"Ugh... so much work," I said under my breath, my fingers flying across the keyboard in frenzied rebellion. The clicks pierced the oppressive silence like a series of tiny gunshots — the only accompaniment to my battle against the memories. In my apartment darkness, the screen light carved ghastly silver veins into my skin — a torturous map of the woman I had become. A monster born of fire and ash. It was no longer about survival; it was my an obsession, my bloodlust.
Every breach into the Lee family's digital fortress was like a dagger thrust into the ribs of a ghost that would not bleed. Their secrets curled beneath layers of endless firewalls, each mocking me, each a door locked against the truth I wanted, the truth that burned. And every time... I hit the wall. A dead end. A mirrored city where every turn directed me back into my reflection.
My teeth ground together as I leaned forward, pupils dilated from the vicious blue light of the screen. "Nothing," I whispered, blinking hard. "Again... nothing." The word burned my throat. I slammed my palm on the desk with a snarl — the report of the slap sent my chipped coffee mug skipping across the wood. It rocked tauntingly from the brink but refused to fall onto its side to retaliate with its stupid obstinacy.
"I have scooted this much distance for some smoke and links that are now dead?" I drew out, pulling both hands through my hair until my scalp screamed beneath my nails. The woman looking back at me on the pitch-black screen was no longer me: she was emptied. Something built hollow out of shattered bones and bad promises.
"JULIAN!" I bellowed out across the apartment, jagged from the noise of a gunshot.
There was a crash that followed it, along with a grumbling oath. Julian appeared from where he was, looking as if he was just coming out of the wreckage left by a prank of some kind of bar brawl perhaps strands of hair all in wild angles, the hoodie tied on his neck roughly halfway around it.
"Bro, what the hell?" he grunted with a bleary stare toward me. "You trying to kill me or something?"
"You're not here to sleep through my revenge arc," I said dryly, fingers already poised to dive into the wreckage on my screen once again. "Go pick up Blair and Aven. I'm working."
He stared at me, half-awake, hacker instincts sluggish. "I'm not your damn chauffeur, Ravenna. I break into billionaires' vaults. Big difference.
"And I am the woman who would sell your butt to the richest if you dared to mess with me tonight," I purred with a smile as frigid as glacial ice could receive the most positive rating imaginable. "So behave like a good little boy and get the kids," or I would think of more creative uses for his body.
Julian pretended to shiver at that, throwing his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine," he muttered, dragging himself up and away to change. "You're scary when you're mothering and murderous."
He returns minutes later changed into a fresh outfit.
He was dressed in black from head to toe, and I swear he thought he was sneaking into a high-security bank instead of abducting two toddlers. I barely glanced at him as he disappeared through the door.
Alone.
Alone with the craziness eating me away.
I cracked my knuckles and went back to work on the code. My reflections on the computer screen sliced my face into sharp angles — a woman once soft, now rebuilt by rage. My fingers glided across the keys, bypassing biometric locks, and weaving through encrypted mazes designed to keep people like me out.
The secrets of the Lee family were poison-coiled tight within their data.
I always had a knack for zombie snake-play.
Then -- click. Soft ping, like a whisper. My heart leaped.
There it lies, buried like a needle in a haystack: An invitation.
Lee Family Gala – 7:00 PM – March 3rd, 2024.
A door. An opportunity. A battlefield draped in velvet and gold.
And on the other side... Calix.
"I found you," I whispered, leaning back as a slow, feral smile curved my lips. The kind of smile that promises broken bones and burnt bridges. Anticipation throbbed hot and wild beneath my skin, stronger than fear.
But before I could indulge, the door cracked open.
"Mommy!' came two little voices in unison.
And my heartstorm was scattered into millions of fragments in an instant. Blair and Aven came storming toward me like two tiny comets bathing my world in life, arms wide open.
They smacked me right in the chest, bodies warm and real and grounding. I buried my face into their hair, inhaling the sweet, sleepy scent of them like it was the only thing that could pull me back from the abyss.
"Here are my stars," I whispered, my voice raw with something dangerously close to tenderness. "How was your day, kids?"
