LOGINš¤ Jacob š¤She took my home from me.Iād said it to Lex on the phone before I fully understood how true it was, and now, sitting alone in an Airbnb that wasnāt mine with a folder full of my fatherās betrayal still open on the table in front of me, I understood it completely.Stella hadnāt just dismantled the Grey family business. Sheād used the Fisher-Hale familyās own power to do it Lexās family, the family Iād married into, the family Iād loved enough to lose everything else for. My sister had reached across two empires, turned one against the other, and walked away with the only thing that actually mattered to her: control of everything both families had spent generations building.This shit is till unbelievable, how did she plan this? And what if my father being involved is also a lie? God I donāt even know what to believe anymore.I sat back in the cheap kitchen chair and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until colored static bloomed behind them.Five years of belie
š¤ Alexandra š¤Stella is a pure evil genius. I have to give her that much, even sitting here furious enough to put my fist through a wall. How does one woman play this many people her own family included, and make every single move look like grief, like coincidence, like bad luck, instead of what it actually was?I walked out of Papaās office with the entire sack of files heād handed me, and instead of going to my room, I went straight to my own office down the hall the one Iād had set up here since I was a teenager, separate from the basement office downtown, because some habits of needing my own space to think had started long before I ever needed an empire to run.I didnāt know what to believe anymore. That was the part sitting heaviest in my chest as I shut the door behind me. Iād walked into that basement hours ago thinking I had Stella in custody, thinking I was back in control of something after five years of feeling like Iād lost my grip on all of it. Now I understood that th
š¤ Alexandra š¤āHi, Papa,ā I greeted, walking into his home office after making sure my babies were tucked in bed, safe, sleeping, alive in a way that had felt impossible just hours earlier today.āI was told you went back to work,ā Papa said, smiling without looking up from the files spread across his desk, the lamp light catching the silver at his temples in a way that made him look older than he had the last time Iād sat in this room.āAnd I was surprised by how much I missed that lifestyle,ā I responded, taking the seat across from him, the same worn leather chair I used to sit in as a teenager waiting to be told I was too young to understand half of what was happening around me.He looked up then, something soft and a little sad moving behind his eyes. āYou sound like my Jay right now. Sometimes he wanted something so badly, and still chose the safe option most times, for the sake of the people around him.āI felt the familiar ache settle into my chest not sharp anymore, not the
š¤ Jacob š¤Thereās another Jacob Grey.I sat with that sentence the entire drive back from the basement, turning it over and over like a stone I couldnāt get a clean grip on. What the hell was actually going on. I didnāt even understand the shape of the plot I was supposedly living inside anymore, five years of running from a danger I thought I understood, and tonight alone had already rewritten the rules of it twice.āHmm. Lex, can I ask you something?ā I said, turning to look her directly in the eye once we were back in the car, because if I was going to start pulling at threads, I wanted to watch her face while I did it.āAsk away,ā she said.āFive years ago,ā I said slowly, āwas your family the only one responsible for the Grey familyās downfall? Or did you have help from the inside. Someone close to me.āShe didnāt flinch, didnāt look away, just considered the question with the same level focus she gave everything tonight. āI genuinely didnāt have anything to do with your family
š¤ Alexandra š¤They had her sitting upright again by the time Jacob and I came back down, the wound dressed, her face gray with blood loss and something far worse underneath it the particular exhaustion of a person who has finally understood that nobody is coming to save her.Good. That was exactly the headspace I needed her in.āLetās try this again,ā I said, pulling my chair back into the same spot, close enough that there was nowhere for her to look that wasnāt directly at me. āWho paid you, Amara?āāI told you already.ā Her voice came out thin, scraped raw. āI have nothing else to say.āI nodded slowly, like Iād expected that answer, because I had. The first hour was never about getting truth. The first hour was about teaching someone that silence cost more than talking did, and Amara was about to learn that lesson the hard way, the way people like her always did slowly, in increments, each one worse than the last until the math finally tipped in my favor.I wonāt pretend the nex
š¤ Alexandra š¤Coming back into this building after years away from this life brought a strange, specific kind of clarity with it not excitement exactly, though something close enough to it that I didnāt trust myself to examine it too closely. Iād spent five years convincing everyone, myself included, that Iād outgrown rooms like this. Standing in one again, I understood how much of that conviction had just been exhaustion wearing the costume of peace.God, I couldnāt wait to torture the truth out of her.I sat down across from Amara, close enough that there was no pretending this was anything but personal between us now. āStart at the beginning,ā I said quietly. āAnd Amara? Iād choose your next words very, very carefully.āāI have nothing to say to you.āIt came out flat, almost rehearsed, and something in me that Iād kept leashed for five years simply stopped being patient with her.I donāt fully remember deciding to move. I remember the knife was already in my hand Jen always kept
š¤ Alexandra š¤The car had barely cleared the next intersection when something felt off. The kind of wrong you donāt ignore if you plan to stay alive.I straightened slightly in my seat, my eyes moving toward the side mirror, then the rear view, taking in the cars behind us, the ones ahead, the mo
š¤Alexandraš¤My phone rang before I could settle fully into my next move. I didnāt even need to look at the screen to know it was important. The timing alone said enough. Nothing around me was moving quietly anymore.I picked up immediately.āYes.āāPresident⦠we have a problem.āTimmyās voice was
š¤ Alexandra š¤āI take it you are moving in with him today.ā Papa said it with a small smile on his face, the kind that looks calm on the surface yet carries intention underneath, and that alone made me pause for a second longer than I planned, my eyes narrowing slightly as I studied him carefully
š¤ Alexandra š¤āYou got married?āJaydenās voice came through my phone so loud I had to pull it slightly away from my ear as I stood beside my car, one hand resting on the door handle, my mind already preparing for the war waiting inside the house, and somehow my twin screaming at me was not part







