CHAPTER 5 - The Blacklist
1054 Words
---
📖 Chapter 5 – The Blacklist
Lila’s POV
The city was bigger than she remembered. Its lights reached for the sky like endless ladders of fire, but Lila felt small beneath them, just another shadow struggling to find a place.
She had dressed carefully for her interviews — the one black blazer she owned, pressed until it was crisp, her hair tied neatly back. She carried her mother’s diary in her bag like a talisman, though it brought little comfort.
Her first interview was at a small firm near the financial district. She sat across from the manager, answering each question with confidence, clinging to the hope that merit alone would win her a chance.
But the manager’s polite smile vanished when he glanced at the papers in his hand. “Hudson?” he said, eyebrows lifting.
“Yes,” Lila replied carefully.
“Hudson, as in Colton Hudson’s daughter?”
Her stomach dropped. “…Yes.”
The man leaned back, closing the folder with finality. His tone was suddenly sharp, dismissive. “I’m afraid this position has already been filled. Thank you for your time.”
“But—”
“Good day, Miss Hudson.”
She left the office with her chest tight, her carefully rehearsed words dissolving into dust.
The second company was the same. And the third. Each time, the moment they learned her name, doors slammed shut. Some were polite. Others less so.
By the fifth rejection, she sat on a bench near the subway, staring at the rain-streaked pavement, her hands trembling. She had thought leaving home would free her. Instead, she was drowning all over again.
“Why?” she whispered to herself. “Why does every door close?”
The city didn’t answer.
---
Monica’s POV
In the Hudson mansion, Monica sipped her wine, legs crossed elegantly as she lounged in Colton’s study. A phone rested in her manicured hand, her voice smooth as silk as she spoke into the receiver.
“Yes, I wanted to confirm. If a girl named Lila Hudson comes seeking employment, deny her. She is… unstable. A liability. We don’t want to be embarrassed by her scandals, do we?”
She listened, smiling faintly as the person on the other end promised cooperation.
“Good. I knew I could count on your discretion.”
She ended the call, swirling the wine in her glass. Jake lounged in a chair opposite her, tossing Lila’s stolen locket in the air like a toy.
“Is all this really necessary?” Jake asked lazily. “She’s already gone. Why bother?”
Monica’s lips curved into a cold smile. “Because exile isn’t enough. She needs to learn that without this family, she is nothing. No money, no influence, no future.”
Jake snorted. “Sounds like overkill.”
“Overkill,” Monica repeated softly, her eyes glittering. “No. It’s survival. Evelyn’s blood runs in her veins, and Evelyn was always dangerous. Lila will not rise. She will break.”
Piper, perched on the arm of her mother’s chair, giggled. “Then what? She comes crawling back, begging for forgiveness?”
Monica’s smile sharpened. “She won’t get that far. She’ll drown long before she reaches the door.”
---
Lila’s POV
Days blurred together. Interview after interview, rejection after rejection.
Her savings dwindled quickly. The apartment that had felt like freedom now felt like a cage, its peeling wallpaper pressing in on her. Nights were the hardest — staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the city, hunger gnawing at her stomach because she had skipped another meal to stretch what little money she had left.
One evening, after yet another rejection, she sat at her table with her diary open. Rain tapped at the window again, softer this time, like a cruel reminder of the night she left home.
They hate me, Mom, she wrote, the pen shaking in her hand. No one will give me a chance. I don’t know how much longer I can keep fighting.
She pressed her forehead against the paper, tears blurring the ink.
And then, as though fate had heard her, a scrap of conversation drifted through her open window from the street below.
“…Knight Enterprises… hiring new staff…”
Her head snapped up. She rushed to the window, peering down at two women chatting near the bus stop, their voices carrying up with the night breeze.
“Knight Enterprises?” she whispered.
Even she had heard of it. One of the largest companies in the city, its reach stretches across industries. Getting into Knight Enterprises was like stepping into another world.
Her heart pounded. She didn’t know why, but something inside her stirred — a spark, faint but not real.
Maybe this was her chance.
---
Monica’s POV – Closing
Back in the mansion, Monica received another call. A smile of satisfaction spread across her lips as the voice confirmed: “We’ve turned her away, as instructed.”
But even as she ended the call, unease pricked at her chest.
Because no matter how carefully she plotted, she couldn’t shake the image of Lila walking out into the storm that night — chin lifted, eyes burning with Evelyn’s fire.
Monica poured herself another glass of wine, forcing the thought away.
“Lila Hudson is finished,” she whispered to herself.
But in the back of her mind, doubt lingered. Shadows always found their way back.
---
JAYDEN KNIGHT.
> The first thing anyone noticed about Jayden Knight was his presence. He was tall, built like a man who knew how to fight as well as he knew how to negotiate. His suit clung to him like it was stitched into his skin, dark and immaculate, exuding authority.
His face was striking in a way that demanded silence—sharp jawline, high cheekbones, lips pressed in perpetual disapproval. But it was his eyes that unsettled people most: cold steel-gray, the kind of gaze that could slice through lies and peel a soul bare.
There was a scar near his jaw, faint but unforgettable, the only crack in his perfect exterior. It was a reminder that this man was not just a CEO in a glass tower, but someone forged in violence and betrayal.
He carried himself like a king, untouchable and merciless.
- Writer
