Three days later.

Karen pulled the collar of her cheap black trench coat tighter around her neck. She walked down the marble hallway of an exclusive private club in Beverly Hills.

She had just finished a brief meeting with an independent film producer. She needed a job. She needed to survive.

She turned the corner toward the restrooms.

A woman in a pristine white Chanel haute couture suit blocked her path.

Ayla Conley.

Ayla turned around. The delicate, fragile smile on her face vanished the second she saw Karen. She handed her Birkin bag to her assistant, S. Page, and waved her away.

They were alone in the hallway. Ayla's eyes turned venomous.

She stepped forward, her red-soled heels clicking against the marble. She looked Karen up and down, taking in the cheap coat. She let out a sharp scoff.

"Look at you," Ayla whispered, her voice dripping with malice. "Just a cheap warming pan, thrown out with the trash."

Karen clenched her fists inside her pockets. "Keep your man on a tighter leash, Ayla. And stay out of my way."

Ayla's eyes gleamed. "Oh, Israel tells me everything. He even told me about that ugly tree in the backyard."

Karen's stomach twisted.

Ayla covered her mouth and giggled. "He said he shredded it just to make me smile. To clear out the garbage."

The string holding Karen's sanity together snapped.

She stepped forward, her eyes burning red. "Shut your mouth. Don't you ever talk about that tree."

Ayla's gaze suddenly shifted. She looked past Karen, staring at the reflection in the glass doors at the end of the hall.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure was approaching.

Ayla's lips curled into a wicked smirk. Suddenly, she threw herself backward.

Karen instinctively raised her hand to brace herself, her fingers miles away from touching Ayla's clothes.

Ayla let out a blood-curdling scream. She collapsed onto the marble floor.

The heavy oak doors burst open. Israel stormed into the hallway, the air temperature dropping the second he appeared.

Ayla lay on the floor, clutching her chest. She gasped for air, her face twisting in fake agony.

Israel's eyes widened in panic. He sprinted forward and dropped to his knees, pulling Ayla's fragile body into his arms.

"She pushed me," Ayla sobbed weakly, burying her face in his chest. "Israel, my heart..."

Israel snapped his head up. The look he gave Karen was pure, unfiltered hatred.

"I didn't touch her," Karen said, shaking her head and taking a step back.

Israel didn't listen. He didn't care. To protect the woman dying in his arms, he shot his arm out and shoved Karen out of the way.

The force of his push was brutal. Karen lost her footing.

She tumbled backward, falling down the three marble steps at the end of the corridor.

Her knee slammed into the sharp edge of the stone. A sharp, tearing pain shot violently through her ankle, radiating a burning agony all the way up her calf. Her elbow scraped raw against the floor.

She curled into a ball at the bottom of the stairs, gasping through the blinding pain.

Israel stood at the top of the steps, looking down at her like she was an insect.

"If anything happens to her heart," Israel snarled, "I will bankrupt your entire family."

He tightened his grip on Ayla. "I will have my legal team blacklist you from every studio in Hollywood. You will pay for this jealousy."

He scooped Ayla up into his arms and walked away, leaving Karen shivering on the freezing marble floor.

Karen dragged her swollen, purple ankle across the threshold of the cramped apartment in Koreatown.

The air inside smelled heavily of mildew and old cooking oil. It was a violent contrast to the sterile luxury of Beverly Hills.

She collapsed onto the lumpy fabric sofa. She pulled a small plastic first-aid kit from the coffee table and took out a bottle of iodine.

She bit down hard on her bottom lip as she pressed the iodine-soaked cotton swab into the raw, bleeding scrape on her arm. She hissed as the pain flared.

Her phone vibrated on the table. The screen lit up with a name: Brenda McCoy (Mother).

Karen stared at the screen. A wave of exhaustion washed over her. Her finger hovered over the red reject button.

The phone kept buzzing. It wouldn't stop. She finally slid her finger across the green icon.

"Listen to me," Brenda's shrill, slurred voice blasted through the speaker before Karen could even say hello. "I need you to wire five hundred thousand dollars to a casino account in Vegas right now."

Karen closed her eyes. "Mom. I don't have it. Israel kicked me out. I have nothing."

"Bullshit!" Brenda screamed. "You useless piece of trash! You couldn't even keep a billionaire's legs wrapped around you? What good are you?"

Karen's chest hollowed out. The toxic blood of her family burned in her veins.

"I should have aborted you," Brenda spat.

The words felt like a physical knife twisting in Karen's gut. She gripped the phone so hard the plastic creaked.

"I am not paying your gambling debts anymore," Karen said. Her voice was dead. Cold.

"I'll go to the press!" Brenda threatened. "I'll tell them what an ungrateful bitch you are! I'll ruin you!"

Karen let out a dry, broken laugh. "Go ahead. I'm already ruined."

She ended the call. She went into her contacts and blocked Brenda's number.

The adrenaline left her body all at once. Karen curled into a tight ball on the sofa. A violent cough ripped through her chest.

