The next morning smelled like coffee and silence.
Katrina woke up alone in the guest room. The blanket was still tucked around her, but the couch was empty. Made up. No dent. No proof Alexandra had ever been there except the faint smell of his soap on the throw.
He was gone before she opened her eyes. Again.
She showered fast. The blue dress Eleanor mentioned was hanging on the wardrobe door, steam-pressed, tag cut off. Like she didn't get a choice in her own skin anymore. She put it on. It fit like Eleanor's people had measured her in her sleep.
Downstairs, the dining room was already full.
Eleanor at the head, sipping tea. Victor with his paper, not reading it, just holding it like a shield. Alexandra by the window, phone to his ear, saying numbers that sounded like stock prices. He saw her come in. He hung up.
"Sit," Eleanor said. Not unkind. Not kind. Just a fact. "You're late."
It was 8:02.
Katrina sat. The chair scraped. Too loud. Victor's eyebrow twitched but he didn't look up.
A maid set a plate in front of her. Eggs. Toast. Fruit cut into shapes. No salsa. No heat. Nothing like Mexico City mornings where her mother would yell from the kitchen and Richard would sit at the table, ignoring her, reading messages from his real wife. _Richard._ Her father. He never snuck her coffee. He never looked at her unless he was angry. She hadn't heard his voice in three weeks.
"Eat," Alexandra said. He wasn't looking at her either. He was looking at his phone, but the word was for her. "The luncheon is at 1. You need to be seen eating. Healthy. Happy."
Healthy. Happy. More terms of the contract.
Katrina picked up her fork. Her hand was shaking. She didn't know why. She wasn't scared of them. Not exactly. But her body remembered shaking. Remembered sitting at tables where the wrong move meant pain.
She reached for the water glass. Crystal. Heavy. Vega crystal, probably cost more than her mother's entire clinic bill for a month.
Her fingers slipped.
The glass hit the edge of the plate and exploded.
Sound stopped.
Water, ice, and shards went everywhere. Across the white tablecloth. Onto Eleanor's skirt. Onto Alexandra's shoe. A piece skidded and stopped against Victor's newspaper.
Katrina froze. Her breath caught. She was eight years old again, and seven, and seventeen, and twenty-four. Every age she'd ever been when she broke something.
She waited.
For the yell. For the hand. For the _you stupid, worthless girl._
For Matteo.
_Three years ago. Mexico City. The apartment Richard paid for, before he decided the bills were too high for a mistress and her kid._
_She'd been twenty-four. Matteo came home late. Drunk. The kind of drunk that made his eyes flat. She was in the kitchen, drinking water. Her hand shook and the glass fell. Same sound. Shatter._
_"You make messes everywhere you go," he'd said. Quiet. That was worse than yelling._
_She started to apologize. Started to pick it up. He was faster._
_He grabbed her wrist. Pushed. Hard. She fell back onto the pieces. One big shard went into her stomach, just below her ribs. Not deep enough to kill. Deep enough to teach._
_He left her there. Walked to bed. She pulled the glass out herself. Blood on the tile. She didn't scream. Her mother found her an hour later. She didn't take her to the hospital. Hospitals asked questions and Richard would be furious if his name got involved. Her mother stitched it herself with a sewing kit. Her hands shook worse than Katrina's. "I'm sorry," her mother whispered. "For him. For me. For this life."_
_She still had the scar. Thick. Ugly. Right where a baby would grow if she ever had one._
_Matteo came into the kitchen the next morning. Stepped over the blood she hadn't cleaned yet. Said, "Clean that up. It's staining the floor."_
Katrina gasped. Now. Here. In the Vega dining room. Her hand flew to her stomach. To the scar under the blue dress.
No one moved.
Eleanor looked down at her wet skirt. Sighed. Not angry. Annoyed. Like rain on her plans. She dabbed the water with her napkin and said, "Marta, bring a new tablecloth."
