The fever hit me like a freight train around noon. By evening, I was burning at 103 degrees, my skin slick with sweat, the silk sheets of our king-sized bed clinging to my trembling body. The floor-to-ceiling windows of our Manhattan condo framed the glittering skyline, but all I could focus on was the fire raging through my veins and the ice settling in my chest.

"Lukas, please." My voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Don't go."

He stood by the bedroom door, his phone pressed to his ear, that designer watch I'd given him for our anniversary catching the lamplight. Three years together, and I'd memorized every angle of his face—the sharp jawline, the way his dark hair fell just so across his forehead. Right now, his expression was carved from stone.

"I have to," he said, not even looking at me. His thumb moved across the screen. "The bartender at Flux called. Skylar's drunk and needs a ride."

Skylar. The name landed like a slap. His childhood sweetheart who'd conveniently returned to New York two weeks ago. I'd heard about her in passing—always in that careful, dismissive tone he used when he wanted me to stop asking questions.

"I'm sick." The words scraped out of my throat. "I need you here."

His jaw tightened. "She's alone, Gabriella. What do you want me to do, leave her stranded?"

The door clicked shut before I could answer.

I lay there in the dark, my grandmother's diamond necklace pressing against my collarbone as I curled into myself. The condo felt cavernous without him—all that expensive marble and custom furniture my father had insisted on when he secretly purchased this place. Lukas thought his startup success had paid for it. He had no idea.

Hours crawled by. The fever spiked higher. I drifted in and out of consciousness, my phone screen blurring every time I checked it. No messages. No calls.

The sound of the front door opening jolted me awake. Voices drifted down the hallway—Lukas's low murmur and something else. High-pitched. Giggling.

I forced myself upright, my head spinning. The bedroom door was ajar, and through it, I saw them in the living room. Lukas had his arm around a petite blonde in a tight dress, her heels dangling from one hand. She swayed against him, her face tilted up toward his with practiced helplessness.

Skylar Spencer. Even through my fever haze, I could see she was beautiful in that effortless way that made my carefully maintained elegance feel like trying too hard.

"You brought her here?" My voice cracked as I stumbled to the doorway, gripping the frame for support. "I'm sick, Lukas. I asked you to stay, and you brought your ex into our home?"

Skylar's eyes found mine. For just a second, something sharp and calculating flashed across her face. Then her lower lip trembled, and tears welled up in those wide blue eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she breathed, her voice breaking on a sob. "I didn't mean to cause problems. I just—I had nowhere else to go."

"Are you serious right now?" I took a step forward, my legs shaking. "Lukas, tell her to leave."

"Don't talk to her like that." His voice went cold, that edge I'd been hearing more and more lately. "She's going through something. Show some compassion."

"Compassion?" The word tasted bitter. "I have a 103-degree fever, and you abandoned me to play hero for her."

Skylar made a small, wounded sound. Lukas's expression hardened.

"You're being dramatic," he said. "It's just a fever. Skylar needed help."

"I needed help!" The room tilted. I grabbed for the wall. "I'm your girlfriend. We've been together for three years. She's your ex who just showed up out of nowhere—"

"Don't you dare." He moved toward me, and something in his eyes made my breath catch. "You don't get to talk about her like that."

"Lukas—"

His hand shot out. The shove sent me stumbling backward, my shoulder slamming into the doorframe. Pain exploded through my arm. I looked up at him, shock freezing the words in my throat.

Then his palm connected with my cheek.

The slap echoed through the condo. My head snapped to the side, my vision whiting out for a second. Heat bloomed across my face—not from the fever this time.

"Get out," he said. His voice was flat. Final. "Get out of my apartment."

Behind him, Skylar watched with glittering eyes, her tears mysteriously dried.

I touched my burning cheek, my fingers coming away wet. I couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears. The man standing in front of me—this stranger with Lukas's face—pointed toward the door.

"Now, Gabriella."

The November wind cut through my thin pajamas the moment I stepped into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind me, the lock clicking into place with terrible finality. I stood there shivering, my bare feet on cold marble, my fever raging, my cheek throbbing.

And for the first time in three years, I finally saw clearly.

I don't remember finding my phone. Don't remember scrolling through my contacts with shaking fingers, the screen blurring through fever and tears. But somehow I'm sitting on the cold marble floor outside the condo, my back against the wall, and my father's voice is in my ear.

"Gabriella?"

The sound of my name—my real name, not the clipped "Ella" Lukas always used—breaks something inside me. A sob tears out of my throat.

"Daddy." The word feels foreign. I haven't called him that in three years. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Where are you?" His voice sharpens, all business now. I hear movement on his end, the rustle of fabric. "Are you hurt?"