"Good... an', hun!" mumbled Aven and Blair in their perfect broken toddler speech.
The smile that cracked my face was a strong fragile thing, all rare.
"Good," I said, brushing hair from their cheeks. "Now change into pajamas. I'll prepare dinner."
They nod solemnly like a royal family accepting a command and march waddling off.
Julian stood slumped in the doorway looking half-dead.
"Go to bed," I snapped at him.
The gratitude in his eyes was almost funny-he didn't have to say that to him twice.
The heaviness & thickness reclaimed silence in the apartment. I moved to the kitchen, an atmosphere thick with the ghost of spices and smoke. I set the rice cooker and chopped up the kimchi with surgical precision. The air filled up with scents of gochujang and garlic-hot and sweet yet achingly nostalgic.
I just needed the normalcy, the humanity, and the lie.
The first ones to arrive before setting the table were Blair and Aven- pajama-clad and grinning. Their laughter wrapped around me like armor, keeping out most of the worst darkness.
After dinner, with wide yawns, they tumbled clumsily in bed like toddlers would do. After tucking them in, I placed my kiss on each forehead like a prayer.
"Good night my loves," I whispered as my voice began to quiver.
"Night, Mommy," was breathed by them while already slipping into dreams. I stayed lingering in the doorway casually watching as their little forms rise and fall-suspended in the light of the dark.
They didn't know.
Not yet. About who their father was, about what was coming; and I would die before I let that world touch them. Later, when the dishes were done, and the lights dimmed, I returned to my desk. The gala invite pulsed like a heartbeat on the screen. I didn't need an invitation. I didn't need a name that belonged to me.
I was a ghost built from broken promises. And tomorrow, I would haunt him. Calix Lee. The man who had once held my heart in his bloodstained hands. He wouldn't recognize me. But I will never forget him. I traced the screen with one finger, the hunger sharpening inside me until it felt like a blade against bone. "Let's see who burns first," I whispered.
The words tasted like gunpowder on my tongue. The night closed in around me, and somewhere deep inside — buried beneath the ash and scars — the girl I had once been screamed. But no one was listening anymore. The Lee Estate rose out of the city like something from a fever dream white marble and blood-red banners snapping in the cold night wind. A palace built on stolen bones. A monument to the kind of power that could erase a thousand sins with a smile.
I stepped from the sleek black car without looking back, the hem of my silver dress kissing the ground like smoke. Julian's voice buzzed in my earpiece-low, tense. "Visual's clear. Comms are stable. You're good, Ravenna."
Not Ravenna tonight.
Tonight, I was no Ravenna. I was Astria Pierce — glittering, dangerous, uninvited. Slowly, my steps climbed the stairs because they were very graceful and careful. That was the way the world blurred at the edges. Sounds were muffled under the weight of beating my heart in my ears.
Inside, the ballroom resembled a cathedral of debauchery: carpets like blood; chandeliers dripping with glass teardrops; gold and shadows twine around strangers' faces. His mouth whispering promises he never meant to keep.
The part of me that hadn't died — not completely.
Not yet.
A cruel, slow smile curved my lips.
Perfect.
He hadn't noticed me yet — too busy basking in the worship of sycophants.
Good.
It would make it that much sweeter when I destroyed him.
I slipped through the crowd like a blade in the water, stopping only when I could almost inhale the scent of him: leather, smoke, and a subtle hint of something darker, animalistic. As if he could feel the disturbance in the air, Calix swung to his left.
Our gazes collided. The impact hit me like a bullet in the chest. My inner self staggered; my outer self wore ice and velvet. Calix gazed at me piercingly. And there was no recognition in his eyes, just curiosity. Another conquest surveying the field.
I defiantly dipped my head, a show of respect infused with deadly poison. He moved. In three long strides, he came before me---tall, regal, and magnetic in a way that inspired something primal within me to rear its head.
"Don't believe we've met," he grinned, a velvet rasp reverberating over old scars. The look in his eyes roamed over me slowly and intimately, just like hands with no permission.
