Elara's POV
The rain hits my face like tiny bullets, but I don't move.
I stand at the edge of Fremont Bridge, my fingers wrapped so tight around the cold metal railing that my knuckles turn white. Below me, the water is dark and angry, matching everything inside my chest.
Three weeks. That's how long it took for my entire life to explode into a million pieces.
Three weeks since the video went viral—Marcus, my fiancé, kissing Vivienne. Not just any girl. My stepsister. The one who made my life hell growing up. The one who smiled at my face while planning to stab me in the back.
Ten million views in twenty-four hours. Ten million people watching my humiliation. Ten million witnesses to my destruction.
I laugh, but it comes out bitter and broken. The sound gets swallowed by the rain.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Again. I pull it out, and the screen lights up with notifications I don't want to see.
Anonymous: Your fiancé upgraded LOL
Anonymous: Once a bastard, always a bastard
Anonymous: Did you really think someone like Marcus would marry YOU?
I should throw the phone into the water. Watch it sink. But I can't afford a new one, and that's the whole problem, isn't it?
Three weeks ago, I had everything. My art gallery—the one I built from nothing, where I showcased paintings from artists nobody else believed in. My savings account that finally had more than three digits. A fiancé from one of Seattle's richest families. Respect.
Now? Nothing.
The gallery closed after Marcus's family—the Chens—made one phone call. Suddenly, every sponsor pulled out. Every artist removed their work. The landlord tripled my rent "due to reputation concerns."
My savings? Gone. Drained paying bills for a business that died overnight.
And yesterday, I found out the Chens blacklisted me. Every gallery, every museum, every art school in Seattle got the same message: Don't hire Elara Winters. She's trouble.
I grip the railing harder. The metal bites into my palms.
I'm not going to jump. I need to be clear about that. I'm not suicidal.
I'm just... tired. So incredibly tired of fighting a battle I can't win.
"Dramatic location for morning contemplation."
I jump, spinning around so fast I almost slip on the wet pavement.
A man stands five feet away, hands in the pockets of a suit that probably costs more than my entire year's rent. He's tall, with dark hair plastered to his head from the rain. But it's his eyes that freeze me in place—gray, like storm clouds, and looking at me with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
He's handsome in a dangerous way. Sharp cheekbones, a jaw that could cut glass, and an expression that says he's used to getting exactly what he wants.
"I'm not jumping," I say automatically, defensive.
"I wasn't worried you would." His voice is deep, smooth like expensive whiskey. "You're too stubborn to give them the satisfaction."
My heart does something weird in my chest. "You don't know anything about me."
"Don't I?" He tilts his head, studying me like I'm a puzzle he's already solved. "You're standing in the rain at sunrise, phone full of messages you won't delete because deleting them feels like admitting defeat. You haven't slept properly in weeks. You keep telling yourself you'll figure something out, but deep down, you're terrified there's no way out."
I take a step back. "Are you stalking me?"
"No." Something flickers in his eyes—amusement, maybe. Or recognition. "I just know what someone looks like when they're deciding whether to keep fighting or surrender."
"And which am I doing?"
He moves closer, and I should feel threatened, but I don't. Instead, I feel... seen. Really seen, for the first time in weeks.
"Fighting," he says quietly. "You're always going to fight. It's who you are."
The rain pounds harder, but neither of us moves.
"Why are you here?" I whisper.
For a moment, something crosses his face—something raw and painful. Then it's gone, replaced by that unreadable mask.
"Same reason as you. Sometimes you need to stand somewhere high and remember you're still alive."
Before I can respond, he turns and walks away, his footsteps silent on the wet bridge.
"Wait!" I call out. "Who are you?"
He pauses, glancing back over his shoulder. The sunrise breaks through the clouds just enough to light half his face, making him look like something between an angel and a devil.
"Someone who knows what it's like to lose everything," he says. "The difference is, I took it all back. With interest."
Then he's gone, disappearing into the rain like he was never there at all.
I stand there, breathing hard, my mind spinning.
Who was he? How did he know those things about me? And why do I feel like that thirty-second conversation just changed something fundamental in my universe?
My phone buzzes again. I look down, expecting another cruel message.
Instead, it's a notification from my bank.
Deposit received: $250,000
Sender: Anonymous
Message: For the café. Don't give up yet. - A Friend
My hands start shaking so badly I almost drop the phone.
Quarter of a million dollars. Just... appeared in my account.
The café—my mother's café that I'm about to lose in thirty days because of mysteriously inflated debt. The only piece of her I have left. The debt is exactly $200,000.
This money could save it.
But who sent it? And why?
I spin around, searching for the mysterious stranger, but the bridge is empty except for the rain and the rising sun.
My phone buzzes one more time.
Unknown Number: Check under the third bench on the south side. You'll need it for what's coming.
My heart pounds as I run to the south side of the bridge, rain soaking through my jacket. The third bench. I drop to my knees and reach underneath, my fingers finding something taped there.
I pull it free.
It's a flash drive.
A small yellow sticky note is attached, the ink slightly smeared from moisture: "The truth about your mother's accident. And the people who destroyed you. Trust no one. - C.A."
My mother's accident.
The car crash that killed her eleven years ago when I was sixteen.
The accident everyone said was just bad luck—wet roads, a sharp turn, mechanical failure.
But this note says differently.
My hands shake as I stare at the flash drive, my mother's smiling face flashing through my memory. The way she laughed. The way she believed in me when nobody else did. The way she died alone on a rainy night, and I never got to say goodbye.
If her death wasn't an accident...
If someone killed her...
The rain falls harder, but I barely feel it. Everything I thought I knew is cracking open, and underneath is something dark and terrifying and impossibly huge.
Who was that man?
What's on this flash drive?
And why do I have the terrible, thrilling feeling that my life just got a lot more dangerous?