The rain, the physical trauma, and the sheer psychological exhaustion hit her immune system like a freight train. Her skin grew burning hot. She slipped into a feverish darkness.

The next morning, a frantic pounding on the door jolted her awake.

Karen forced herself up. Her head spun. She leaned heavily against the peeling wallpaper and dragged herself to the door. She looked through the peephole.

It was Eleanor Fletcher, her agent.

Karen unlocked the door. Eleanor took one look at Karen's pale, bruised face and gasped.

Eleanor practically carried her back to the bed. She pulled a bottle of Tylenol and a thermos of hot soup from her tote bag. She forced Karen to swallow the pills.

Eleanor didn't ask questions. She just held Karen's hand until the shivering stopped.

Once Karen's eyes focused, Eleanor unzipped her leather briefcase. She pulled out a thick, slightly wrinkled script.

"Julian Carmichael watched your audition tape," Eleanor said, her voice shaking with excitement. "He fought off the investors. He wants you as the lead in Midnight in Malibu."

Karen stared at the paper. The name printed in bold letters on the cover was Karen Walsh-the stage name she had legally and permanently adopted years ago, a desperate attempt to completely sever her ties and bury the toxic Kowalski bloodline she was unfortunately born into.

"The pay is garbage," Eleanor continued, "but it's an Oscar-bait role, Karen. This is how you stand back up."

Karen reached out. Her fingers trembled as they brushed the cover of the script.

A hot tear slipped down her cheek and splashed onto the title page. She pulled the script against her chest and held it like a life raft.

Three days later.

Karen's fever had broken. She stood in the tiny bedroom, shoving a few plain t-shirts into a duffel bag. She was leaving for the set today.

Her phone vibrated violently on the mattress. The caller ID showed a Manhattan landline.

Karen hesitated, then picked it up.

"Your mother is in the lobby of the Fernandez Plaza," Arthur Coleman's irritated voice snapped through the line.

Karen froze. The shirt dropped from her hands.

"She brought paparazzi from TMZ," Arthur continued. "She's holding a sign claiming Israel abandoned his destitute wife."

Karen's blood ran cold. Her mother actually did it.

The line clicked. The background noise shifted to the dead silence of the top-floor executive suite.

"You trained your dog well," Israel's low, lethal voice vibrated against her ear. "Sending her to Wall Street to bite me."

In the background, Karen heard Ayla's soft, whiny voice. "Israel, please don't get upset. Think of your blood pressure."

Bile rose in Karen's throat. "Israel, I didn't know. I blocked her number. I have nothing to do with this."

"I don't care," Israel cut her off. "Her little stunt is affecting my stock prices. And it is upsetting Ayla."

He paused, letting the silence suffocate her.

"My private jet is waiting for you on the tarmac at Van Nuys. You have exactly five hours to board it, get to Manhattan, and remove your trash from my building," he ordered.

"I can't," Karen panicked. "I start shooting my movie today. I can't leave LA."

"If you are not standing in my office in five hours," Israel said with brutal precision, "I will cut off the trust fund keeping your father alive. I will have Brenda arrested for felony extortion. And I will make sure every studio in Hollywood knows your family is a criminal enterprise."

He hung up.

Karen couldn't breathe. She called Eleanor and begged her to cancel the shoot for the day, her hands shaking violently as she grabbed her bag and sprinted toward the waiting car that would take her to the Van Nuys airstrip.

Five hours later, Karen stepped out of the private aviation terminal in New York. A bulletproof black Cadillac was waiting at the curb.

She was driven straight to Midtown Manhattan. The eighty-story Fernandez Plaza loomed over her like a glass prison.

Security guards escorted her into the private elevator. It shot up to the top floor.

The doors slid open.

Israel sat behind a massive mahogany desk. Ayla lounged on a white leather sofa, delicately eating a macaron.

Brenda was pinned to a chair in the corner by two massive bodyguards. When she saw Karen, she shrieked, "Karen! Tell him it was a massive misunderstanding! Save me! You can't let them lock me up in a cell!"

Karen's face burned with absolute humiliation. She walked up to the desk.

"Please," Karen whispered, staring at the floor. "Let her go."

Israel leaned back in his chair. He spun a Montblanc pen between his fingers. He looked at her like she was a joke.

"She is my legal property," Israel said loudly, making sure Ayla heard every word.

Ayla stood up. She walked over and wrapped her arms around Israel's neck. "If she apologizes to me, Israel, I'll let it go. I'm very forgiving."

Israel's eyes locked onto Karen. "You heard her. Kneel. Apologize to Ayla for failing to control your family."

Karen's jaw clamped shut. The humiliation burned the back of her eyes. She looked at her mother, who was still screaming about cash.

To save Brenda from a ten-year prison sentence, Karen slowly bent her stiff, bruised knees.

They hit the carpet. She lowered her head.

"I'm sorry," Karen choked out to the woman who had ruined her life.

Israel stared at her bowed head. A sudden, sharp irritation flared in his chest, but he buried it. He pressed the intercom button on his desk.

"Send legal in," he commanded.