Rhea's chest tightened painfully. "How do I survive that?" she whispered hoarsely. "How do I survive loving you one moment and losing you the next?"
She hugged herself tighter, nails digging into her arms, grounding herself in pain because at least pain was honest. At least pain didn't pretend.
Her thoughts spiraled.
Was any of it real?
Did she ever mean it?
Or was I just… convenient?
The idea shattered something deep inside her.
She remembered how Ling had laughed with her, how natural it had felt, how safe she had been and the realization hit her with brutal clarity:
That safety was what made it unbearable.
Rhea's sobs turned jagged again as she rocked slightly, overwhelmed, her breathing uneven. The room still smelled faintly like the night before, like warmth and familiarity, and it made everything worse.
"I gave you everything," she whispered into her knees. "I trusted you with everything."
Her tears soaked into her skin, the floor beneath her. Time stretched strangely — minutes felt like hours, hours like moments — as she relived every teasing smile, every soft touch, every word she had believed without question.
And now, every memory felt poisoned.
The worst part wasn't that Ling had left.
It was that Ling had stayed long enough to make Rhea feel safe — and then taught her, brutally, that even the safest place could collapse without warning.
Rhea pressed her forehead to the wall, breath shuddering, voice barely audible.
"I don't know how to unlove you," she said.
The room offered no answer.
Only the echo of last night and the silence that followed.
Kane reached home with her colleague's son.
She called Rhea's name from downstairs.
No answer.
She tried again firmer this time, assuming Rhea had fallen asleep or had her headphones on. Still nothing. The house felt wrong in that quiet, the kind that presses against your ears.
Roin sat awkwardly on the couch, glancing up when Kane paused at the foot of the stairs.
"She might be busy," Kane said absently, already moving. "Sit. I'll check."
Each step up made her chest tighten for reasons she couldn't name yet.
When Kane reached Rhea's door, it wasn't locked.
She pushed it open and the world shifted.
Rhea was on the floor.
Not curled, not moving just sitting there stiffly, back against the wall, eyes unfocused.
Tears slid down her face in a steady, silent stream, like her body had forgotten how to stop them. She was bare, unaware of it, unaware of anything except the collapse inside her.
She looked emptied.
Kane froze.
For a split second, her mind refused to process the image her daughter on the floor like something broken and forgotten and then instinct slammed in hard.
"Oh my God," Kane whispered.
She crossed the room in two steps, grabbing the nearest blanket, wrapping it around Rhea gently but urgently, shielding her without hesitation, without a single thought beyond protect.
Rhea didn't react.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't look up.
Kane knelt and pulled her into her arms, holding her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped around her shoulders, rocking slightly like she used to when Rhea was small.
"It's okay," Kane said immediately, voice shaking despite her effort to keep it steady. "Mom's here. I've got you."
Only then did Rhea's body respond.
A sharp breath tore out of her chest, like she'd been underwater too long. Her hands clenched weakly in Kane's clothes, fingers shaking as if confirming something solid was real.
"M—" Her voice broke completely. She couldn't even finish the word.
Kane felt it then the way Rhea's entire body was rigid, like she was holding herself together by force alone. The way her tears weren't loud or dramatic, just endless.
Kane's heart fractured.
She pulled Rhea closer, covering her more securely, pressing a kiss to her hair, over and over again.
"Don't think about anything," Kane murmured. "Don't explain. Just breathe. I'm here."
Rhea's face pressed into her chest, finally, finally breaking as a sob ripped out of her — raw and animal and full of everything she had been holding back. She cried like someone grieving something still alive.
Kane's eyes burned, but she didn't let go. She didn't ask questions. She didn't look around the room for answers.
Her priority was the girl shaking in her arms.
Rhea's body shook violently against her chest.
"I felt safe," Rhea sobbed, her words breaking apart. "Mama, I really felt safe."
Kane's jaw tightened. She pressed her chin to the crown of Rhea's head, one hand gripping the blanket harder.
"She touched me like I mattered," Rhea continued, breath hitching. "Like I wasn't a plan. Like I wasn't something to be used."
Kane closed her eyes.
"She let me believe it," Rhea whispered. "I gave her myself because I trusted her. Because I thought… I thought that was love."
Her fingers curled desperately into Kane's clothes.
"And she wanted it," Rhea cried. "Not because she loved me. Because she wanted to hurt me back."
The words finally cracked something.
Kane's breath stuttered.
"She looked at me this morning," Rhea went on, voice raw, almost unrecognizable. "Not like before. Like I was something she had already destroyed."
Kane pulled her closer, almost crushingly so.
Rhea clung harder, as if her body knew there was nothing left to hold onto but this.
"I don't understand how it turned so fast," she gasped. "How the safest eyes I've ever known became that."
Her shoulders shook uncontrollably.
"I don't know how to live with this," Rhea whispered. "I don't know how to un-feel it."
Kane's tears fell silently then heavy, uncontrolled, soaking into Rhea's hair.
For the first time in years, Kane did not hide them.
She tightened her arms around her daughter and murmured hoarsely, more to herself than to Rhea,
"I didn't think she would break you like this."
Rhea sobbed harder at that not because of what Kane said, but because of what she hadn't.
Kane did not say I'm sorry.
She did not say I was wrong.
She did not say I did this to you.
She only held her daughter while the weight of what she had set in motion pressed down on her chest until breathing hurt.
Outside the room, the mansion remained silent.
Inside, revenge no longer felt victorious.
It felt irreversible.
Kane waited until Rhea's breathing slowed enough to be counted.
Not calm just less violent.
"Come," Kane said quietly. Not a question. An instruction.
"You can't stay like this."
Rhea didn't respond.
Her eyes were open, but they didn't fix on anything. Her body moved only when Kane shifted her weight, like a limb being guided rather than a person deciding.