My cheek throbs. My shoulder aches where it hit the doorframe. But that's not what hurts.

"I was wrong," I whisper. "About everything. About him. You tried to tell me, and I—"

"Gabriella." Firm. Steady. The voice that built an empire. "Where are you?"

"Outside the condo. He kicked me out. I don't—I don't have anywhere to go."

The silence stretches for three heartbeats.

"You have a home," he says quietly. "You've always had a home. I'm sending Riggs. Don't move."

The line goes dead. I let the phone slip from my fingers, my head falling back against the wall. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows across the hall, the city glitters like broken glass.

Inside the condo, champagne corks pop.

---

Skylar stands in the middle of the master bedroom, surrounded by the wreckage of my life.

My clothes are scattered across the floor, some slashed with scissors, others soaked in what smells like wine. The jewelry box my grandmother gave me lies open and empty on the dresser—she's already pocketed anything valuable. But it's the photo albums that make her smile.

She picks up the leather-bound book from my childhood, the one with my mother's careful handwriting labeling each picture. Family vacation to Martha's Vineyard. Gabriella's eighth birthday. Christmas at the estate.

"Look at little princess Gabriella," she sings, flipping through pages. "So perfect. So privileged."

She rips out a photo—me and Riggs building sandcastles, both of us gap-toothed and sunburned. The paper tears easily. She lets the pieces flutter to the floor.

"Skylar." Lukas appears in the doorway, champagne flute in hand. His eyes are glassy, his tie loosened. "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning." She tears out another page. My high school graduation. My father's arm around my shoulders, both of us beaming. "Getting rid of the trash."

He watches her destroy the album, page by page, and takes another sip of champagne.

"She's gone," Skylar says, moving to the next album. This one's from college—my sorority formal, spring break trips, late-night study sessions. "Finally. It's just us now, like it was always supposed to be."

Lukas nods slowly. The champagne in his glass catches the light, golden and effervescent. He doesn't stop her when she throws the albums in the trash, doesn't flinch when she grinds her heel into a framed photo of me and my father.

He just drinks, and watches, and says nothing at all.

---

Riggs arrives at dawn.

I'm still in the hallway, wrapped in a blanket a kind neighbor brought me hours ago. The fever has broken, leaving me hollow and shivering. When the elevator doors open and my brother steps out, I barely recognize him. He's in a tailored suit despite the early hour, his jaw set, his eyes cold.

Behind him, three men in dark clothing carry empty boxes.

"Ella." He crouches in front of me, his hand gentle on my uninjured shoulder. Up close, I see the fury banked in his eyes. "Let's get you home."

He helps me to my feet, steadying me when I sway. One of the security team produces a key—my key, the one I'd left on the hall table when Lukas threw me out. Riggs takes it, his fingers closing around it like a weapon.

The door swings open.

Lukas is on the couch, his head in his hands. Skylar's nowhere to be seen—probably in the guest room, sleeping off her performance. He looks up when we enter, and whatever he sees in Riggs's face makes him go pale.

"Mr. Bennett, I can explain—"

Riggs doesn't speak. Doesn't acknowledge him. He just looks at Lukas with the kind of cold, measuring stare that precedes corporate annihilation. Then he turns to his team.

"Pack everything that belongs to my sister. Everything."

They move through the condo like a surgical strike. I watch from the doorway as they gather my trashed belongings, my destroyed albums, every trace of my three-year mistake. Lukas stands frozen, his mouth opening and closing, but no words come out.

Riggs finds the torn photos on the bedroom floor. He picks up a piece—me and my mother, her face ripped in half—and something in his expression goes arctic.

He walks back to the living room. Stops in front of Lukas. Still doesn't say a word.

But the look he gives him—the absolute promise of destruction in his eyes—makes Lukas take a step back.

Then Riggs takes my arm, and we leave.

The steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was the first thing that anchored me to reality. It was a sharp contrast to the chaotic silence of the hallway where I’d spent my last conscious moments. I blinked, my eyelids feeling like sandpaper, and the sterile white ceiling of the VIP suite at East Hampton Concierge Medicine came into focus.

To my right, the early morning sun filtered through heavy velvet curtains, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. To my left, slumped in an uncomfortable leather armchair that cost more than Lukas’s car, was my father. His silver hair was disheveled, his chin resting on his chest, a half-read Wall Street Journal tented over his knee.

My chest ached—a deep, rattling heaviness that the doctor later called severe pneumonia—but the ice that had frozen my heart in that Manhattan corridor had begun to thaw, replaced by a dull, throbbing anger.

