Mrs. Eleanor Khian's POV
I watched her walk away, her shoulders rigid, her head held high despite the dirt clinging stubbornly to her clothes. She did not look back. She did not hesitate. And somehow, that hurt more than if she had screamed at me.
My heart felt like a lead weight lodged deep in my chest.
For twenty-one years, I had lived with the quiet satisfaction that I had handled a messy situation with precision. Clean. Final. Necessary. Or so I had told myself. Only now did I realize I had spent two decades feeding a lie that was slowly starving my own soul.
Seeing her face had undone me.
That perfect blend of her father's stubborn chin and her mother's piercing eyes stared back at me like a mirror I was not ready to face. Rebecca's eyes had always looked like that, too sharp, honest, too full of accusation even when she said nothing at all.
The air in the room felt thin despite the air conditioner humming above us. I reached out unconsciously, my fingers tracing the empty space where Hannah had been sitting moments ago, as though her absence had left a physical imprint behind.
I had called her a mistake once.
I had treated her like a loose thread in the family tapestry ,something that needed to be cut away before it unraveled everything else. And now, with my own life flickering at its end, I saw the truth with brutal clarity.
She was the only part of our legacy that was pure.
She was the part I had tried to bury, and yet she had survived. Alone. Without the warmth of a pack. Without the protection of a name.
"She hates me, Laura," I whispered, my voice brittle, my gaze fixed ahead as if turning would make this real in ways I could not bear.
"She is hurt, ma'am," Laura replied gently. "And it is understandable. You cannot expect her to be happy." She paused, choosing her words with care. "Hurt is just love that has nowhere to go. Give her time. Trust me. She will call. She will come to you."
I leaned back against the seat, the cold seeping through fabric and bone alike. It settled deep inside me, where the ache already lived.
The curse was no longer an abstract threat whispered in old warnings. It was real. Physical. A dull rot in my marrow that reminded me, relentlessly, that time was a currency I had nearly spent.
I had to get her to him.
If I died before Leonardo knew the truth, I would never find rest. I would wander the spirit realm forever, chased by the ghost of the woman I had wronged the woman whose child I had stolen and discarded.
****
Hannah's POV
The night air was thick, but I did not slow down long enough to breathe it in.
I walked past the motel, its neon sign flickering and buzzing like an angry insect. I could not go back there. The dampness on my skin from earlier had dried into an uncomfortable crust, and the thought of lying in a mildew-stained bed while two voices argued inside my skull made my stomach turn.
I kept walking.
A few doors down, a 24-hour internet café glowed faintly against the darkness. Its windows were smeared with grime, the blue light of computer screens spilling onto the pavement like something cold and artificial. I pushed the door open, the bell above it letting out a pathetic little ting.
I still had my phone, but it was useless now, a dead slab of glass and plastic.
My mother… the woman who had raised me, not the one who had apparently cursed my grandmother… had been thorough. She had drained my accounts and cut my lines the moment the front door slammed behind me.
All I had left was the $1,500 I had scavenged from the floor.
A parting gift from the brother who had been too weak to stand up for me.
I paid for a block of time at the counter. The clerk did not even look up from his screen as he slid a plastic card toward me with a station number scribbled on it.
I took a seat in the far back corner, my fingers trembling as I typed a name into the search bar.
Leonardo Khian.
The results flooded the screen instantly.
Articles. Photographs. Business profiles.
I leaned closer, the glow of the monitor making my eyes ache.
Leonardo Khian was not just a man.
He was an empire.
There were photos of him at galas; tall, imposing, silver threading through his hair, his gaze sharp enough to pierce straight through the camera lens. He was the CEO of Khian Real Estate and Foods, a titan whose influence stretched across industries.
I scrolled through images of towering glass buildings and sprawling organic farms that seemed to run endlessly into the horizon.
Then a headline at the top of the feed caught my eye.
Dated three hours ago.
NEWS FLASH: THE CEO OF KHIAN REAL ESTATE AND FOODS COMPANY WAS JUST RUSHED TO THE HOSPITAL; THE CAUSE OF THE SUDDEN ILLNESS REMAINS UNKNOWN
My heart did a strange, uncomfortable flip.
I did not know this man. He was a stranger on a screen. Someone who did not even know I existed.
And yet, the sight of that headline made the air catch painfully in my throat.
I clicked the link. The article was brief. He had collapsed during a board meeting. Stable, but guarded. Private medical wing.
I kept scrolling.
My curiosity sharpened into hunger. Then into something closer to desperation.
I needed to know what kind of life he had lived while I was being called a freak in the Ragnar household.
That was when I saw it.
A related article from a week earlier.
NEWS FLASH: DAUGHTER OF THE CEO OF KHIAN REAL ESTATE AND FOODS, LEAH KHIAN'S SUPPOSED ENGAGEMENT TO THE FAMOUS HOCKEY PLAYER KASPER HAS BEEN CALLED OFF DUE TO PERSONAL ISSUES
The name hit me like a punch to the chest.
Leah.
I stared at the screen, blinking rapidly, as if the letters might rearrange themselves into something else.
They did not.
Leah Khian.
The girl who had spent four years of high school making my life a living hell. The girl who laughed when she tripped me in the cafeteria. The girl who had used her father's influence to have my academic scholarship revoked on a technicality.
The girl who had turned Jane against me. Who had orchestrated my humiliation so carefully it still made my skin crawl.
The girl who had left me with a phobia so deep I could not look at a medical needle without my vision blurring.
"Leah?" I whispered to the empty booth. "You mean the same Leah who bullied me since high school? The same Leah who made me lose my scholarship? The same Leah who planned with Jane to ruin me? The same Leah who made me afraid of needles?"
My breath came in short, jagged gasps.
"You mean that same Leah is my father's daughter?"
I shook my head violently.
No.
This was not true. It could not be.
The universe could not be that cruel.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I dug deeper, panic and desperation guiding every movement.
An older society column appeared on the screen. Archived. Dated eighteen years ago.
NEWS FLASH: CEO KHIAN GOT REMARRIED AFTER THREE YEARS OF LOSING HIS WIFE AND CHILD TO THE COLD HANDS OF DEATH. CEO KHIAN WELCOMED TWINS, LEO AND LEAH.
The chair creaked as I slumped back.
My hand flew to my mouth, trapping a sound that was half sob, half broken laugh.
He thought I was dead.
He had mourned me for three years… and then moved on. Built a new life. A new family.
And of all the children he could have had, he had Leah.
The girl who had spent her entire existence ensuring I felt like nothing… was the one who had taken my place