Aurelia held the phone up. The screen was small, but the resolution was 4K.

On the video, Mrs. Higgins walked into the coat closet area. She looked terrified. She was holding the ring in a tissue. She knelt by Aurelia's tote bag, unzipped the side pocket, and dropped the ring in.

Then, Dominique's voice came through the phone's speaker, tinny but unmistakable.

"Hurry up! Leave the zipper open a bit. Make it look sloppy."

The silence in the foyer was heavy, suffocating.

Preston stared at the phone. The color drained from his face. He looked at Dominique. It wasn't a look of love. It was a look of horror.

"It's a deepfake!" Dominique yelled, her voice shrill. "She's good with computers! She faked it!"

"It's a cloud stream, Dominique," Preston said quietly. "You can't deepfake a live cloud log in thirty seconds."

Mrs. Higgins collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. "She said she'd fire me! She said she'd make sure I never worked in this town again!"

Catherine stepped forward, her hands fluttering. "Preston, darling, it was just a prank! A sisterly joke! Dominique is just... she's under so much stress with the wedding..."

Aurelia laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound.

"A prank?" she said. She put her phone away. "It's a felony, Mother. Grand larceny and framing someone? That's prison time."

She looked at Preston. "This is what you're marrying. A liar and a criminal. But hey, the merger looks good on paper, right?"

She knelt down and started throwing her clothes back into the suitcase. She didn't fold them. She just shoved them in. She felt dirty just being in this room.

Preston took a step toward her. "Aurelia... I..."

"Don't," she said without looking up.

"I'll drive you," he said. "Let me get you out of here."

"I don't want your ride," Aurelia said. She zipped the bag shut and stood up.

Dominique saw Preston's attention shifting. She let out a small moan, her hand fluttering to her forehead.

"Oh god," she whispered. "I feel... faint..."

She crumpled toward the floor. It was a graceful fall, practiced.

"Dominique!" Catherine screamed. "Her heart! Someone call 911!"

Preston turned, instinct kicking in, reaching out to catch her.

Aurelia didn't even blink. She walked past her sister's prone form. She paused for half a second, looking down.

"Her color is fine," Aurelia said flatly. "And her eyelids are fluttering. That means she's conscious and fighting the urge to blink. It's a textbook case of factitious disorder. Or, in layman's terms, a poorly executed tantrum."

She walked to the door. The security guards stepped aside this time, looking at their shoes.

Aurelia pushed the heavy doors open. The sky outside was dark, bruised purple and gray. A storm was coming.

She walked out. The air was cold, biting at her exposed skin. She didn't have a car. The bus stop was two miles away down the private drive.

She started walking. The wheels of her suitcase crunched loudly on the gravel.

Behind her, she heard shouting. Then, the roar of an engine.

She didn't turn around. She just kept walking, head down against the wind.

The silver Aston Martin pulled up beside her, moving at a crawl. The window rolled down.

"Get in, Aurelia," Preston said.

The car blocked her path. The sleek silver metal gleamed under the threatening sky.

"I said get in," Preston repeated. "It's going to pour in about thirty seconds."

A drop of rain hit Aurelia's cheek. It was freezing. She did the math instantly. Getting sick meant buying medicine. Medicine cost money. She had forty-two dollars.

She opened the passenger door and got in.

The interior smelled of expensive leather and the sandalwood cologne Preston had worn for five years. It made her stomach turn. It smelled like memories she wanted to burn.

Preston accelerated. The car purred down the long, tree-lined driveway.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight. "I didn't know she was capable of that."

"You didn't want to know," Aurelia said, looking out the window at the blurred trees. "There's a difference."

"The merger..." Preston started, then sighed. "My father is pushing hard. The board is nervous. We need the Blanchard assets to stabilize our stock."

"So you're marrying a sociopath for a quarterly earnings report," Aurelia said.

"It's not that simple," Preston said defensively. "And... I thought you had moved on. You disappeared after the hospital incident."

"I was fired, Preston. And stripped of my license. And dumped by my fiancé via text message." She turned to look at him. "Or did you forget that part?"

Preston flinched. "My father sent that text. He took my phone."

"And you let him."

He didn't answer. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

Aurelia reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small, velvet box. She had been carrying it for months, waiting for the right moment to throw it in a river. But this was better.

She placed the box on the dashboard.

"Here," she said. "The real ring. The one you gave me."

Preston glanced at the box. "Keep it. You can sell it. It's worth a lot."

"I don't want your money," Aurelia said. "And I don't want anything that ties me to you or your family."

"Aurelia, please," Preston said, his voice cracking. "I still care about you. If I could... if things were different..."

"But they aren't," she cut him off. "You chose the name. You chose the money. You chose Dominique."

"She's pregnant," Preston blurted out.

Aurelia froze. The air left the car.

"What?"

"She told me this morning," Preston said, staring straight ahead. "That's why she was so emotional. Hormones."

Aurelia let out a short, bitter laugh. "Preston, think. This morning, when I passed her in the hall, she was drinking that green juice she loves. The one with the high-dose parsley and ginger extract. It's a potent emmenagogue. No doctor on earth would let a woman in her first trimester go near it."

