POV: Marina
The Carter mansion had always smelled of floor wax, cold lilies, and the suffocating scent of old money. But tonight, as the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind the family, the air tasted of ozone and unfiltered rage.
"How could you be so incompetent?!"
The roar echoed off the vaulted ceilings of the grand foyer. My father, Alistair Carter, didn't even wait to reach his study. He stood in the center of the Persian rug, his face a bloated shade of purple that clashed hideously with his silk bowtie.
CRACK.
A crystal tumbler, half-full of twenty-year-old scotch, flew across the room and pulverized against the wainscoting. The amber liquid sprayed across a portrait of my mother, dripping down her painted cheek like a bitter tear.
"Alistair, please, the servants…" my mother, Eleanor, started, her voice trembling as she clutched her throat.
She was still wearing her champagne-colored gala dress, but the elegance had withered. She looked scared, her perfectly packed ponytail beginning to sag.
"The servants already know our daughter is a psychotic bitch!" Dad screamed, stepping into my mom's space. He pointed a shaking finger at her.
"You were supposed to manage her! You told me she was under control. You said she was obsessed with that boy! So tell me, Eleanor, why did she walk into that ballroom looking like a goddamn widow and humiliate me in front of the board?"
"I didn't know!" Eleanor cried, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape.
"She's been quiet! She's been obedient! How was I supposed to know she was hiding a video of Marina and Elias?"
"Because it's your job to know!" Dad bellowed, his chest heaving. "She's turned the Carter name into a joke before the midnight edition even hits the press!"
In the corner of the drawing room, the "star-crossed lovers" which I and Elias are now called, are a pathetic sight.
I collapsed on the floor; I couldn't keep it together anymore. I'd never been humiliated like this before. My white silk gown crumpled around me like a discarded shroud. I was sobbing loudly, with rough sounds that filled the room with a sense of desperation. My hands were gripping around Elias's ankles, my knuckles white.
"Elias, please… you have to tell them," I wailed, my mascara running in black streaks down my pale face. "Tell them it was a setup. Tell them she forced us… she's crazy, Elias!"
Elias didn't look down. He didn't reach out to touch my hair or offer a hand to pull me up. He stood straight, his tuxedo jacket tossed on a chair, his eyes fixed on the glowing screen of his smartphone.
The video was everywhere. The Slap. The Kiss. The Rejection. It had been viewed six million times in the last hour. The comments were a bloodbath.
"Seraphina is a queen."
"Elias Thorne is a gutter rat."
"Look at the sister's face, guilty as hell."
Elias's thumb scrolled on his phone, looking pissed.
He wasn't thinking about my broken heart or the "love" we had whispered about in the dark. He was looking at the stock tickers of his company. They were dropping. His association with the Carter scandal was pulling him down.
"Elias?" I choked out, looking up at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. "Say something."
Elias finally looked down, but there was no warmth in his gaze. Only a cold, dark emptiness. Maybe he realized in that moment that I was no longer a prize or whatever his thinking is. It scares me, or he see me as trouble And if he didn't cut me off, I will ruin him too.
"You should have been more careful, Marina," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. He shook his leg free from my grasp, making me stumble forward onto the cold marble.
He wasn't comforting me; he was already drafting the press release in his head that would distance him from the "unstable" Carter sisters.
My dad and mom ignored me while I was sobbing on the floor, their minds already turning to the only language they understood: punishment.
"She thinks she's powerful because she has a few shares and a loud mouth," my dad hissed, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low frequency.
He wiped a smudge of Scotch from his sleeve. "She's forgotten who provided the air she breathes."
"She's using the Rhys boy as a shield," Mom whispered, her jealousy flaring. "Lucien Rhys… of all people. If they truly form an alliance, Alistair, we won't be able to touch her legally."
"Then we touch her socially," Dad snapped. He marched over to the mahogany desk and picked up the landline.
"I'm calling the board of the Emerald Club. I want her membership revoked by dawn. I want her name scrubbed from the charity gala lists. I want every boutique on the strip to know that if they sell so much as a pair of stockings to Seraphina Carter, they lose the Carter Group's business forever."
The Emerald Club was the "Crystal Palace" of the city's elite. To be barred from its emerald-tiled halls was to be dead in high society. It was where the mothers of the elite traded secrets and the fathers traded companies.
Well, I guess that's supposed to make me happy. It didn't. Seraphina humiliated me in front of everyone. How do I come back from that? I'm about to lose the only man I've ever loved. My hatred for her hardened. I'll make her suffer.
"Strip her of the credit cards," Mom added, a malicious glint returning to her eyes. "Lock her out of the penthouse. Let's see how long her 'indifference' lasts when she's sleeping on the street in that expensive black dress."
"She'll be crawling back by Tuesday," Dad growled, dialing the number for the club's chairman. "And when she does, I'll make sure she begs Marina for forgiveness on her hands and knees."
Half an hour later, the mansion fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. Elias had slunk out the back door to call his lawyers, and my parents were locked in the study, drinking and plotting.
I sat alone in my bedroom. The room was a palace of pink and cream, filled with stuffed animals and expensive perfumes, the room of a girl who had always been told she was the "true" princess of the house.
I stood up slowly, my legs shaking. I walked to the full-length mirror and stared at my reflection. I looked wrecked and pathetic.
Then, I stopped crying.
My transition was instant. My face went blank, my eyes turning into two hard chips of flint.
I reached out and touched the sleeve of my white dress, the dress I had worn tonight to outshine Seraphina. The dress that was supposed to signal my victory as the new bride-to-be.
"You remembered," I whispered to myself. My voice wasn't shaky anymore. It was cold.
I walked to my vanity and picked up a pair of heavy fabric scissors. With a slow, deliberate motion, I brought the blades to the silk of my shoulder.
SHRRRRK.
The sound of the tearing fabric was loud in the quiet room. I didn't stop. I hacked at the lace, shredded the tulle, and ripped the bodice until the floor was covered in white scraps that looked like fallen snow.
In my first life, I had played the long game, waiting for Seraphina to trust me before sliding the knife in. But tonight, Seraphina had flipped the board.
I looked down at the ruined dress, a small, unsettling smile curving my lips.
"If I can't be the bride and the heiress," I murmured, my eyes reflecting the dim light of my room, "then no one will. You think you've won because you have Lucien? You've just given me a bigger target to burn."
I stepped over the white rags, my bare feet pressing into the silk. I didn't look like a heartbroken sister anymore.
I looked like a girl who was ready to turn the world into ashes just to stay warm.