Chapter Twenty-Seven — Part One
City Girls Up
(Amira Rivera — first person)
The champagne tasted like relief.
Not the fake, sweet kind—the real kind that burns a little on the way down and makes you laugh too loud because your body finally believes it's allowed to unclench. We were crammed into Kiera's living room again, shoes kicked off, music low but triumphant, lights warm and forgiving. Someone had ordered tacos at midnight. Someone else had lit a candle that smelled like citrus and victory.
"CITY GIRLS UP," Kiera declared, raising her glass high. "DESPERATE WIFE DOWN."
Tasha snorted and clinked her cup against Kiera's. "Say it louder for the boardroom."
Marisol laughed, shaking her head. "I cannot believe you walked into that room and flipped the whole table."
Janelle smiled at me—soft, proud. "You were calm. That's what scared them."
I leaned back into the couch cushions, the room buzzing with my girls' voices, the aftermath of adrenaline humming through me like electricity. My phone lay face down on the table for once, quiet. No alerts. No threats. No burner numbers.
Just us.
"I didn't think I'd feel like this," I admitted, staring up at the ceiling fan. "Like… I won something."
Tasha tilted her head. "You did win something."
"Yeah," Kayla said. "Your name back."
We drank to that.
To lifted suspensions.
To investigations.
To Cassandra being forced out of the building she once ruled like a queen.
For the first time in weeks, my laughter came easy. The girls teased me about my boardroom voice, about the way Julian looked when he chose the wrong side and then scrambled to fix it. Kiera reenacted Cassandra's face when the recusal landed, complete with dramatic gasp.
"Girl looked like she swallowed a lemon whole," she said, and we lost it.
It felt good—dangerously good—to be on top.
I let myself forget, just for the night, that Cassandra had warned me. Let myself believe that consequences followed exposure, that justice—slow and imperfect—had finally leaned my way.
When I got home, I slept without dreaming.
Morning shattered everything.
It wasn't a knock or a kick this time. It was my phone.
The sound cut through my chest before my eyes even opened. I fumbled for it, heart already racing, and saw Tasha's name lighting up the screen.
"Hey," I mumbled, voice thick with sleep.
There was silence on the other end—too long.
"Tasha?" I said, sharper now.
Her voice broke. "Amira… baby."
The word baby snapped something inside me. "What happened?"
She swallowed hard. I could hear it. "Turn on the news."
My stomach dropped.
I sat up, blankets pooling around my waist, and grabbed the remote. The TV flickered to life, sound low at first—anchors' mouths moving too calmly for what was coming.
Then the chyron scrolled.
BREAKING NEWS: LOCAL TECH CONSULTANT FOUND DEAD AFTER HOME INVASION
The room tilted.
I turned the volume up, breath stuttering as the reporter continued—careful, sanitized words tumbling out.
"…police confirm forced entry… targeted theft… no suspects at this time…"
My vision tunneled. The name came next.
Eli.
My phone slipped from my hand and hit the bed with a dull thud. The sound felt far away, like it belonged to someone else's life.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."
Tears came fast and violent, blurring the screen. My chest seized, a physical pain blooming there like a bruise you didn't see coming.
Tasha was talking—saying my name, telling me to breathe—but I couldn't hear anything over the rush in my ears.
Eli.
My friend.
My protector.
The one who told me where the seams were.
I slid off the bed and onto the floor, knees giving out, grief slamming into me with the force of a wave. Images flashed unbidden—his cluttered living room, the glow of his monitors, the way he grinned when he said war it is.
This was my fault.
The thought cut deeper than the tears. If I hadn't pushed. If I hadn't pulled the thread. If I hadn't made myself visible.
My phone buzzed again.
A text.
Unknown number.
My hands shook so badly I almost couldn't unlock the screen.
You should have listened.
The room went silent except for my sob.
I screamed then—raw and unfiltered, a sound torn straight from my chest. Rage followed grief so fast it made me dizzy. I scrambled to my feet, pacing, fists clenched, every cell in my body screaming her.
"This was Cassandra," I gasped. "This has to be her."
The door burst open minutes later—Tasha, Janelle, Kiera, Marisol, Kayla flooding in like a shield. They didn't ask questions. They didn't wait for explanations.
They grabbed me as I lunged for my keys.
"No," Tasha said firmly, wrapping her arms around me from behind. "You're not going anywhere."
"She killed him," I sobbed, struggling uselessly. "She killed him because of me."
Janelle stepped in front of me, hands on my face, forcing me to look at her. "Listen to me. This is not your fault."
Kiera's eyes were red, jaw clenched so tight it trembled. "She wants you reckless. She wants you to run straight into her arms."
Marisol's voice was steady, grounding. "Eli knew the risks. He chose to help anyway."
I collapsed then—into them, into the circle they formed around me. Tasha held me while I cried until my throat burned, until guilt and fury and exhaustion tangled together and I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"I was celebrating," I choked out. "I thought… I thought we were safe."
