words cut through Selina like physical hits. Despite eight years in this house, she'd never quite become "daughter" instead of "charity case," a fact Mrs. Williams never let her forget.

"I'm sorry," Selina whispered, the words automatic after years of conditional love. "It won't happen again."

Mrs. Williams' expression got harder. "Your father has put too much money into you to let you ruin everything now. The Johnson merger depends on your marriage prospects. Go upstairs and make yourself look decent. You look disgusting."

Selina nodded numbly, her legs carrying her up the stairs by muscle memory alone. The mention of the merger explained everything; her "father" wasn't worried about her welfare. He was worried about the business deal that depended on her marriage to the Johnson family's eldest son.

She was an asset, not a daughter. A bargaining chip in the Williams family's relentless climb up New York's social ladder.

In her bathroom, Selina turned the shower as hot as she could bear, scrubbing her skin until it was raw, as if she could wash away the memory of the stranger's hands. She avoided looking at her reflection, unable to face the girl who had lost everything in one night.

All she had left was her intelligence, the talent the Williams had been using since they'd discovered her eight years ago. The brain that had won their company prestigious contracts, that had designed innovations they'd claimed as their own, that had earned them millions while she received nothing but conditional shelter and constant reminders of her "low birth."

By the time she came out of the shower, Selina had composed herself enough to face the day. She had one task: confront Michelle. After that, she'd figure out how to fix what remained of her life.

"You set me up," Selina said quietly, sliding into the couch across from Michelle at her apartment near campus. "You didn't tell me I was doing something so... degrading."

Michelle looked up from her phone, lips pursed in annoyance. Her perfectly styled hair and perfect makeup made Selina's still-damp ponytail and bare face feel even more inadequate.

"Don't be so dramatic," Michelle sighed, stirring her iced coffee with practiced indifference. "It was just an escort job. Go with a rich guy to dinner, laugh at his jokes, make him look good. What did you think it was?"

"He drugged me, Michelle!" Selina leaned forward, keeping her voice low despite the anger bubbling inside her. "After I slapped him for getting grabby, something terrible happened. Something I can never take back."

"Look, I'm sorry if things got weird," Michelle said, sounding anything but sorry. "But don't call what I do immoral. We all have to survive somehow in this city. Not everyone has a rich family paying for them."

Shame colored Selina's cheeks. Michelle didn't know, couldn't know, the truth about her life with the Williams. The golden cage that grew smaller with each passing year.

"You're right," Selina whispered, shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have judged you."

Michelle's expression softened slightly. "It's fine. Just forget last night happened and move on. That's what I always do."

Before Selina could respond, her phone rang, her father's ringtone. With a sense of dread, she answered.

"Selina," her mother's voice shook, an unusual break in her perfect composure. "They've arrested your father. They're saying our company broke the contract with Kane Tech. We're at the central police station. They're threatening to sue for everything we have. It would destroy us. Come quickly, your father needs you to bring the files."

The phone slipped from Selina's fingers, hitting the table. "I have to go," she whispered, already gathering her things. "My father's been arrested."

Michelle watched with narrowed eyes as Selina rushed out, her untouched tea growing cold between them.

"So the perfect princess has problems too," she muttered, bitterness seeping into her voice. She took a long sip of her drink, her mind churning with resentment.

Michelle had always lived in Selina's shadow, Selina with her perfect grades, her beauty, her wealthy adoptive family. While Michelle worked night shifts and escort jobs just to afford tuition, Selina seemed to float through life untouched by real struggle.

"She thinks she's everything," Michelle said to herself, teeth clenched. "The rich, beautiful heiress with the perfect life. Yet I'm the one always scraping by, always given scraps while she has everything handed to her."

Her bitter thoughts were interrupted by a knock at her apartment door an hour later. Annoyed at being disturbed in the middle of her self-pity spiral, she stomped to the entrance, expecting her landlord with another complaint about her overdue rent.

Instead, she found herself face-to-face with a woman who radiated power and wealth from every pore. Sleek black suit, perfect makeup, an air of authority that made Michelle instantly self-conscious of her shabby apartment and the laundry strewn across her sofa.

"Can I help you?" Michelle asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice as she assessed the visitor.