"You don't know that," Preston said, but his voice wavered.

"I'm a doctor," Aurelia said. "Or I was. She's lying, Preston. She's locking you down because she knows the trust fund has a clause about heirs. But it's not my problem anymore."

They reached the transit station at the edge of the estate grounds. It was a desolate concrete shelter under a flickering streetlamp.

Aurelia unbuckled her seatbelt. "Unlock the door."

Preston hit the central lock button. The click echoed in the cabin.

"Where will you go?" he asked. "Let me set you up in a hotel. Just for a few nights."

"Unlock the door, Preston, or I will scream."

He looked at her, searching for the girl he used to know. But she was gone. Hardened by betrayal.

He unlocked the door.

Aurelia grabbed her bag and got out. The rain was falling harder now, soaking her coat instantly. She dragged her suitcase out of the trunk.

She didn't look back. Each step was a deliberate severing of a tie, a final, painful cut. The sound of her suitcase wheels on the wet asphalt was the only reply she offered.

He looked up, but she was already walking toward the bus shelter, her head held high, disappearing into the gray curtain of rain.

The bus smelled of wet wool and diesel fumes. Aurelia sat in the back, her suitcase wedged between her knees. She watched the landscape change from the manicured lawns of the estate district to the strip malls and cracked pavement of the outer suburbs.

She counted the cash in her wallet again. Enough for the fare to The Sanctuary, with maybe five dollars left over for a vending machine sandwich.

The Sanctuary was an ironic name. It was a high-security nursing home for the wealthy and unwanted. The place where rich families stored their inconvenient elders.

She got off at the gate. The rain had stopped, leaving everything damp and cold.

She walked to the front desk. Betty, the receptionist, looked up and frowned.

"Ms. Blanchard," Betty said, her voice lowered. "Your father called an hour ago. He revoked your visitor pass."

Aurelia's stomach dropped. Richard worked fast.

"Betty," Aurelia said, leaning over the counter. "Please. I have medical proxy. He can't revoke that without a court order. It takes 48 hours to process."

It was a bluff. Richard probably had a judge in his pocket. But Betty didn't know that.

"I could lose my job," Betty whispered.

"You won't," Aurelia said. "Remember when I stitched up your son's chin in the parking lot so you didn't have to pay for the ER? You owe me one."

Betty hesitated, then sighed. She buzzed the door. "Ten minutes. If the administrator sees you, I don't know you."

"Thank you."

Aurelia hurried down the corridor. The smell of antiseptic and lavender air freshener made her nostalgic for the hospital.

She reached Room 304. She pushed the door open softly.

Genevieve Blanchard sat in her wheelchair by the window, staring at a dead oak tree in the courtyard. She looked smaller than Aurelia remembered. Frail.

"Gigi?"

The old woman turned. Her eyes, usually clouded with dementia, were surprisingly sharp today.

"Aurelia?" Genevieve squinted. "Why are you here? Did that little witch Dominique do something to you?"

Aurelia felt tears prick her eyes. She rushed forward and knelt by the wheelchair.

"They kicked me out, Gigi. I refused to sign the NDA."

Genevieve reached out. Her hand, shaking and spotted with age, cupped Aurelia's cheek. "Good. Never sign your name to a lie. That's the first rule of business."

She fumbled under the cushion of her wheelchair. She pulled out a wrinkled paper bag.

"Here," she whispered. "Imported truffles. I hid them from the nurse. She says my sugar is too high. Bah."

Aurelia took the bag. The chocolates were melted and misshapen. It was the most precious thing she had ever been given. She buried her face in her grandmother's lap and let out a sob she had been holding for hours.

"Don't cry," Genevieve said, her voice steeling. "Tears are for funerals. We aren't dead yet."

She leaned in close. "Richard thinks he's won. He thinks because I'm in here, he controls the voting shares. But I haven't signed the competency waiver."

"He's going to force you," Aurelia said, wiping her eyes. "He's bringing lawyers."

"I know," Genevieve said. "That's why we need a nuclear option."

"What option?"

"Marriage," Genevieve said.

Aurelia blinked. "What? Who?"

"Not that spineless Blackburn boy," Genevieve scoffed. "The real power. The one they're all afraid of."

She pointed a crooked finger toward the window, toward the adjacent building in the complex. It was a separate wing, high-security, dark windows.

"The VIP wing," Genevieve said. "Avery Blackburn is there."

Aurelia froze. "Avery Blackburn? The CEO of Blackburn Capital? I thought he was... incapacitated. Brain damage from the helicopter crash."

"That's what the papers say," Genevieve said, a sly grin appearing on her face. "But I hear things. The nurses talk. He's not a vegetable. He's hiding."

"Hiding?"

"From the SEC. From his own board. He needs a distraction. You need a shield." Genevieve gripped Aurelia's hand. "Marry him. The Blackburn name trumps the Blanchard name. Richard won't dare touch you if you're Mrs. Avery Blackburn."

"Gigi, that's insane. He's a stranger. And rumor says he's disfigured and violent."

"Better a monster you can use than a father who eats his young," Genevieve said.

Outside the window, in the shadows of the courtyard shrubbery, a camera lens adjusted its focus.