The lights glittered over the ballroom like stars strung too low. Chandeliers cast gold over champagne glasses, polished marble floors, and men in tailored suits pretending their power wasn't already stitched into their pockets. This was one of those functions where reputation mattered more than oxygen.
And Cassandra Archer knew how to breathe here better than anyone.
I knew the moment I walked in that the night was going to be another battlefield. My heels bit into the floor with every step, my dress hugging curves the way confidence hugged me now. I didn't look like the girl from The Heights anymore. I looked like someone who belonged here — even if Cassandra would do everything she could to prove otherwise.
Julian was across the room, speaking with a senator and two board members, his suit cut sharp, his profile godlike under the lights. His eyes found me for a moment — just long enough for my pulse to skip — before he turned back, expression shuttered.
And then I saw her.
Cassandra floated in, a vision in silver satin, her hand looped lightly through Julian's arm as though she were fastening herself to him by will alone. She was smiling that perfect, glacial smile — the kind that looked warm until it froze you.
"Amira!" she said, too loudly, too sweetly, as if she'd been waiting. "You look stunning, darling. So brave of you to wear something so… bold."
My lips curved. "Thank you. Bravery is sort of my specialty."
A few nearby faces tittered nervously. Cassandra's eyes gleamed.
The war began not on a stage, but in small circles of conversation, where money and rumor mixed like gin and tonic. Cassandra knew exactly how to angle her body, how to pitch her voice, how to slip in her poison so it sounded like champagne bubbles — light, careless, impossible to catch.
"I've always admired young women who rise from… humble beginnings," she told a half-circle of donors, her gaze sliding to me as I sipped my drink nearby. "It must take such… resilience. Especially when one's family faces foreclosures, debts, those little struggles that can define a life."
I felt the words sink into the air like knives. The crowd murmured — polite, curious, scandalized. Someone's eyes widened in recognition; someone else whispered behind a napkin.
I didn't move.
Cassandra's smile sharpened. She wasn't finished. "But of course, that's why we hold events like this, isn't it? To give to those less fortunate. Who knows…" She tilted her glass and let her laughter tinkle like bells. "Perhaps our Amira might need a little charity, too."
A ripple of laughter — not everyone, but enough — washed through the group.
My chest burned. For a second, the old shame threatened to rise — the nights of eviction notices taped to our door, the clatter of dishes when I worked doubles at the diner, the quiet humiliation of never having enough. She wanted me to drown in that shame, right here, in silk and champagne.
But shame was her weapon, not mine.
I set my glass down and let my voice carry. "You're right, Cassandra. I did grow up poor. I did work nights scrubbing tables and saving pennies to get here. And yes, my family lost more than once. But let me tell you something."
The circle quieted. Even Julian, from across the room, was watching now.
"That past didn't break me. It built me. It taught me grit. It taught me hunger. It taught me how to fight until I was standing in rooms just like this one — rooms you think I don't belong in."
I let my gaze sweep the group, steady, unwavering. "So no, I don't need your charity. I'm not the one desperate for approval tonight."
The silence that followed was electric. And then — a single laugh. Tasha, bless her, materialized from nowhere with a glass of wine in hand, grinning wide. "Ooooh, I know that's right."
The group broke. A few smiled at me, a few looked away, but the current had shifted. I wasn't the poor girl being pitied anymore. I was the woman who had just put Cassandra Archer in her place, in her own arena.
Cassandra's smile faltered just enough for me to see the crack. Her knuckles whitened around her champagne flute, though she masked it with another laugh.
"How… inspiring," she murmured. "Truly."
She leaned close as the others drifted, her words a hiss meant for me alone. "Enjoy your little performance, darling. But I can dig deeper than foreclosure records. You really want to test me?"
I smiled sweetly, leaning just as close. "Keep digging. You'll only find out how much more I can survive."
Her eyes narrowed. For once, she had no ready reply.
When I turned to leave, the crowd parted like water. My heels struck steady, my head high. I didn't look back at Cassandra, though I could feel her stare slicing into me.
As I passed, Julian's hand brushed my arm — a fleeting, dangerous contact hidden in the swirl of bodies. His voice was low, rough, meant for me alone.
"Fuck… that was …" he breathed low, biting his bottom lip as his eyes devoured me.
I paused, breath catching, but kept my smile fixed. "She gave me the stage. And I took it. Didn't I look good doing it?"
Our eyes locked — his blazing with something he couldn't let out here, mine with the fire of someone who had just won a round.
I placed a hand on my hip and walked on, the night still alive around me, battle won but the war far from over.
Because Cassandra was right about one thing... she could dig deeper.
And I would be ready when she did.