Thomas cradled his throbbing wrist against his chest, his face a mottled mask of humiliation and rage. He shot Ginny a venomous glare, then spun sharply on his heel.

"Follow me," he spat.

Ginny didn't glance at the medical team loading her mother onto the stretcher. She didn't look at Coretta, who stood frozen on the steps, watching her with narrowed, calculating eyes. Ginny turned and followed Thomas into the grand foyer.

They walked past the sweeping double staircases, past glittering crystal chandeliers dripping with light, down a long hallway lined with expensive oil paintings of dead Steele ancestors sneering from their gilt frames. Thomas didn't lead her to the guest wing. He took her to a narrow, uncarpeted wooden staircase hidden at the very back of the house, a servant's passage long forgotten.

They climbed three flights. The air thickened with each step, growing warmer, staler, heavy with dust. They reached the top floor—a cramped, low-ceilinged hallway. Thomas stopped in front of a heavy, scratched wooden door at the very end. He grabbed the brass knob and shoved it open. The hinges screamed.

"This is your room," Thomas said, a cruel smirk twisting his thick lips. "Fitting. For someone who brings bad luck."

He didn't wait for a response. He turned and retreated, his heavy footsteps fading down the wooden stairs.

Ginny stepped inside. It was an attic storage space, barely a room. The air was thick with dust and the stale, sweet smell of old paper and mothballs. A single narrow bed with a thin, lumpy mattress was pushed against the far wall. A rickety wooden wardrobe leaned next to a small, grime-smeared window. Cobwebs draped the corners like tattered lace.

Ginny walked to the bed and sat. The springs groaned loudly under her weight.

She didn't feel anger. She felt a profound, cooling wave of relief. The air in the grand halls below was suffocating—thick with lies, hidden cameras, and constant surveillance. Up here, in this forgotten box beneath the rafters, she was invisible. She was safe to plan.

She closed her eyes and began mapping the timeline of tomorrow night's birthday banquet, every variable slotting into place like pieces on a chessboard.

The sharp, rapid click of designer heels on the wooden floorboards shattered her concentration.

The heavy door was shoved open. It banged against the wall.

Coretta swept in. Iris followed close behind, laden with three massive, glossy shopping bags emblazoned with high-end designer logos. Coretta immediately pressed a lace handkerchief over her nose and mouth, waving her other hand in front of her face with theatrical delicacy.

"Oh, my god," Coretta said, voice muffled by the lace. "This dust. How can Grandmother make you sleep in this filth? It's inhumane."

Ginny opened her eyes. She looked at Coretta. The fake sympathy dripping from her voice was entirely betrayed by the gleam of absolute, glittering triumph in her eyes. Coretta was drinking this in, savoring every moment of Ginny in the squalor.

Coretta lowered the handkerchief and snapped her fingers at Iris. "Put them on the bed."

Iris dumped the heavy shopping bags onto the thin mattress beside Ginny.

"I couldn't bear the thought of you not having anything nice to wear to Grandmother's birthday banquet tomorrow," Coretta said, her voice dripping saccharine sweetness. "So I picked out a dress for you. It's the latest trend. Very exclusive."

Ginny sat perfectly still. She didn't look at the bags. She kept her eyes locked on Coretta's face.

Coretta reached into the largest bag, grabbed a fistful of fabric, and yanked it out.

The dress was a monstrosity. Cheap synthetic material covered entirely in garish neon-green sequins. The neckline plunged practically to the navel. The hemline was barely long enough to cover a pair of underwear. It looked like a costume for a low-rent nightclub dancer.

"Isn't it stunning?" Coretta held the dress up against her own body, striking a mock-model pose. "You're going to be the center of attention tomorrow night. Everyone will be looking at you."

Coretta smiled, waiting. She was waiting for the country girl to gasp in awe at the designer tags. She was waiting for Ginny to thank her profusely for the hideous garment that would make her the laughingstock of Silicon Valley.

The attic was dead silent. The only sound was the faint rustle of the neon sequins as Coretta held the dress aloft.

Ginny slowly stood up from the bed.

The corners of her mouth twitched upward, forming a slow, chilling smile. It didn't touch her eyes. Her eyes were black voids.

Ginny took a step forward.

Coretta's smile faltered. The air in the cramped room suddenly felt thick, oppressive, difficult to pull into the lungs.

Ginny took another step. Her posture shifted. The slight, uncertain slump of the country girl vanished, replaced by a fluid, predatory grace. She moved like a blade sliding from its sheath.

Coretta's chest seized. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to move. She took a stumbling step backward.

Ginny kept walking. Slow. Deliberate. Inexorable.

Coretta stepped back again, her heel catching on the uneven floorboards. She stumbled, her back slamming against the rough wooden wall of the attic. Trapped.

