The morning sunlight streamed in through the wide windows of Lara's penthouse, but nothing about the day felt soft.
She sat at her mirror stand, putting on a deep crimson lipstick, when her phone vibrated violently against the counter.
[Mum (Incoming Call)]
Lara stared at it for a second before answering on speaker, never breaking eye contact with herself in the mirror.
"Lara Amara Alden!" her mother's voice shrieked. "Have you lost your mind?!"
Lara calmly dabbed at the corner of her lips, ignoring the venom in her mothers voice.
"Do you think this is normal? That you can just.....just post your sister's nude video online like some deranged vigilante?!"
Lara blinked slowly. "Good morning, Mum."
"Don't you dare try that cold tone with me! Maya is destroyed, Lara. Humiliated. Do you understand what you've done to this family?"
"I did what I had to."
"She's your sister! What happened to blood?! What happened to forgiveness?!"
Lara paused, then tilted her head slightly.
"Where was all that," she asked softly, "when she was sleeping with my fiancé?"
Her mother went silent.
"When I stood in a white dress, humiliated in front of guests and investors and cameras... where was the screaming then? Where was the outrage?"
"Lara..."
"No one called her out. No one protected me. Everyone just… pitied me. Like I was some silly girl who should've known better."
Her voice sharpened. "I'm not that girl anymore."
"This is about revenge, then?"
Lara stood up, slipping into her heels with ease. She adjusted the collar of her trench coat and picked up her purse.
"No," she said. "This is about justice."
She ended the call without waiting for a response.
Vale Group Headquarters
8:43 a.m.
Lara stepped into the lobby of the Vale building like the woman she had become poised, polished, and utterly unbothered. But she could feel the stares, the whispers.
"Let them whisper" She thought.
She pressed the elevator button, the silver doors sliding open smoothly. Just as she stepped in, someone else slid through at the last second.
Ethan.
Of course. She thought.
The doors closed behind him, sealing them in.
He stood beside her silently, both of them pretending not to feel the energy pressing in like static.
The elevator began to move and then, with a groan and a violent jerk, it stopped. The lights flickered. Then... it stopped.
"What the..." Lara reached for the emergency button.
Nothing.
Ethan pressed the intercom. It crackled, but no one responded.
"Looks like we're stuck," he said finally, turning to face her.
Lara stepped to the far end of the elevator, arms crossed, head high. "Perfect."
"Don't worry," Ethan added, "I won't bite."
"That's a shame," she murmured, eyes fixed on the elevator wall. "Would've made this more entertaining."
He chuckled softly. "You've changed."
"Ethan please," Lara replied. "I'm not in mood."
He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I know I deserve your hatred. I know you think I abandoned you."
"I don't think it," she cut in. "You did." She said and checked her phone but there was no signal.
"Perfect ".
"I made a mistake, Lara."
She turned to him slowly, expression unreadable.
"You made a choice," she said. "A conscious, deliberate choice. You walked away from me, from everything we built, and you handed me to the wolves. Do you know what that does to someone?"
"I didn't walk away from you for her," he said, voice cracking slightly. "It was never about Maya. I thought… I thought I was protecting you."
"Protecting....?" She let out a ridiculous laugh.
He swallowed.
They stood in silence, only the faint hum of trapped electricity around them. Lara banged the door severally but there was nothing. Minutes passed but no one had called through yet. Time stretched and folded on itself.
Finally, Ethan stepped closer.
"I keep trying to find pieces of the woman I loved in you," he said softly. "But every time I get close, she disappears behind that armor."
Lara's jaw tightened.
"That woman is gone," she said. "You buried her."
His eyes flickered.
"I don't believe that. She's in there somewhere. The woman who smiled like summer. Who kissed me at the train station like it was the end of the world."
Lara looked away.
"That woman," she whispered, "died on the altar."
The silence grew heavier.
"Do you really think this revenge… this war… will make you whole again?" he asked.
"I'm not trying to be whole," she said. "I'm trying to survive. This is the new me now, whether you like it or not."
Ethan moved closer. Too close....she could smell his cologne, a scent she used to fall asleep breathing.
"I miss you," he said, voice low.
Lara's eyes met his, her breath shaky.
He lifted a hand, gently brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.
"You have a wife! My sister..... You don't get to miss me," she said.
But she didn't step away.
Not when his hand grazed her jaw.
Not when his forehead leaned ever so slightly into hers.
The space between them sizzled, trembling on the edge of something dangerous.
Their lips hovered close enough to feel the heat, the memory, the ache.
And just before they touched....the elevator jolted back to life.
The lights brightened. The floor number blinked.
Then the intercom voice came "We've got you, folks. Just a few more seconds and we'll get those doors open!"
Lara stepped back immediately, her pulse racing but face composed.
The doors slid open on the 42nd floor. Staff members stood outside, stunned to see the two of them together.
Ethan didn't move. But Lara did.
She walked past him without another word, her heels clicking sharply against the tile. Head held high. Breath held tighter.
Whatever almost happened in that elevator?
Would stay between the floors.