The Fake Heiress And Her Obsessive Brother

CHAPTER THREE

I stand on the staircase for a long time after the call ends.

The phone is still pressed to my ear.

Below, the foyer is empty. The marble floor shines, fresh flowers sit on the entrance table, and the crystal chandelier casts its cold light over everything, just like always.

It looks beautiful. Still. Completely indifferent to the fact that my chest feels heavy.

I lower the phone, and I check the screen: unknown number. The call lasted forty-one seconds.

I go back downstairs.

Damien is still at the dining table.

He hasn’t gone to the sitting room like he usually does after dinner.

He is sitting exactly where I left him, wine glass in hand, one ankle crossed over his knee, staring at the door as if he knew I would come back through it.

Maybe he did.

"Marcus Reid," I say from the doorway.

"He just called me."

Damien’s expression doesn’t change at all.

"How did he get your number?" he asks.

"Company directory." I step into the room. "He said his contract was terminated. Tonight. Effective immediately."

"Yes," he says.

Just that. One word. Flat and clean like a closed door.

I press my fingers against the back of the nearest chair.

"He flagged a data error that three senior executives missed," I say. "He has been here for just a day."

"I know how long he has been here."

"Then you also know that performance issues do not develop in eight hours."

Damien sets his wine glass down. Slowly. Precisely. The way he does everything.

"Elara," he says.

"Do not Elara me," my voice stays steady. I’m proud of that. "I want a real answer."

He stands up.

And there it is, that shift that happens when Damien Voss decides a conversation is going somewhere he did not plan for.

He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t argue. He just stands tall, letting the room change around him. Suddenly, you realize just how much space he takes up.

Six feet tall. Dark suit. His eyes change like the color of a stormy sky.

He walks to the head of the table and stops.

"The intern made a comment in a senior briefing that was inappropriate," he says. "That kind of boldness reflects poorly on the family."

"He was right about the data," I say.

"That’s not the point."

"Then what is the point?" I ask.

He looks at me across the table. The chandelier light catches the sharp line of his jaw.

"The point," he says quietly, "is that some things are not your concern."

The room is so quiet I can hear the city outside, faint and distant, the low hum of Manhattan carrying on regardless of what happens inside this building.

"He called me," I say. "That makes it my concern."

Damien’s expression doesn’t change.

But something in his eyes does.

Something I tuck away in the part of my mind that I keep separate from everything else.

The part where I store things I’m not ready to confront.

"Go to bed, Elara," he says.

I decide to turn a deaf ear to what he is saying.

I retreat to my room anyway, sitting on the edge of the window seat with my knees pulled up and my phone in my hand, and I'm lost in thought.

Outside, the Upper East Side is going about its evening routine. Town cars glide quietly along the street below, the park looms dark beyond the tree line, and the city glimmers as it always does at this hour.

From up here, it looks like everything is just as it should be.

I decide to call my childhood friend Sophia, who lives in London.

It rings four times. Then —

"It’s past midnight here," she says.

"This better be catastrophic or I’m hanging up."

That is how Sophia is, especially when you call her around midnight while she is trying to find sleep.

“I know I'm not supposed to call you by this time of the night, but there's something important that I needed to inform you about as my friend,” I say.

Okay, no problem. What is the issue?. She asks. I hope all is well over there.

"The new intern got fired on his first day," I say.

A pause.

"That’s not catastrophic," she says.

"That’s just Tuesday."

"He called me afterward. He said the reason they gave wasn’t real."

Another pause, longer this time.

"How would he know what reason they gave?" she asks.

"Because there is no real reason," I say. "He was there for eight hours. He performed well. He caught something three senior executives missed."

Sophia is quiet for a moment. In the background, I can hear London doing its late-night stuff, softer than New York and more polite about it.

"Elara," she says slowly. "What are you really saying?"

I press my forehead against the cold glass of the window.

"I don’t know yet," I say.

I remember when I was eleven years old.

It was a Thursday night — I remember because Thursday was the only night my father came home for dinner back then.

I was supposed to be asleep by that time as usual. But I wasn’t.

I was standing in the hallway outside his study in my socks, on my way to ask for a glass of water, the way kids do when they aren’t really thirsty but can’t sleep.

The door was slightly open.

My father’s voice came through first.

"The Singapore deal closes Friday. I need you in the office at six," he said.

Then Damien, sixteen years old, was already sounding like he owned the room.

"I will be there."

A pause.

Then my father again—quieter, the voice he only used when something truly mattered to him.

"You understand what this family is, what we protect, what we keep."

"Yes, sir."

"Your sister is part of that.

Everything she is, everything she becomes—that runs through you. Do you understand me?"

Silence.

Long enough for it to mean something.

"Yes," Damien said. "I understand."

I remember standing in that hallway feeling warm in my chest.

My brother. My protector. Someone had finally said out loud that I mattered — that I was worth protecting.

I didn’t understand then that there is a difference between being loved and being owned.

Now I'm beginning to understand it.

My phone buzzes at 11 PM.

I look at the screen.

A message from an email address I don’t recognize — no name, no signature, just a string of letters and numbers that suggests whoever sent this didn’t want to be found.

I open it.

Four lines, no greeting.

They told me it was a performance.

You and I both know I was there for eight hours.

I’m not asking you to do anything. I just need one person in that building to know the truth.

The data on slide four was wrong. I know why it was wrong. It wasn’t an accident.

I read it twice.

Then I read it a third time, slower, the way you read something when part of you already understands, and the other part isn’t ready to catch up.

The slide four error is not an accident.

I set the phone face down on the window seat.

Outside, the city keeps going, indifferent, electric, and alive, as something in my chest shifts into a shape I don’t have a name for yet.

I pick the phone back up.

I type, "What do you mean it wasn’t an accident?

I press send.

The message has been delivered for a long time.

Then the three dots appear and disappear at the same time and appear again. Then—the dot vanishes, and the screen stays still.

And from somewhere below me in the house, footsteps move across the marble floor.

Slow. Deliberate.

Stopping directly outside my door, and I have no idea who is outside my door by this time.