Ginny stopped less than a foot away. The physical proximity was suffocating.

Coretta's breathing hitched, rapid and shallow. She clutched the neon-green monstrosity to her chest like a shield. Her perfectly glossed lips trembled.

"What..." Coretta's voice cracked, then died. She swallowed and forced it out again, barely a squeak. "What are you doing?"

Ginny raised her right arm. She placed her palm flat against the rough wooden planks of the wall, right beside Coretta's ear. She leaned in, her body caging Coretta completely against the splintered wood.

Ginny tilted her head. Her dark, bottomless eyes bored into Coretta's, stripping away every layer of fake poise, digging straight down to the raw, ugly terror squirming underneath.

Her lips parted. She didn't yell. She didn't threaten. She spoke in a whisper so soft it barely stirred the dust motes floating in the stale air.

"Aspirin."

The single word hung between them like a live grenade.

Coretta's pupils blew so wide the brown of her irises nearly vanished. Every drop of blood drained from her face, leaving her skin a sickly, waxen gray. Her fingers went nerveless. The neon-green dress slithered from her grasp and pooled on the filthy floor.

Coretta's entire body began to shake. Her knees knocked audibly. Her teeth chattered. She stared at Ginny as though she were staring at a ghost that had clawed its way straight out of hell.

Behind them, Iris took a hesitant step forward. "Miss Coretta...?" the maid whispered, her voice trembling—and instantly froze, pressing her spine hard against the doorframe when Ginny flicked a single, razor-sharp warning glance in her direction.

"What..." Coretta stammered, her voice a pathetic, reedy squeak. "What are you talking about?"

Ginny held the stare for three more brutal seconds, letting the terror marinate deep in Coretta's bones.

Then she pushed off the wall. She took a large, casual step backward, shattering the suffocating tension in an instant. The cold, predatory mask vanished from her face. She tilted her head and offered a sweet, innocent smile.

"Nothing," Ginny said brightly. "You just look a little pale, sister. Like you have a headache. I thought maybe you needed some medicine."

Coretta swallowed so hard her throat clicked. A thick, greasy sheen of cold sweat glazed her forehead. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a jackhammer on overdrive.

Aspirin.

It was the exact medication Coretta had been secretly grinding into fine powder and mixing into Anjanette's daily vitamin capsules for months. A severe, life-threatening trigger for Anjanette's asthma. A slow, quiet, untraceable murder. And this trailer-park trash knew.

Coretta couldn't breathe. The attic walls seemed to warp and close in, squeezing the oxygen from the air. She lunged sideways, shoving Iris so brutally that the maid crashed against the doorframe with a yelp. Coretta bolted for the door, her designer heels clattering wildly against the wooden floorboards. She practically hurled herself down the narrow staircase, Iris scrambling in blind confusion at her heels.

Ginny stood in the center of the room, listening to the frantic, ungraceful footsteps fade into silence. A low, cold scoff escaped her lips.

She looked down at the heap of neon-green sequins on the floor. She bent, picked the dress up with two fingers as though it were contaminated, and walked to the small plastic trash can in the corner. She dropped it in.

She crossed to the heavy wooden door, pushed it shut, and slid the rusty iron deadbolt into place with a solid, final clack.

Three floors below, Coretta burst into her vast, lavishly decorated bedroom. She slammed the heavy double doors and hit the electronic lock with a shaking, frantic finger. She ran across the plush white carpet, chest heaving, and threw herself into the velvet chair before her vanity mirror.

Her hands shook so violently she nearly missed the keypad. She punched in the four-digit code. The bottom drawer clicked open. She shoved past velvet jewelry boxes and snatched a small, unmarked white plastic bottle.

She gripped it so hard the plastic dented. She pushed herself out of the chair, stumbled into her en-suite marble bathroom, and slammed the toilet lid up. She unscrewed the cap. Dozens of small white pills splashed into the water.

Coretta hit the silver flush handle and stood there, gripping the cold marble sink, watching the water churn and swirl. She didn't look away until every single pill was sucked down into the pipes.

She raised her head and stared at her reflection in the massive gilded mirror. Her hair was a wreck. Her mascara had smeared into dark hollows under her wild eyes. She looked terrified. She looked unhinged.

Coretta's hands curled into white-knuckled fists. Her manicured nails bit into her palms. The terror curdling in her chest began to transform, hardening into a hot, toxic, all-consuming rage.

Ginny knew. Coretta didn't understand how, but she knew.

The country girl couldn't be allowed to exist. She had to be obliterated. Tomorrow night, at the banquet, Coretta would make absolutely certain Ginny was ruined beyond any possible repair.

