Brielle’s POV
I used to think silence was cruel.
Now I know it can be worse when it’s loud. Too loud.
The kind of loud that comes from headlines screaming your name in fonts too large, plastered on every screen like a warning. The kind that buzzes in your ears even in the quietest rooms, because it echoes from within—the noise of shame, of betrayal, of a world flipping itself upside down.
Adrian’s hand is on my back. That’s how I know I’m still standing.
Because my knees… they stopped working somewhere around the third line of the headline:
"Illegitimate Heiress? Sources Claim Brielle Monroe Is Not Gregory’s Daughter."
There’s a photo of me—mouth slightly open, eyes wide—taken God knows when. The kind tabloids live for. I look guilty. Or clueless. Probably both.
I can feel them all
