She watched the last of the haze drain from her eyes. What replaced it wasn't courage, and it certainly wasn't comfort. It was clarity—crystalline, cruel, and finally, functional.
In the mirror, she spoke with the cadence she'd mastered when the world wanted her quiet: steady, granular, and impossible to twist.
"Prism Pictures' ownership is rigged," she said, her voice a low vibration against the marble. "On paper, Marcus and I are equals. In reality, my veto is a ghost."
She leaned closer, as if the glass could be bullied into honesty. "He holds the votes—through proxies, through fine print that bites, through the 'temporary' voting authorization I signed when I still mistook his greed for devotion. When the room tightens, my voice is designed to be washed out."
Her mouth flattened into a jagged line. "Last time, he didn't beat me with capital. He beat me with control."
She exhaled slowly, as if she were draining something toxic from her lungs. "This time, I'm not chasing a settlement. I'm taking back the votes."
Her goals came next—a litany simple enough to recite in the dark.
She wanted Marcus to walk away with nothing but the clothes on his back; Bella—and the Lawrence name—don't get to sit atop the world as if it were an inheritance built for their comfort; and most importantly, the truth goes public, not as a confession, but as a correction.
Prism's light emanated from her. Marcus was just a parasite latched onto the source, feeding while he smiled for the lenses.
What she was reclaiming wasn't a fiancé or a company. It was her future—a narrative edited, laundered, and sold without her consent.
"I'm back," she told the woman in the glass. It was low and final, like ink going down on a contract that couldn't be undone.
She didn't want a fast kill. Fast was a mercy. Fast meant they could spin the story, take the hit, and rinse themselves clean.
She wanted them to lose things the way she had—slow, public, and with witnesses. Love first. Then the work. Then the reputation. Then, finally, freedom. She would wait for the exact moment they smiled into the flashbulbs, certain they'd reached the summit—
—and then she would simply stop saving them.
Her breathing leveled. The tremor in her hands died.
Next: she needed a weapon.
She crossed to the wall safe, flush against the minimalist décor—one more clean design meant to hide something ugly. She didn't hesitate. She keyed in the code she'd kept locked in her marrow.
Silence.
Then a soft click, like a tooth finally letting go.
Marcus hadn't changed it. Not yet. It meant he wasn't guarding against her—this version of her—at all. He still thought he was playing with the ghost of the girl he'd broken.
Inside: property deeds. Equity certificates. A few pieces of jewelry that looked like guilt cut into gemstones. And—
An old flip phone.
Discontinued years ago. The corners were scuffed, the plastic worn smooth by hands that once counted every dollar twice. It was the kind of object you keep only because you refuse to pretend you were never broke, never hungry, never real.
Marcus had mocked it more than once.
Keeping that piece of junk makes us look like we never made it out of the gutter.
Riva lifted it. It felt weightless in her palm.
Like a match.
What was she told Marcus back then?
Just some old photos I couldn't bring myself to delete. Letting a soft, sentimental lie do the heavy lifting.
Only she knew what it really was: a back door.
Years ago—back when she was still scavenging for bit parts and begging for call times—she'd crossed paths with someone who lived in the seams of the digital world.
A hacker who called himself Ghost. The flip phone had been his version of a debt repaid.
Last time—after the verdict fell and the iron gates hissed shut—the phone disappeared. Along with it went her last chance to claw her way back.
She retrieved it now and held the power button down.
A thin, tinny startup jingle fractured the quiet. The screen blinked into a weak, washed-out glow. Her thumbs worked the stubborn, tactile keys until she found a memo that appeared empty—no contacts, no logs, nothing to betray her. Just a single line of nonsense: G-H-O-S-T-3-1-0 @ Falcon's Nest / Domain
Not a number. Not an email. Her pulse still ticked up.
The memory of that rainy night returned in a clean, sharp flash: a hooded figure pressing the plastic casing into her palm, his knuckles skeletal in the dark. "I'm not giving you a direct line," he'd whispered. "I'm giving you a key. If you understand it, you can use it. If you don't—pretend you never saw it."
Falcon's Nest—the dark-web haunt he used like a living room. Domain—the reminder that the string had to be shifted. Reordered, offset, and unlocked with 310 as the cipher.
Riva shut her eyes. She dragged up the old "idiot-proof" chant he'd taught her, step by step. Back then, she'd copied it once, burned the paper, and kept the rhythm in her head like a party trick. Now it was a lifeline.
She wasn't a cryptography prodigy. But she could memorize timing. Cadence. Sequence. An actor's reflex: hit the marks, follow the script, don't improvise. She ran the pattern again—no more, no less—until the static in her mind snapped into order.
A full string surfaced.
An encrypted, one-time address—reachable only through a specific, jagged path—settled in her mind like a lock finally turning.
She lifted the phone and typed with clumsy, careful precision: It's me. Riva Lane. Is the anchor still live? If you get this, reply. I need counsel.
She hit Send.
Suddenly—the faintest movement at the door.
A soft, testing turn of the handle.
The lock held from the inside. Metal met metal with a dull, contained click. Every muscle in Riva's body went rigid.
Her eyes fixed on the wood as if the door might blink back.
She killed the screen, palmed the phone out of sight, and held her breath. Every sense was dialed to its highest setting.
Who? Marcus?
The handle loosened. The tension released. Footsteps hesitated—then drifted away.
Riva stayed frozen for a full beat after the sound died.
When she finally exhaled, it was thin and jagged. Cold sweat glued her silk shirt to her spine. Why had he tried to come in? To check on his "distressed fiancée"—the perfect alibi for control? Or to search, quietly, for the very thing she'd just touched?
Either answer tasted like a threat.
She didn't take the risk. Not tonight.
She moved the phone again—faster this time—burying it somewhere his hands wouldn't wander by accident.
She had no idea if the line still connected to that world. No idea if Ghost had been caught, erased, or reborn under a new alias.
Certainty was a luxury. Allies weren't.
Outside the narrow slit of the window, Los Angeles spilled its lights into the dark—an expensive, glittering grid. A city scrubbed clean on the surface, with rot humming underneath.
Riva watched the board and felt the pieces click into place.
Her war started now.