Chase Sterling always felt like furniture. The kind you don't notice, the kind that's easy to shove in a corner and forget. He was used to it: people looked right through him, brushed him off like lint. But it only takes one phone call to erase a lifetime of being overlooked. When his estranged family meets a tragic end, Chase suddenly finds himself in charge of the sprawling Sterling fortune. Turns out, riches aren't the only thing the family left him. There's a curse running through his blood, warping love into something hungry and dangerous, impossible to escape.

Vivian Ashford never set out to blow Chase's life to smithereens. Just one decision (a sharp, ruthless move at graduation) was all it took to set their worlds spinning out of control. While Vivian soaks up the Hollywood limelight and collects red-carpet headlines, Chase slips into his new role as Manhattan's most intimidating heir. But no matter how far they run, something keeps yanking them back together, like a stitch in an old wound that refuses to heal.

I wake gasping at 3:17 AM from vision so vivid and horrifying that for several seconds I can't differentiate between what I saw and reality surrounding me in my dark bedroom, can't determine if I'm still trapped in prophetic nightmare or if I've escaped into normal consciousness that doesn't show futures I'm powerless to prevent.


The vision: Chase and Vivian sinking in black water. Not drowning frantically. Sinking slowly. Deliberately. Choosing to descend together instead of swimming to surface separately. Watching each other while darkness consumes them. Smiling while dying. Proving their connection matters more than survival.


The water isn't literal. It's curse manifestation. It's contamination made visible. It's the affair and the lies and the double lives they've been maintaining for six months pulling them under while they choose drowning together over breathing separately.


Chapter 158 - Sienna's Warning Vision