Mask

A Stain On Perfection

The morning after the rumors broke felt like stepping into a different world.

Servants whispered in hallways, trays clattering when they thought I wasn’t listening. Reporters camped outside the gates like vultures, flashes of cameras breaking against the iron fences as if trying to claw their way in. My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing with messages I didn’t care to read — pitying notes from society wives, veiled questions from friends, and sharp warnings from Mother.

But the real storm wasn’t outside.

It was inside the Croft estate.

I found out at breakfast.

“Who is she?”

Klaude’s father’s voice cracked like a whip, echoing across the dining hall’s vaulted ceiling.

I didn’t even flinch. I kept cutting my strawberries into perfect little squares, lifting one delicately to my lips, chewing slowly as though the world wasn’t crumbling beneath us.

Arthur Croft didn’t speak to his son often — but when he did, the weight of his words could crush anyone in the room.

Klaude didn’t answer. He leaned back in his chair, arms loose, posture lazy, as if his father’s fury were nothing more than background noise.

“Don’t play games with me, boy,” his father growled. “Who is this woman? The one you’ve been… entertaining.”

There it was. Entertaining. I almost laughed. How polite of him to dress it up like that, to make infidelity sound like nothing more than a parlor trick.

My grip on the fork tightened until the silver dug crescents into my skin.

Klaude’s jaw flexed, a muscle ticking as he spoke at last. “She’s no one.”

“No one?!” Arthur’s fist slammed onto the table, making the cutlery jump, the coffee ripple in its porcelain cup. “Do you think I don’t know who steps into my house? Do you think I don’t know who touches what belongs to this family?”

I blinked slowly.

What belongs to this family.

I wasn’t sure if he meant me… or Klaude.

Lord Croft turned, sharp as a blade, to one of his aides — a tall, sharp-eyed man who’d been standing silently in the corner this whole time, a shadow with purpose.

“Report,” Arthur barked.

The man stepped forward and opened a thin folder. His voice was precise, detached, each word meant to wound. “Her name is Olivia Sloane. Orphaned at eight. Taken in by a charitable family with minor business ties to the Crofts. No wealth. No bloodline. Her education was paid for through benefactors. No significant standing in any society circle.”

He paused, flipping the page. “She is, for all intents and purposes… nothing.”

The last word dropped into the silence like a guillotine.

I tilted my head, fighting the smile tugging at the corner of my lips.

Nothing.

Oh, Olivia.

It must burn, doesn’t it? To play mistress to a man who won’t even defend you. To climb so high only for them to remind you you’re still just a charity case, a pretty pet someone else raised out of pity.

And what made it worse?

She was a friend.

No — more than that.

Olivia had been at my side for years. From high school gossip sessions to late-night talks in my dorm room during college, we had been inseparable. I held her secrets. I comforted her when she cried over boys who weren’t worth it. I let her raid my closet, wear my dresses, borrow my jewelry. I treated her like family.

And now I realized — she’d been smiling in my face while slipping into my fiancé’s bed.

The betrayal sat in my chest like acid, eating away at my ribs.

Klaude said nothing. His silence was deafening.

“Do you understand what this does to your engagement? To our name? To everything we’ve built?” Arthur’s voice dropped lower, colder, every syllable honed to a threat. “Clean this up. Or I will.”

And just like that, breakfast was over.

Arthur rose, his chair scraping against the marble floor. He left with his entourage, his words trailing behind him like smoke, poisonous and suffocating.

Klaude didn’t even look at me. He just stood, shoved his hands into his pockets, and walked out. Not a word. Not an apology. Not even the courtesy of meeting my eyes.

The doors closed, and the silence that followed was almost holy.

But I wasn’t upset.

Not anymore.

Because now I knew something I could use.

Olivia Sloane. Orphan. Nobody. My friend.

The thorn in my side.

The crack in Klaude’s armor.

And one day, when the time came, I would make sure she remembered exactly what she was.

Not just in private.

But in front of everyone.

⸻

That night, I stood in front of the gilded mirror in my suite, dressed in ivory silk, my diamonds glinting like stars across my throat. The reflection staring back wasn’t me — not Anastasia, the girl who once believed in loyalty, in friendship.

It was the Angel.

The Angel everyone worshipped, untouchable, divine.

The Angel who would learn to use claws instead of wings.

Olivia thought she had stolen something. Klaude thought his silence would break me.

But the truth was simple.

Perfection doesn’t shatter.

It stains.

And I already knew whose blood would wash mine clean.