The next morning, a sharp blade of sunlight pierced through the grimy attic skylight and struck Ginny directly across the eyes.

She opened them instantly. Her mind was crystal clear.

She lay motionless on the thin mattress, ears tuning into the sounds of the house below. The floorboards just outside her door creaked—a soft, shifting pressure. Someone was standing right there.

Ginny threw the thin blanket aside. She placed her bare feet on the cold wooden floor without a sound, crossed the small room, and pressed her ear flat against the rough grain of the door.

Two voices were whispering on the other side.

"I still don't get it," a young maid whispered, her voice high and reedy. "Why did the Master bring that illegitimate girl back now? Madam Matilda hates her."

"Keep your voice down," Iris hissed. "It's because of Miss Coretta. She threw an absolute fit last night."

"A fit? About what?"

Iris let out a low, cruel laugh. "About the marriage arrangement with the Parks family. She locked herself in her room and screamed that she would rather die than marry Bedford Parks. Everyone in Silicon Valley knows what he is. A monster. Severe OCD, violent—he beats people half to death if they touch his things. He's a complete psycho."

"So... the Master brought the new girl back to take her place?"

"Exactly." Iris's sneer was audible. "She's the scapegoat. She'll marry the maniac, and Miss Coretta keeps her perfect life. The country girl will probably be dead within a year."

Behind the door, Ginny's breath caught and held. The jagged memories of her past life slammed into perfect alignment. The ancient, iron-clad business pact between the Steele and Parks families demanded that a Steele daughter marry the Parks heir. Coretta had refused the terrifying Bedford, and so the family had dragged Ginny out of the trailer park to serve as the sacrificial lamb.

Bedford.

The name hit her sternum like a sledgehammer. The memory of the warehouse violently overlaid her vision—the phantom heat of the flames, Bedford's blood-streaked face pressing against her charred skin, the wet, sickening crunch of his spine snapping as he shielded her from the falling beam.

I love you.

Ginny pressed her palm hard against her chest. Her heart was beating so fast it ached. The maids were calling him a monster. They thought she was being sent to slaughter.

They had no idea. No idea at all.

A fierce, possessive heat flooded her veins. Her eyes ignited with a dark, manic intensity. He wasn't a monster. He was hers. And this time, she was going to protect him.

Ginny stepped back from the door, grabbed the brass handle, and yanked it open.

Iris and the young maid jumped back with sharp, squeaking gasps of terror.

Ginny stood in the doorway, her eyes blazing with dark, lethal energy.

"Get out," she commanded, her voice a low, dangerous growl.

The two women didn't hesitate. They turned and practically threw themselves down the narrow stairs, tripping over their own feet to escape her gaze.

Ginny slammed the door shut. The walls shuddered.

She walked to the corner where her battered canvas duffel bag sat and knelt on the floor. She pulled the heavy brass zipper open and dug past cheap t-shirts and worn jeans until her fingertips found the thick seam at the very bottom. She worked her fingernail into the fabric, found the hidden zipper pull, and yanked it across.

Ginny reached into the false bottom and pulled out a heavy, flat object wrapped tightly in a black opaque garment bag. She stood and laid it on the bed. She unzipped the plastic cover with careful, reverent hands.

Inside lay a dress. It was not something bought from a boutique. It was originally an oversized, forgotten vintage gown that had belonged to her mother, Anjanette—salvaged from a thrift bin near the trailer park. Using the master-level tailoring skills she had honed as the ghost designer for Paris's top luxury houses in her past life, Ginny had spent three sleepless nights secretly deconstructing and hand-rebuilding the garment. She had transformed the dated, voluminous relic into a breathtaking, thoroughly modern silhouette.

She ran her fingertips over the fabric. Heavy silk crepe in the deepest, purest black. It felt like liquid obsidian under her skin—a testament to her meticulous craftsmanship, her ability to transform discarded scraps into high-fashion armor.

Ginny picked up the wooden hanger and hung the dress on the handle of the rickety wardrobe. She walked to the small, dirty window and looked down.

Three stories below, the vast back lawn of the Steele estate was swarming with workers. Massive crystal chandeliers were being hoisted into the branches of ancient oak trees. Caterers were assembling a ten-tier champagne tower. Florists wove cascades of white orchids through gilded trellises. The entire estate was being transformed into a glittering stage for Matilda's birthday banquet.

Ginny knew exactly what Coretta was planning. Coretta was waiting for the country rat to stumble down those marble stairs in some cheap, humiliating outfit, ready to be devoured by the vicious whispers of high society.

Ginny's lips curled into a sharp, dangerous smile.

She looked back at the black dress hanging in the shadows. Tonight, she wasn't going to survive the banquet. She was going to conquer it. And she was going to wait for the so-called monster to walk through the doors.