Got home at a quarter past six.
The house was quiet, the way it always was when the staff had gone for the day. I dropped my bag at the entrance, stepped out of my heels, and carried them up the stairs by the straps.
My phone showed three missed calls and a text.
All from the same number.
And a text that reads "Call me back".
I set the phone face down on my dresser and went to run a bath.
The water helped. It always did. Twenty minutes of heat and silence, nothing demanding anything from me. I stayed in until it cooled, then wrapped myself in a robe, twisted a towel around my hair, and stepped out onto the balcony.
The city below was moving into its evening rhythm. Lights coming on in windows. Traffic thinning. The sky caught somewhere between gold and grey.
I picked up the phone and called him back.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Hello princess."
"I have told you to stop calling me that. What do you want."
"What do I want." He sounded amused. "Let's see. You promised to send your dues without fail, and it has been three days now. I haven't seen anything. Not a single thing!."
"I am going to send it."
"When?"
"My management has been flagging irregular withdrawals. It is getting harder to move money without questions."
"That," he said, "is not my problem. Sort it out. Unless you want me to tell the world who you truly are."
I looked out at the city.
"You will have it by tomorrow."
"Good girl. I am looking forward to it."
Click.
I stood on the balcony with the phone in my hand, saying nothing.
Then I called Victor.
"I need you to move a hundred thousand to an account I am going to send you now."
A pause.
"Raina. A hundred thousand is a significant amount to move without drawing attention from the finance team. They are already asking questions about the last transfer."
"Sell the crypto if you have to. I don't care how you do it. Send the money tonight."
I hung up before he could respond.
I stayed there on the balcony, robe loose, towel no longer wrapped around my hair, the city spread out below me.
And I thought about my father.
I thought about him the way you think about a wound you have stopped being surprised by. Not with shock. Just the exhaustion of something that has gone on long enough to feel normal.
Raina was fifteen when the house stopped feeling like a home.
It didn't happen all at once. Doors closing harder than necessary. Conversations turning into arguments over nothing. Silence after dinner that stretched too long and sat too heavy.
Then the shouting started.
Not every night. Just often enough that quiet felt temporary.
Her mother accused.
Her father deflected.
Raina listened.
That was the worst part. She heard everything through walls and floors and closed doors. Money problems. Accusations she was too young to fully understand and old enough to never forget. Resentment that had been building long before it became audible.
By sixteen, the arguments were no longer arguments. They were battles. Loud. Ugly. Personal in the way only people who once loved each other can manage.
The night it happened was not supposed to be different.
But it was louder.
Raina was in her room, headset half on, music trying and failing to cover the noise downstairs.
Then she heard her name.
She pulled the headset off.
Her mother's voice, furious and shaking.
"You think she doesn't see what you are?"
Her father, lower, controlled in the way that was always worse than shouting.
"Don't drag her into this."
"She's already in it!"
Raina stood.
She didn't plan it. She just couldn't sit there anymore.
When she stepped into the hallway, the tension hit her like something physical. Her mother stood near the kitchen counter, breathing hard. Her father stood a few feet away, jaw tight.
They both turned when they saw her.
That was unusual. Normally they ignored her.
For a second, nobody spoke.
Then her mother said, "Look at her. Ask him what kind of man he really is."
Her father's eyes moved to Raina. A warning.
"Go back to your room."
Her mother stepped forward. "No. She should hear this. She should know what her father's been doing."
"Stop," her father said.
"She should know—"
"Stop."
She didn't stop.
Something in Raina broke open. Not anger. Panic.
Because the way her father was looking now was not controlled anymore, and she had never seen him lose control. She didn't want to find out what that looked like.
She moved without thinking.
"Mom, just stop!"
She grabbed her mother's arm harder than she meant to.
Her mother pulled away. "Don't touch me—"
A struggle. Quick. Uncoordinated.
A hand pushing. Another pulling.
A slip.
Her mother's back hit the edge of the counter.
The sound was wrong.
Too sharp.
Too final.
Nobody moved.
Her mother's body went down slowly, like something had been switched off inside her.
Raina stared.
She waited for movement. For sound.
For anything.
Nothing came.
"No."
The word left her mouth before she knew she was speaking.
She dropped to her knees, hands shaking.
"Mom? Mom, get up."
Her father did not move at first.
He stood there, looking.
When he finally stepped forward, there was no panic on his face.
Only calculation.
He checked for a pulse. Quick. Efficient.
Then he looked at Raina.
"It was an accident," she whispered. "I didn't mean to. I didn't—"
"I know," he said.
Too quickly.
Too calmly.
That was the moment it stopped being an accident.
The story they told afterward was clean. A fall. A tragic accident in the kitchen. No witnesses beyond family.
Raina said nothing.
Because her father made it very clear she should not.
The first time he used it against her was a month later.
He did not shout.
He sat across from her and said, "You know how this looks, right?"
Her stomach dropped.
"You pushed her," he continued. "I saw it."
"It was an accident—"
"Of course it was. But accidents don't always matter. Not to the police."
Silence.
"I protected you."
That was the hook.
The money started small after she moved out.
Just to help him out, he said.
Then more.
Then regularly.
Every two months.
Like a subscription she had never agreed to and could never cancel.
By the time she built Lumi... built the audience, the income, the version of herself the world could see... she thought she could finally breathe.
Her father never let go.
He did not need to prove anything.
He just needed her to believe he could.
I stood on the balcony until the city settled fully into night.
Then I went inside, sat at my desk, and opened my laptop.
There was work to do.
There was always work to do. And work was the one thing that had never asked anything from her that she was not willing to give.
Not long after , Ethan sent me a text. It reads " had fun today , let's do again sometime."
I smiled ...