"The audacity of that twat! She needs to be dealt with, Clent!"
Josephine’s voice detonated the mont the elevator doors slid shut, sharp and shrill in the confined space.
Relief flooded her chest when she confird they were alone. With the way fury crawled beneath her skin, with how her thoughts were spiraling into ugly places, she would not have tolerated even a stranger’s breathing without lashing out.
"Clent, are you hearing ?!"
She whirled on her husband when silence greeted her. Her upcoming words stalled when she finally looked at him properly—really looked.
His jaw was clenched so tight it trembled, the cords in his neck rigid, eyes fixed on nothing and everything all at once. There was a storm there, dense and violent, brewing behind his stare.
Good.
That ant he was thinking. Planning.
"What are you planning?" she pressed, her voice lowering, anticipation curling with the anger.
Clent didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze shifted and t Sabrina’s.
Josephine saw it.
Her brows knit together, suspicion flaring hot. A look passed between father and daughter, and Josephine felt the sharp sting of exclusion bite into her pride.
"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded. "What is going on between you two?"
Sabrina hesitated, eyes flicking toward her father.
When it beca clear Clent wasn’t going to speak, she exhaled sharply through her nose.
"Feck it."
She turned to her mother. "We made so plans. It didn’t work."
She waited.
She watched the understanding creep across Josephine’s face in slow, awful stages. When it finally landed, the explosion ca.
"What?!" Josephine shrieked, lunging toward Clent. "Why was I left out?!"
But Clent had reached his limit.
He shoved her aside with rough impatience, straightened his tie with sharp, chanical movents, and resud staring into the middle distance, as though the elevator walls held answers he wasn’t ready to share.
Josephine stared at him, stunned. The scream died in her throat. Slowly, she swallowed, her lips pressing together, then turned away—hurt eclipsed by simring rage.
Sabrina clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached, but she said nothing.
This had always been another thing she hated Gianna for. That infuriating, storybook closeness between her cousin’s parents. The kind people wrote novels about.
It had always felt like a slap to her face. To her mother’s face too. Josephine had often provoked Kate deliberately, picking fights just to drag her down, just to ruin what she herself didn’t have.
Crazy tis.
When the elevator doors finally slid open, Sabrina moved fast, desperate to escape the suffocating tension pressing in on her lungs.
"Sabrina, wait! Where are you going?" Josephine called after her, confusion flaring when she realized her daughter was heading in the opposite direction of the car.
"I’m going to see a friend."
Josephine sighed, already distracted, watching her daughter’s retreating back. Maybe it was for the best.
She had other matters to deal with—naly, her husband. Clent wasn’t getting out of this. Not until he explained what he had done, and why she was only just hearing about it now.
anwhile, Sabrina exhaled harshly as she slid into the cab, the door thudding shut like a seal against chaos. The relief was imdiate, her shoulders sagging as though she’d been carrying weight for days.
She adjusted the oversized sunglasses on her nose and rattled off her destination. The driver’s eyes lingered on her in the rearview mirror, curious, assessing.
Uncomfortable, she turned her face toward the window.
She needed a wig. Or to dye her hair. Maybe chop it all off. Anything to stop looks like that. Anything to blend in. At least until everything died down.
But would it ever?
She sighed.
They needed a scapegoat. Soone to absorb the outrage. Soone disposable. It was the only way social dia would calm, the only way she could breathe again.
The only way she could move forward—with her life, with her plans to finish what the idiots had failed to do to her cousin.
Her phone rang.
She cursed softly when she saw the na. Foolish Es.
She answered anyway. "Hello..."
"Where the fuck are you?" Es snapped. "Why aren’t you picking your calls? Did you forget we were supposed to et today, you bitch?"
Sabrina pulled the phone away from her ear, stared at the screen with seething contempt, and ended the call without a word.
She’d had enough insults for one day.
"Stop here," she told the driver monts later, her gaze already locking onto the café she’d been ant to arrive at an hour ago.
She paid quickly, waited for her change, then stepped inside—her confidence muted, her steps more cautious than usual.
"What the hell, bitch?" Es snapped the second Sabrina sat down, eyes blazing. "Do you think I’m as jobless as you are? I have work piled up!"
Sabrina flinched despite herself, jaw tightening, but she said nothing. Instead, she called a waiter over and ordered sothing she didn’t want.
"I’m sorry," she bit out when Es didn’t stop glaring. "My father decided we should go see Gianna. Make ands."
Es scoffed loudly. "Seriously?"
Sabrina nodded.
"Your father is stupid," Es said flatly. "Of course that didn’t work, did it?"
Sabrina shook her head, swallowing the insult even as it burned. She needed Es. Desperately.
"Of course it didn’t..."
Es took a deliberate sip of her juice, then leaned back, folding her arms.
"So tell , Sabrina Aldo," she said coolly, "why I shouldn’t drag you out of this café—for putting my brother’s life at risk?"
Sabrina swallowed. She’d known this was coming.
"I didn’t know he’d leave the convention with her," she said tightly. "I thought he’d gone back to his company."
Stupid Gianna. Always at the center of everything.
Es slamd her palm against the table. "You should have checked properly before making the call!"
She shook her head. "Maybe I should just hand you over to the police."
Sabrina laughed then.
"With what evidence?" she asked calmly. "Our chats? That takes both of us down. And as much as you think your brother loves you..."
She tilted her head, eyes glinting, "...Gianna’s claws are far deeper in him than you think."
Es shot to her feet, nostrils flaring. "Whatever! Don’t call again," she snapped. "Or you’ll have yourself to bla. Leech. Do you think I don’t know what you want?"
She laughed coldly, picking her handbag. "I’m not a naïve elite, Sabrina. Take care of your miserable self."
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