Victor turned the page of his paper. The glass shard slid to the floor. He didn't flinch.
Alexandra was the only one who looked at her. Really looked. Not at the glass. At her hand on her stomach. At her face, which she knew had gone white.
He stood.
Katrina flinched. Hard. Her chair screeched back. She was ready to run, to fall, to protect her stomach.
Alexandra stopped.
He saw it. The flinch. The way she covered her scar. The way her eyes weren't here, they were somewhere else. Somewhere with blood on tile.
He didn't come closer. He bent down instead and started picking up the big pieces of glass with his bare hands.
"Alexandra," Eleanor said sharply. "Leave it for the staff."
"Stay seated," he told Katrina. Not a suggestion. But his voice was lower than usual. Not soft. Never soft. But not sharp. "You're bleeding."
She looked down. A thin line of red was on her palm. A tiny cut. Nothing. She hadn't even felt it.
Marta was there with a broom. With a new cloth. With a first aid kit, because Vega house had first aid kits in dining rooms. Of course it did.
Eleanor stood. Her skirt was damp. She looked at Katrina, then at the blood, then at Alexandra on his knees picking up glass.
"Control your wife," she told her son. Then she left.
Victor followed. No word. No glance. The paper was folded under his arm. The meeting was over.
Katrina and Alexandra were alone with Marta sweeping.
"You're supposed to let them clean it," Katrina whispered. Her voice shook. "That's what staff is for. Matteo said—"
She cut herself off. Too late.
Alexandra's hands stilled on the glass. _Matteo said._
He didn't ask. He dropped the shards in the dustpan Marta held and stood. There was a small cut on his thumb. He didn't notice.
"Go upstairs," he said. "Change. There's blood on the dress."
There was. One dot. On the blue. Ruined. Eleanor would hate that.
Katrina nodded. She couldn't look at him. She walked out. Her legs were water.
In the guest room, she locked the bathroom door. Pulled up the dress. The scar was there. Purple. Thick. Ugly. She pressed her fingers to it. It didn't hurt anymore. Not physically.
But her brain was screaming. _He pushed you. He pushed you onto the glass. You were bleeding and he stepped over you._
A knock on the bedroom door. She jumped.
"Katrina." Alexandra. Through the wood. "Open the door."
"No."
"I'm not coming in. I'm leaving this here."
Footsteps. Going away.
She waited ten minutes. Opened the door.
A new dress. Red. Not Vega-approved. Bright. Loud. Like Mexico. Like her mother's kitchen before Richard stopped paying for it. And a bandage. And a note in his handwriting. Sharp letters.
_The blue one is ruined. Wear this. Or don't. My mother doesn't get to pick for you today._
_Contracts don't cover glass. Or blood. Clean the cut._
_– A_
No "Alexandra." Just A. Like the trophy. _A. Vega – State Finals 2011._
Katrina sat on the floor with the red dress in her lap. The bandage in her hand.
Victor didn't care. Eleanor was annoyed. The maid cleaned it.
But Alexandra got on his knees. For glass. For her.
Matteo would have made her lick it up. Would have called her clumsy. Would have used the cut as proof she was broken.
Alexandra gave her a red dress and said "contracts don't cover blood."
What did that mean?
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number again.
*Alexandra:* The luncheon is cancelled. You're shaking. Tell my mother you have a migraine. She'll believe it. She gets them.
*Alexandra:* Stay in the room today. Or don't. The driver is still yours.
*Alexandra:* Did Matteo cut you?
Three texts. The last one made her drop the phone.
He knew. He didn't know, but he guessed. From a flinch. From her hand on her scar.
She didn't answer. She put the red dress on. It was too bright for this house. Too alive.
She looked in the mirror. She looked like a wound in a museum.
Downstairs, Marta was gone. The tablecloth was new. No glass. No blood. No evidence.
Like it never happened. Like she never bled on the floor of Richard's mistress apartment either.
But her palm stung. And Alexandra had a cut on his thumb.