The woman offered a small, professional smile. "Are you Michelle Adams?"

Michelle nodded cautiously. "Yes, that's me."

"I'm Maria Rodriguez, executive secretary to Mr. David Kane." The name dropped like a bomb, causing Michelle's eyes to widen. Everyone in New York knew that name, the reclusive billionaire whose face rarely appeared in the media but whose power was undeniable. "I'd like to ask if you accompanied someone to Hotel Plaza last night, and do you recognize this pendant?" she said, holding the blue necklace with the SJ initials

Michelle's heart thundered in her chest. David Kane? The man who controlled half of New York's economy? The phantom CEO whose tragic past had been fodder for gossip columns for years?

"I..." she hesitated, mind racing with possibilities. "May I ask which person you're referring to specifically?"

Maria's gaze was penetrating. "Mr. David Kane himself."

Michelle nearly choked on her own breath. "David Kane?" she repeated, disbelief coloring every syllable.

The secretary nodded, her expression revealing nothing. "Yes. And Mr. Kane has asked me to inform you that he wishes to marry you."

The world tilted beneath Michelle's feet. She gripped the doorframe to steady herself, her mind reeling with implications.

Marriage? To David Kane?

But she hadn't been at Hotel Plaza last night. She'd sent Selina in her place to escort James Harrison, not David Kane.

Selina, who'd returned looking devastated. Selina, who'd said something terrible had happened. Selina, who was now rushing to save her family from financial ruin.

A slow, calculating smile spread across Michelle's face as the pieces fell into place. This was her chance, her only chance, to finally step out of Selina's shadow and into the light she deserved.

"Yes, this is my necklace, I must have dropped it this morning," she said, collecting the necklace, stepping aside to welcome the secretary into her apartment. "I believe we have much to discuss about my future with Mr. Kane."

Behind her gracious smile, Michelle's mind raced with possibilities. Selina might have everything now, but Michelle was about to take the one thing Selina had lost last night, her future.

After all, what were best friends for?

Selina arrived at the police station with her heart hammering against her ribs, each beat sending fresh waves of pain through her already throbbing head. The fluorescent lights overhead seemed unnecessarily harsh, casting sickly shadows across the grim faces of officers and civilians alike. She clutched a sleek black portfolio to her chest, the precious designs that had built the Williams empire, created by her hands but claimed by her adoptive father's name.

"Mom," Selina called, spotting Betty's rigid silhouette near the reception desk. Her brown hair was tied into a high ponytail, hazel eyes scanning anxiously for any sign of recognition in her mother's face. "Here is the file you asked for."

She extended the portfolio with trembling fingers, unconsciously rubbing her palms against her trousers afterward, as if trying to wipe away the evidence of her complicity in this charade. "What happened to Dad?"

Betty Williams looked utterly foreign to Selina in that moment, deflated and diminished, her normally immaculate appearance showing subtle signs of distress that only someone who had studied her for eight years would notice. The slightly smudged lipstick. The misaligned pearl earring. The almost imperceptible tremor in her manicured hands.

"I don't know what is happening," Betty said, her voice hollow. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her expression morphed from despair to rage. She glared at Selina with such venom that the girl instinctively took a step back. "Didn't you say there wasn't going to be anything wrong with the designs? Why are we being sued by Kane Tech?"

The name hit Selina like a physical blow. Kane Tech. The technological giant that dominated all of New York's economy. The company whose products she'd secretly admired, whose innovations had inspired her own work.

Before Selina could formulate a response, Betty's composure shattered completely. Tears streaked down her carefully powdered cheeks as she grabbed Selina's shoulders, fingers digging into flesh hard enough to leave bruises.

"This is all your fault!" she hissed, shaking Selina with each syllable. "You better fix it. We didn't take pity on you to be paid back like this!"

Selina stood frozen, the words cutting deeper than any physical pain. Eight years of conditional love, of measured affection doled out only when she proved her worth, all distilled into this raw moment of truth.

"Go to Kane Tech today," Betty continued, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Kneel, beg, drag your feet on the ground if you must. Make sure my husband leaves here today. Do you hear me?"

Selina nodded mechanically, too numb to speak.

"Get out of my sight," Betty spat, releasing Selina's shoulders with a slight push. "Don't come back without a solution."