"Leonora!"

Leonora's eyes lit up. "Phineas? Where's Sid?"

It was Phineas Joyce, Sid Dickerson's assistant, and Leonora's own brother, Percival Matthews, climbed out of the second van right behind him.

Phineas hurried to explain. "The bosses are locked in a big deal today, but the second they heard you'd been wronged, they all dropped everything to head back!"

A few more people filed out of the other vans, suits crisp, each from a different company.

Clearly the advance teams the four moguls had each sent ahead.

Leonora jerked her chin at me.

"Weren't you the one screaming to see Connor Harding?"

"Well, they're here. So? Figured out how you're going to beg yet?"

Percival caught sight of me and muttered under his breath without thinking. "She looks way too much like my sister…"

I gave him a glance. Didn't know him.

My voice came out cold. "You're not good enough. Have Connor come himself."

Percival's face flipped on the spot.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the security guard beside him, twisted off the cap, and dumped the whole thing in my face.

Ice water ran down through my hair, stinging my eyes raw.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You've got the nerve to say Mr. Harding's name to his face?"

"At the very least I'm the signed talent director at Dickerson Studio! Trash like you isn't even fit to carry my bag!"

I squinted through the water blurring my eyes, and marked down another tally against Connor and the rest of them, hard.

How wonderful.

Not only had they gotten full of themselves, the ones they'd raised under them were each more out of control than the last.

Leonora chimed in beside him, dripping with mockery.

"Oh, this is nothing yet."

"A minute ago she stood there in front of everyone and said Connor and the others have to call her big sister."

"Said she's the one who came up with all their nicknames, too. Tch. Careful the wind doesn't blow that tongue right out of your head."

Percival went off instantly.

He seized a fistful of my hair and slammed my head down.

"Apologize, you bitch!"

"Say it to the camera. Say you're a fake riding their coattails, looking for a payout. Say it a hundred times!"

He pulled out his phone and started recording, his other hand forcing my head toward the ground.

My forehead cracked against the floor tile.

Once.

Then again.

By the third time, my temples were ringing and the edges of my vision went dark.

Something rolled out of my coat pocket.

A doll charm, old and gone yellow with age.

The stitches crooked, cotton nearly spilling out of its belly, obviously handsewn, clumsy as anything.

Look closer and you'd see four names scrawled across it in marker, lopsided.

Connor Harding.

Sid Dickerson.

Asher Perry.

Duane Lambert.

Four little brats had stayed up the whole night before I left the country to sew that for me.

Pricked their fingers bloody and still wouldn't stop.

Connor had written his own name the biggest, said that way, whenever I missed them, his would be the first I saw.

Leonora bent down and picked it up.

Turned it over in her hands for a few seconds, and her face changed at once.

"You—!"

She hurled the doll to the ground.

"Still going to tell me you weren't trying to seduce my brothers?! You'd actually make something this disgusting?!"

She lifted her stiletto and stomped down on it, hard.

The four-inch heel punched straight through the doll's belly, cotton squeezing out of the torn hole.

It still wasn't enough for her. She ground it under her heel a few more times, then kicked it away with the last stomp.

On instinct I lunged to grab it.

But Percival just stamped down on my hand.

Twisted his sole into it.

Pain shot straight through me.

"A scammer like you, fit to touch my brothers' things?"

And right then.

Among the people who'd come with Phineas, a man in a gray suit suddenly went white as a sheet.

He lunged forward and snatched up the doll, crushed flat on the ground.

His hands were shaking.

"This… this thing…"

"I have to show the boss right now!"

He spun on his heel and bolted.

Leonora didn't notice a thing. She was still smiling, chattering to Percival.

"That's one of the secretaries who follows my third brother around, isn't it? See, every little thing has to be reported back to him."

"My third brother cares about baby the most."

Cold sweat poured off me from the pain, but when I lifted my head, I found myself smiling.

Asher Perry. The third one.

Back when the four of them sewed that doll together, he was the one who took it most seriously.

The others would prick a finger, hiss, and keep stitching. Not him. He burst into tears on the spot. Not over his own hand. He was terrified the blood would stain the doll and I'd find it disgusting.

Afterward he made me swear, again and again, that I'd carry it on me always, and that anyone who broke it would lose everything they had.

I looked down at the little pile of stuffing on the ground.

On the doll's ruptured belly, the scrap of cloth with "Asher Perry" stitched across it had been punched clean through by a heel.

Someone's empire was about to go toward the bill.

Seeing me still able to smile after the beating, Leonora was so furious she stamped her foot.

"What are you laughing at!"

"Do you even know who baby's third brother is?"

"My third brother's luxury conglomerate is worth three billion! The whole elite circle's luxury supply chain runs through his hands!"

"If he wanted to crush you, it'd be easier than crushing an ant!"

The more she said, the more worked up she got, jabbing a finger at my face.

"Baby will have my third brother put your photo on every brand's blacklist! You won't be able to buy a single decent dress for the rest of your life!"

"Let's see how you copy baby's outfits then!"

Beside her, Percival poured oil on the fire.

"Sis, just blacklisting her is letting her off easy. Better to have Lawyer Lambert step in—hit her with violation of likeness rights plus deliberate defamation, sue for a few million, leave her in debt for life."

Leonora clapped her hands.

"Little brother's right! Let's do it!"

"But before that…"

She crouched down and dug a tube of lipstick out of her bag.

"Baby's been learning to paint lately."

She uncapped the lipstick and looked at me, all smiles.

"Since you love imitating baby so much, baby will just draw a little mark on your face."

"That way everyone will know at a glance—this is a fake that baby has tagged."

She reached out and gripped my chin, the lipstick coming for my cheek.

I twisted my head away, my voice cold enough to freeze.

"Leonora."

"Every single thing you've done today, I'll make you pay back with interest."

Leonora froze for a second, then laughed out loud.

"So scary. Baby's so frightened."

Still laughing, she pressed the lipstick to my cheek—

The instant it smeared across my skin—

The shriek of brakes exploded at the mall entrance!

Not one car.

Four.

A matching line of Maybachs, license plates running in sequence, pulled up right at the front doors.

Percival reacted first. He flung my hand away, straightened his clothes, and hurried over.

"Mr. Harding! Mr. Dickerson! Gentlemen!"

Leonora threw the lipstick aside just as fast, blinked the venom out of her eyes, and put on a pitiful, fragile face.

"Big brothers… sob… you finally came…"

The door of the first car opened.

The man who stepped out was tall, his suit cut sharp and clean, thin lips pressed into a hard line.

—Connor Harding.

Right behind him, the second, third, and fourth.

Sid Dickerson, Asher Perry, Duane Lambert—all four stepped out almost at once.

Their stride was fast.

Their expressions, eerily identical.

Out of habit, Leonora moved to meet them, reaching for Connor Harding's sleeve—

The four of them walked straight past her.

Every gaze landed, all at once, on me.

On the water dripping down my face, the bruise on my forehead, the cruel slash of lipstick across my cheek, and the cotton scattered all over the ground beside my hand.

The air felt like a hand had closed around its throat.

Connor's pupils shrank violently, his throat working in a hard swallow.

Sid Dickerson stopped dead where he stood, his fingertips beginning to tremble beyond his control.

Asher Perry saw the doll crushed flat on the ground, and in a single instant the color drained out of his face—

then flooded back as a livid gray.

Duane Lambert was the first of the four to speak.

His voice sounded like it had been dragged across sandpaper.

He said only one word.

"...Sis?"