"Name?" I let the silence stretch one beat too long, letting him enjoy every second. Then: "Astria Pierce," I lied like a siren, giving him my gloved hand. Calix almost smiled then; it was a wolf's brief showing of teeth.
He took my hand, and his skin burned against the lace of my gloves. For one breath-stopping second, the past screamed between us, choking and invisible. But he didn't know me. He couldn't. I wasn't the girl he'd left behind. I was the woman sent to bury him.
"Calix Lee," he said, though he must have known I already knew. His thumb slid, possessive, dangerous, over my knuckles. "You're new," he purred, just for my ears. "And yet... you seem familiar."
Lazily, I smiled, with punctured pain.
"Maybe you've known before, in another life."
Something dark, and hungry glimmered in his eyes.
"If we have," he said, smoothing his voice, "I surely wouldn't forget you."
A liar he was.
Every word from his mouth was a blade twisting deeper.
Let it hurt for now.
Because very soon — he would know exactly who I was.
And then it would be far too late.
A string quartet struck up a haunting waltz. Calix extended his hand, an invitation dipped in poison.
"Care to dance?"
I hesitated just long enough to make him want it.
Then to dance? - I placed my hand in his.
Then his grip tightened, possessive.
He pulled me into the storm.
The moment our bodies aligned, something snapped between us-invisible, violent.
Calix's hand settled on the small of my back, hot through the thin silk of my dress. His other hand curled possessively around my fingers, anchoring me to him.
The world around us blurred—chandeliers, murmuring voices, clinking glasses—all of it swallowed by the dark gravity of this moment.
He led without hesitation. Commanding. Certain.
The type of man who didn't ask permission. He simply took.
I hated how fast my body learned the rhythm as though there was space to engulf his entire presence in it. I hated how a mere sliver of flame ignited low in my belly and without my will. We moved through the crowd like a storm clothed in sumptuous velvet.
"You dance well," he murmured against my ear, breath brushing the shell of it. I raised my chin and let my lips turn into a secret smile. "You do too, Mr. Lee. But then, men like you do tend to perform brilliantly, don't they?" A flash of sharpness crossed his eyes sort of glint that might have held warning, interest, or both.
"And what," he said, voice low and dangerous, "do you know about men like me?" I leaned in closer so that our bodies were almost brushing, heat pulsing from him living between us.
"Enough." Calix's hand tightened fractionally against my back, almost as if to test the solidity of me. As if he sensed the fracture lines beneath the surface and wanted to split them wider. "You have the look of one who knows too much," he said after a beat. His thumb brushed a slow, maddening arc over the bones of my fingers.
There was nothing easy about the way I moved, nor were there memories that made me remember rhythm. His presence consumed it; such emptiness enveloped it. That lump of heat unfolded at the low end of my belly, unbidden. Stealth glorifying storms, they need not tell of our moments.
My pulse spiked violently.
He felt it.
I witnessed it-my eyes went a little too narrow to see. The flare of his nostrils when they came alive.
Predatory instincts- sharpening.
"Are you afraid of me, Astria?" he asked, his voice velvet-wrapped iron.
I let the question hang in the air like perfume. Sweet. Heavy. Suffocating.
Then I laughed- a soft and melodic sound I hardly recognized coming from my mouth.
"Should I be?"
The tips of Calix's mouth curved into something cold and almost pitiful.
"Yes."
The music shifted dark; the violins wept.
We turned, and for one terrible second, the mask slid away.
I saw him again, not this polished weapon made into a tool standing before me.
Calix-the boy who once kissed me under stolen stars.
Calix-who touched me like I was made of prayers and promises.
Calix-who helped slaughter my family.
Pain clawed up my throat like a living creature.
I almost stumbled.
Almost.
Calix caught me, pulling me closer so that our bodies finally, finally touched.
His heat bled into my bones, igniting ancient, unwelcome memories.
His smell. His strength. His betrayal.
"Astria," he said softly, almost as if tasting my name.
Oh, how I compelled myself to meet his eyes — those fathomless caverns, those devouring eyes.
"What do you want from me?" I whispered, bridging the tremor-such a real, such a raw tremor-in my voice.
