The door groaned on its hinges, slicing through the quiet like a drawn dagger.

Celeste froze, breath caught in a chokehold. Her pulse slammed against ribs like a desperate drum—too loud, too fast in the small room where stolen warmth still clung like perfume on fabric.

Eyes snapped to the threshold.

There, grinning like a shark savoring fresh blood, stood Liam.

Her Liam.

Not the friend, not the confidante. A stranger masquerading in all too familiar skin.

“No,” she whispered. A tremor fractured her voice, shards of disbelief gathering behind her eyelids. “Why—?”

He stepped forward without apology, his gaze sharp as broken glass. Smooth words traded for knives.

“Did you think I’d stay loyal, Celeste? After all the chaos you dragged me through?” Liam’s lips curled, mocking. “You’re drowning, and Dominic is the lifeboat. You… you’re just dead weight.”

The room constricted, walls closing in quicksilver fast. Her chest burned—an inferno fueled not by flame, but by betrayal’s chill.

Cold tremors fluttered down her spine as she fought to assemble her scattered wits.

“This isn’t just business anymore.” Liam’s voice softened, venom laced with something dangerously like pity. “It’s survival—mine, not yours. Dominic offered the future. You’re a sinking ship, Celeste Harper. And I’m done bailing water.”

Silence swallowed her words before they could even form. The betrayal was too vast to fill with protest.

She stared, each heartbeat hammering loud enough to drown out his footsteps as he turned away—an unrecognizable shadow slipping back through the door he’d just wedged open, carrying the last shred of her trust with him.

The latch clicked shut.

Empty air rushed in where warmth had been moments ago. The space between her fingers ached, phantom pain from vanished hands.

Her phone buzzed sharply on the glass table—a message from Dominic.

Three words scrawled across the screen like a judge’s gavel:

Deal falls through.

A cold wave swallowed her whole.

Every ally lost, every secret peeled back, every plan derailed.

All because the one person she never expected to stab her was the first to draw blood.

Celeste’s vision blurred—not with tears, but with a renewed fire.

If they wanted to burn her down, she’d become the wildfire.

But first—she had to survive the cold.

The city skyline glittered outside, indifferent, a vast jungle of steel and light where empires rose and crumbled like sandcastles.

And tonight… Celeste Harper was alone.

Alone, but not defeated.

Yet.

The phone buzzed again. Another message.

This time, the words made her stomach plummet.

Meet Dominic. Now.

Before she could breathe, the door was thrown open once more.

Dominic Lowell stepped inside, a predator uncloaked.

His smirk was a signal flare in the suffocating dark.

“Celeste,” he said, voice honey dipped in poison, “looks like your empire just lost its last fortress.”

And just like that, the walls closed tighter.

The betrayal had only just begun.