"You’re awake."

Riggs stood at the foot of the bed, his silhouette sharp against the window. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, his tie undone, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms tense with restrained energy.

"How long?" I rasped. My voice sounded like grinding stones.

"Two days," Riggs said, moving to pour a glass of water from a crystal pitcher. He brought it to my lips, his hand steadying the back of my head with a gentleness that made my throat tight. "You were burning up, Ella. Doctors said if you’d stayed in that hallway another hour..."

He didn't finish. He didn't have to. The image of the closed door and the sound of champagne corks popping was burned into my retinas.

"I’m sorry," I whispered, looking toward our father.

"Don't," Riggs cut in sharply, though his eyes remained soft. "Dad hasn't left that chair. We’re just glad you’re back. The rest... we handle the rest later."

"The rest" arrived sooner than expected.

Around noon, a commotion erupted outside the heavy oak door of my suite. Raised voices. A familiar, frantic tenor that made my pulse spike on the monitor—not from love, but from a sudden, violent repulsion.

"She’s my girlfriend! You can’t keep me out! I need to see her!"

The door swung open before Riggs could stop it. Lukas burst in, breathless, clutching a bouquet of wilting bodega carnations wrapped in crinkling plastic. He looked performatively disheveled—hair mussed, shirt untucked—as if he’d run all the way from the city.

Riggs moved to intercept him, his posture shifting into a lethal crouch, but I lifted a hand.

"Let him," I said. My voice was stronger now. Cold.

Lukas stopped at the foot of the bed, his eyes darting from the luxury of the suite to Riggs, and finally to me. I saw the calculation behind his panic. He wasn't worried about my health; he was worried about his ATM walking out the door.

"Baby," he breathed, stepping forward and thrusting the sad flowers toward me. "God, I’ve been calling everyone. I was so worried. You just... disappeared."

"Disappeared?" I stared at the flowers. The plastic wrapper still had a $9.99 price sticker on it. "You threw me out, Lukas. Into the freezing cold. With a fever."

"I was drunk," he lied smoothly, dropping the flowers on the bedside table where they clashed hideously with the orchids my father had ordered. He reached for my hand. "Skylar... she was having a breakdown. I didn't know what I was doing. I thought you left on your own."

I pulled my hand away as if his skin were acidic. "You hit me."

The room went deadly silent. My father stirred in his chair, waking instantly, his gaze locking onto Lukas like a predator sighting prey.

"I—I didn't mean to," Lukas stammered, the color draining from his face. "It was an accident. You were hysterical. I was trying to calm you down."

"Get out," I said. It wasn't a scream. It was a verdict.

His face hardened, the mask slipping. "Gabriella, be reasonable. We have a life together. You can't just throw three years away because of one bad night. Who’s going to take care of you?"

I looked at my father, who was slowly standing up, radiating the kind of power that could crush tech startups with a single phone call. I looked at Riggs, ready to tear Lukas apart with his bare hands. Then I looked at Lukas—really looked at him—and saw nothing but a small, greedy boy playing dress-up in a man’s world.

"I’m not throwing away three years, Lukas," I said, leaning back against the pillows. "I’m taking back the rest of my life. Security."

Two uniformed guards materialized in the doorway.

"You’re making a mistake!" Lukas shouted as they grabbed his arms. His desperation turned vicious, his voice curdling into a snarl. "You think you’re better than me? You’re nothing without your daddy’s money! You’re pathetic!"

As they dragged him out, his eyes met mine one last time. There was no love there. Only a promise of war.

By evening, the silence in the room felt different. Heavier. I was scrolling through my phone, trying to delete photos, when a notification from Instagram popped up. Then another. Then a flood.

*Tagged in a post by @SkyHighSpencer.*

My thumb hovered over the screen. A sick feeling coiled in my stomach. I tapped the notification.

A video began to play. It was grainy footage from the hallway camera of our condo building. But it was wrong. The audio was choppy, spliced together.

*"I’m going to ruin you!"* my voice shrieked from the speakers—a clip taken from a playful argument over a board game two years ago, now layered over footage of me stumbling toward Skylar.

Then, a clip of me grabbing Lukas's arm—begging him to stay—but the angle made it look like I was clawing at him, attacking him.

The caption read: *The truth comes out. Billionaire heiress attacks boyfriend and his childhood friend in a jealous, drunken rage. Money can’t buy class. #PsychoEx #JusticeForLukas*

I watched the view count tick upward. One thousand. Five thousand. Ten thousand.

Lukas hadn't just gone back to Skylar. He had handed her the weapon to destroy me.