For a heartbeat, something flickered across his face. Something almost... human.
And then it was gone.
"Everything," he said simply.
The last note of the waltz broke upon us like a dying star.
Calix released me slowly - reluctantly - almost as if peeling something valuable away from his skin.
The air crackled-erotic, raw, unfinished.
He lifted my hand to his lips, brushing a kiss against my knuckles - a cold promise.
"I'll see you again, Astria."
It was not a question.
That was an inevitability.
I smiled sweetly and concealed the pussycat screaming its heart out within my throat.
"I look forward to it."
I turned from him without waiting for permission, feeling the weight of his gaze burning into my spine.
As I disappeared into the glittering throng, I touched the hidden blade strapped to my thigh beneath the gown silent oath.
Soon, Calix Lee.
You'll pay for everything.
The moment I crossed the threshold of my penthouse, the weight of the night sloughed off me like a heavy, bloodstained coat.
Silk heels lay abandoned at the door. Jewelry was ripped off and moved over the entry table.
Every piece was left out one by one, and then fell off the mask-the perfect, venomous Astria-. At last, in the indistinct, golden light of my real world, I could breathe again. A soft giggle rose from the other end of the hall, followed by the unmistakable pattern of little feet on marble floors.
This made me smile, piercing through all that solid ice in me with something real. Before I could even advance the two small projectiles flew out at me like miniature missiles. "Mommy!" shrieked Blair, hair dark and wild around her face. Aven barreled into my legs right after her, his little fists clutching the hem of my ruined gown.
"You're home!" he cried, voice muffled against the fabric. I dropped to my knees at once, gathering them both into my arms and burying my face into the warmth of their skin. Blair smelled like strawberry shampoo and sleep. Aven loves crayons and mischief. Home. Mine.
"Hey, baby, I'm here," I whispered through kisses into their hair. "Sorry, I'm late."
"You're smelling very funny," she said suspiciously, scrunching her nose. "Like... perfume and bad people." I laughed -- quite a real, rusty sound -- and tweaked her nose. "That's because Mommy had to pretend tonight," I said, smoothing back a lock of her hair. "I was being someone else."
Aven's big gray eyes — so much like Calix's — stared up at me solemnly.
"Was it scary?"
I held back my answer.
Was it scary facing the man who unknowingly fathered them? The man whose downfall I was plotting.
"Terrifying" hardly seemed enough.
But I smiled for their sake. "Not when I know I have you two to come home to."
Aven now satisfied, snuggled closer, already half-asleep next to me.
Observant as ever, Blair tugged at my gown.
"Did you wear your lucky bracelet?"
I lifted my wrist where the delicate, almost childish silver bracelet I always wore under everything, hidden, sat.
Their gift, a shield forged of love.
"Of course," I said. "It kept me safe."
Blair smiled brightly, proud.
Slowly, I rose to my feet, balancing Aven on my hip while Blair held onto my free hand. We swayed down the hall together toward their bedroom.
I tucked them both in, pulling the blankets snugly around their tiny bodies and allowing my eyes to rest on them as I memorized every detail.
Their soft breathing.
The curl of their fingers.
The small rise and fall of their chests.
They were my anchor.
My reason.
Everything that I was doing every dangerous lie that I told twisting a knife in the hearts of the Lee family was for them.
For them, whatever cost.
Whatever blood.
I pressed closed kisses to each forehead.
"I love you," I whispered into their skin. "More than anything this world could offer."
When she woke then, Blair murmured something and reached out for Aven and, quite automatically, rolled toward her.
Twin souls. Two halves of a whole.
Just like I had been once; before Calix shattered me.
I walked around turning off the light and then softly closed the door, letting darkness cradle them closer.
I leaned against the door in the silent living room and stared out at the glittering skyline.
Calix Lee was prowling through the night somewhere out there, oblivious that the war had already begun.
Oblivious to the fact that he danced with the woman whom he felt attracted to, who once bore his child. Children.
Oblivious to the fact that his past now has a heartbeat. Two.
And I will weapon all that I can into ensuring he never touches them again.
Not ever.
Not the way he did to me.