Kane lifted her carefully, the way one handles something fragile after it has already cracked.
Rhea followed without resistance.
No words.
No protest.
No hesitation.
The bathroom lights came on. Too bright. Kane dimmed them without thinking.
"Sit," she said.
Rhea sat.
Kane turned the water on, tested it with her wrist, adjusted it twice. Her hands were steady even though her chest wasn't.
She removed blanket from Rhea methodically, avoiding urgency, avoiding delay. The body in front of her felt emptied of ownership, as if Rhea no longer recognized it as hers.
The bathroom door closed behind them. The light came on. Kane dimmed it without thinking.
"Sit."
Rhea sat on the edge of the tub.
Kane stopped her eyes went on Rhea body.
Along Rhea's collarbone. Her throat. The soft slope of her shoulder. Darkened, layered, intentional. Not careless. Not rushed.
Taken time with.
Kane's breath hitched once. Her fingers hovered, then steadied. She continued seeing more faint impressions along her ribs, her waist, the curve of her chest. Places someone had touched gently. Confidently. Places Rhea had not guarded.
Kane swallowed hard.
So this was how safe she had felt.
Rhea stood when Kane lifted her again. She did not look down at her own body. She did not react.
The shower turned on. Kane tested the water and guided Rhea beneath it, one arm firm around her back.
"Lift your arm."
Rhea lifted it.
Kane washed her herself. Slowly. Thoroughly. Her hands moved over every inch, the water tracing over the marks without mercy. Kane did not rush. She did not look away.
Her jaw tightened as her palms passed over skin that had been held with care, with affection. Not claimed. Not forced.
Loved.
Rhea did not flinch. Did not sigh. Did not cry. Her eyes stayed distant, unfocused, as if the body remembered something the mind had shut out completely.
Kane rinsed her. Turned off the water. Wrapped her in a towel, then another, covering her fully.
"Step out."
Rhea stepped out.
Kane dried her herself. Dressed her herself. Soft clothes. Familiar ones. Every movement was close, unavoidable, intimate in the way only necessity allows.
When it was done, Kane lowered them both to the couch and pulled Rhea into her arms.
Rhea did not cling.
She stayed where she was placed.
Kane pressed her lips into Rhea's damp hair. Her hands tightened against her back.
"You are safe," Kane said quietly.
Rhea did not answer.
Kane's breath shook despite her control.
"We will deal with it." she whispered.
Rhea's eyes remained empty, fixed on nothing.
Kane held her anyway, rocking her slowly, as if her own body could remember safety even when Rhea's could not.
The marks would fade.
The knowing would not.
——
Ling arrived at the Kwong mansion just before dawn.
The gates opened without question. The guards did not speak. The house was awake.
Eliza was waiting.
She stood in the hallway outside Ling's room, robe immaculate, posture straight, eyes sharp with expectation rather than concern.
Ling walked past her without slowing. She pushed her bedroom door open and stepped inside. Only when she reached the center of the room did she stop.
Eliza followed. Closed the door behind them.
"Well?" Eliza asked.
Ling removed her coat and laid it across the chair. Her movements were precise, controlled. She did not sit.
"It's done," Ling said.
Eliza's lips curved immediately. Not relief. Satisfaction.
"You told her?" Eliza asked.
Ling nodded once. "After."
A short, breathless laugh escaped Eliza before she could stop it. She crossed the room quickly and grabbed Ling, pulling her into a tight embrace.
"You won," Eliza said into her hair. "We won."
Ling did not return the hug at first.
Eliza pulled back just enough to look at her face. "I'm proud of you," she said. "You did exactly what a Kwong does."
Ling's eyes were damp. Not broken. Not wild. Controlled, but full.
"I ruined her," Ling said flatly.
Eliza waved it off without hesitation. "No. You taught her."
Ling looked away.
"She trusted me," Ling said. "She gave me everything."
Eliza cupped Ling's face firmly, forcing her to look back. "Affection," she said. "That's all it was. Intense, yes but temporary. It fades."
Ling's jaw tightened.
"You don't lack anything," Eliza continued, voice smooth, confident. "Not power. Not beauty. Not women."
She smiled sharply. "They line up just to look at you."
Ling swallowed.
"I'll get you someone more beautiful than Rhea," Eliza said. "Smarter. Cleaner. Loyal. Someone who knows her place."
Ling's eyes flickered just once.
Eliza kissed her forehead. "This is how you survive in our world," she said. "You don't love. You conquer. You control."
Ling stepped back.
She nodded.
Her voice broke the stillness.
"She gave me her body," Ling said. "And I used her."
Eliza did not hesitate.
"No," she said sharply. "You didn't."
Ling looked at her then, eyes dark, searching.
"She gave it to you herself," Eliza continued. "With choice. With consent. With belief. You didn't take anything."
Ling's fingers curled slowly into her palm.
"I knew what it meant to her," Ling said. "I let her believe—"
"And she let you believe once," Eliza cut in. "She betrayed you first."
Eliza stepped closer, her tone precise, almost instructional.
"What you did was symmetry," she said. "Balance. Not cruelty."
Ling's jaw tightened.
"She trusted me."
"And you trusted her," Eliza replied. "And look what that cost you."
Eliza's hand came to Ling's shoulder, firm.
"There is nothing to regret," she said. "Betrayal repaid is not sin. It is correction."
Ling exhaled slowly through her nose.
Eliza's voice lowered, satisfied. "You didn't ruin her," she said. "You ended the illusion."
Ling said nothing.
Her eyes dropped to the floor, damp but steady — the silence not disagreement, but the sound of something still refusing to die, even as she told herself it should have already been buried.
The door opened without warning.
Neither Eliza nor Ling turned fast enough.
Dadi stood at the threshold.
She had heard everything.