Janelle stroked my hair. "Danger doesn't disappear just because you win a round."
The words Cassandra had spoken echoed in my mind, cold and precise:
You've only made yourself visible.
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears still spilling, my body shaking with the weight of it all.
"I'm so tired," I whispered.
Tasha pressed her forehead to mine. "Then we hold you. As long as it takes."
And they did.
They held me while the world outside kept moving, while sirens wailed somewhere far away, while a victory curdled into grief.
And in the middle of their arms, as my sobs finally slowed, one thought burned through the fog—clear and terrifying:
Cassandra Hale Archer wasn't finished.
And now, neither was I.
Chapter Twenty-Seven — Part Two
After the Applause
(Amira Rivera — first person)
Grief doesn't arrive quietly.
It lingers—sticky and invasive—settling into corners of your body you didn't know could ache. By afternoon, my apartment felt like a crime scene of its own: untouched coffee gone cold, blinds half-drawn, my phone buzzing and buzzing again while I let it ring itself hoarse.
The girls refused to leave me alone. They rotated like shifts—Tasha on the couch with me, Janelle in the kitchen making soup neither of us touched, Kiera pacing like a caged animal, Marisol on her laptop already digging, always digging.
The news replayed the same footage on loop.
A blurry exterior shot. Yellow tape. A neighbor's quote stripped of humanity.
He was quiet. Kept to himself.
They never say the things that matter.
"He was careful," I said hoarsely, more to myself than to them. "He wouldn't have opened the door."
Tasha nodded. "Which means whoever it was knew how to make him feel safe."
The sentence landed with sickening clarity.
I pulled my knees to my chest, arms wrapped tight. My phone vibrated again.
Unknown number.
This time I didn't open it.
Marisol looked up. "Amira. Let me see it."
I hesitated—then handed it over.
She read the screen, jaw tightening. "They're baiting you."
"I know," I said. My voice sounded older than it should. "And it's working."
Janelle came to sit beside me. "You don't go to Cassandra. Not yet."
"Why not?" Kiera snapped. "She's not even subtle anymore."
"Because," Janelle said gently, "that's exactly what she wants. A confrontation. A mistake."
I stared at the blank TV screen, the reflection of myself warped in the dark glass. The girl who'd strutted into a boardroom days ago felt like a different person now—someone braver, maybe, but also more exposed.
"Eli told me once," I said quietly, "that the most dangerous people don't get angry when you fight back. They get patient."
Silence settled.
Marisol closed her laptop. "Then we get patient too."
I turned to her. "You found something."
She nodded. "Not about the murder. Not yet. But Cassandra's fingerprints are all over the smear campaign. Shell accounts, third-party retainers. Everything routed to make it look clean."
"And Julian?" I asked, the name scraping my throat.
Marisol hesitated. "He's locked down. No statements. No leaks."
That hurt more than I wanted it to.
Tasha squeezed my hand. "He's scared."
"So am I," I said. "But I'm still here."
My phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't unknown.
Julian:
I heard about Eli. I'm so sorry. Please let me come see you.
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
"He wants to see me," I said.
Kiera scoffed. "Convenient."
Janelle tilted her head. "Do you want to see him?"
I closed my eyes. Images flooded in—his guilt, his silence, his arms around me when everything else fell apart.
"I don't know," I admitted. "But I know I can't make decisions from pain."
The room hummed with that truth.
Another message came through. Unknown number again.
I inhaled, braced myself, and opened it.
You're mourning the wrong loss.
Check your inbox.
Marisol's head snapped up. "What inbox?"
I was already moving, heart pounding, opening my email.
There it was.
A forwarded message. No sender. Just a subject line that made my stomach drop.
Rivera — Termination Draft (CONFIDENTIAL)
Attached: a document dated tomorrow morning.
My name.
My position.
A justification written in language so polished it felt surgical.
Reputational risk.
Violation of conduct.
Failure to disclose.
My hands shook.
"They're going to fire me," I whispered.
Tasha stood immediately. "Over my dead body."
Janelle's expression hardened. "This isn't just retaliation. It's timing."
Marisol nodded. "They want you destabilized before the investigation concludes. They want control."
I swallowed, tears burning again—but this time, something else burned with them.
Resolve.
"They killed my friend," I said slowly. "They tried to scare me into disappearing. And now they want to erase me."
I looked up at my girls—at the circle that had held me when I broke.
"I'm done reacting."
Kiera smiled, fierce. "There she is."
My phone buzzed once more.
Unknown number.
Tomorrow decides who survives this, Amira.
Sleep well.
I set the phone down.
"I won't," I said. "But I'll be ready."
Outside, the city kept moving—indifferent, relentless.
Inside, something in me settled into place.
They'd taken my victory.
They'd taken my peace.
They'd taken Eli.
What they wouldn't take—
Was the ending.