The marble was a thousand needles against my skin, but I welcomed the bite. It was the only thing that felt real.
The black paper in my hand—the "Termination Memo"—was a death warrant for the girl I used to be. It was dated weeks before the "accidental" meeting at the Silver Star. Before the five-million-dollar debt. Before the first kiss in the rain.
Every memory I held dear was being rewritten in real-time, the ink turning from gold to a poisonous, oily black. I wasn't his savior. I wasn't his "Queens Fire."
I was a line item in a budget.
The heavy oak doors of the ballroom groaned open. I didn't look up. I didn't need to. I knew the sound of his footsteps—the steady, rhythmic stride of a man who owned the ground he walked on.
Reid stopped five feet away. The silence between us wasn't a void; it was a battlefield.
"Maya," he said.
