THE HEIR I WAS MEANT TO HATE

01: Lake Street Bridge

*FABIOLA*

Four Years Later

“Maximus Alfred is threatening to sue for defamation if you don’t drop the case, Mrs. Mendoza.”

The voice of Detective Paul Miller echoes in my head as I grip the cold railing of Lake Street Bridge. Below, the water churns like ink, thick with the city’s filth. It matches exactly how I feel inside.

“The department wants nothing to do with this anymore,” he’d said, his voice cold. “It’s been four years. Move on.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’re walking on dangerous ground. Drop the case, or your sister goes to jail for the death of Violet Romano.”

I remember the way my throat tightened—the sudden, suffocating realization of his betrayal. “What? Courtney didn’t kill anyone. Violet was her friend! Her classmate! She overdosed, you know that!”

Paul had only chuckled. He knew I wasn’t strong enough to fight a lie that big. “Doesn’t matter, does it? The point is, your sister was the one who found the body.”

The memory stings worse than the light rain currently plastering my unkempt hair to my skull. I can’t feel the cold. I haven’t felt anything real in one thousand, four hundred and sixty days.

Paul was Alex’s best friend, and he’d traded that loyalty for Alfred gold.

“I tried, Alex,” I whisper to the wind, tears trailing down my cheeks. “I’ve been trying… But they’ve taken everything. I can’t let them get Courtney too. So I’ll come to you.”

I just came from the graveyard, apologizing to a cold headstone and to Faith—my child who never took her first breath.

I swing my leg over the railing of the bridge, then the other. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back.

Just let go, Fabiola. It’s easy. You’ll see your child and husband soon—

“You’ve been standing there for almost ten minutes, love.” A baritone voice sounds from behind.

“Go away,” I grit out, refusing to look back, lest I lose focus. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

I hear the flick of a lighter, then catch the faint smell of cigarette smoke carried by the wind. “If you really wanted to jump, you would’ve done it by now.”

The casual cruelty in his tone makes my blood boil. I whip my head around to find a tall, imposing shadow in the rain, looking completely unbothered. He takes a drag from his cigarette, the ember glowing orange in the darkness.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Me? I’m not the one standing on a bridge in the middle of the rain pretending to be brave.”

“f**k off!”

“You’re hesitating.” He leans against the railing like he has all the time in the world. “People who’ve truly made up their minds simply let go.”

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“Then how about you come down and tell me.”

“I said f**k off!”

“I know you’re scared,” he says. “You’re holding on to that railing for dear life.”

“Stop talking!”

“You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“You don’t understand!” My voice cracks. “You have no idea what they took from me!”

He’s quiet. When he speaks again, his voice is low, almost angry. “My mother stood at her bedroom window once. Screaming about how no one understood her pain. How she had nothing left.”

I freeze.

“She was selfish too,” he continues. “Didn’t think about the people she’d leave behind to clean up the mess. To live with the guilt.” He takes another drag. “But at least she had the guts to make a choice. You? You’re just wasting time.”

“I am NOT selfish! Who the hell do you think you are? My therapist? You have no right to judge me! You have no idea…”

I spin, vision blurry with tears, ready to scream in his stupid face.

It’s a big mistake.

My foot slips, and the concrete cracks beneath it.

“Watch out!”

A hand shoots out—fingers like iron clamping around my wrist, scorching hot against my freezing skin. His cigarette tumbles into the darkness below.

The scream rips out of me before I can stop it. Too loud. Too desperate for someone who wanted to let go a minute ago.

He yanks me forward, slamming me against his chest. We hit the pavement together, a chaos of wet clothes and gasping lungs.

“I’ve got you, love,” he gasps into my hair, voice heavy, rough—nothing like the cold indifference from before. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

It’s not. It’s really not.

A jagged fork of lightning tears the sky open, turning the world blindingly white for an instant, highlighting his face for the first time.

He looks less like a man and more like an angel sent from heaven to pardon my soul.

Is that what this is? A divine intervention?

Water drips from his dark hair onto a pale forehead furrowed in intensity. His silver-gray eyes frantically track every breath I take.

“Are you hurt?” he asks gently, probably for the hundredth time, his thumb brushing a wet strand of hair from my cheek. “Tell me your name.”

“Get away from her!”

We both flinch just as my sister Courtney comes bounding up the bridge, her face twisted in panic.

“Fab!” She shoves the stranger hard, forcing him back. “I saw you grab her! You sick—were you trying to hurt her? Take advantage of her?”

“Courtney, no—” I choke out, trying to sit up. “He didn’t—”

“Stay back!” she shrieks, shielding me. “The neighbors said they saw a man mauling my sister here at Lake Street Bridge! If you touch her again, I swear to God—”

“I wasn’t hurting her.” He rises slowly, his voice low. He takes a step back, looking down at Courtney. “Just… take care of your sister. She needs you right now.”

I see the hesitation as his silver-gray eyes linger on me.

Shame crawls up my neck.

He was only trying to help.

Mercifully, he turns and disappears down the bridge. But his touch is like a brand on my skin.

“Fabiola? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine, Court,” I whisper, lungs tight. “He didn’t do anything.”

“I was so scared,” she rushes out, checking my arms for bruises. “I went to the gravesite looking for you… But you weren’t there. Then the neighbors called and said they saw someone on the bridge and…”

Her words trail off, her hands freezing on my shoulders as she sees the precarious slope of cracked concrete from my near fall.

The realization hits her like a blow.

The sharp crack of her palm against my cheek echoes over the rain, stinging through the cold.

“How could you?!” Her voice breaks. “You’re the only family I’ve got left! How could you?! Is it because of Alex? You want to kill yourself because of him?”

The pain in my chest is raw and bleeding all over again.

“I miss him, Court.” My voice caves in. “I don’t know how to exist without him… and knowing I couldn’t fulfill his wish…”

“What about me? You didn’t think I would need you? That I need you?” she shouts.

I flinch.

At my expression, she stands, trembling violently. “Let’s go home. You’re freezing.” Her voice is detached, far away.

I let her drag me away—but not before I pick up the silver chain lying on the wet concrete and slip it into my pocket before Courtney sees.

It probably fell from that stranger’s pocket.

The trek home is an unbearable silence of wet sobs and sniffles.

***

Two weeks pass, and Courtney doesn’t leave my sight. She’s everything and everywhere at once. Cooking, cleaning, striking up conversations. Trying to distract me from that bridge. I wish she would stop. It’s exhausting.

Even now, she’s in the kitchen, aggressively making dinner.

I sit at the small, peeling table in the living room, staring at my reflection.

Hollow cheeks, dead green eyes.

The stranger was right. I am pathetic. I couldn’t even kill myself correctly.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Courtney’s voice snaps me out of the fog. “Paul threatened you with Violet’s death and you thought… you thought leaving me was the only way to protect me.”

I say nothing. I can’t.

“You need to eat something at least,” she says. “You’re a walking bag of bones, Fabiola.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care! You have to try for my sake!”

“I never asked for your help!”

She spins, a hurt look on her face. It breaks my heart. But if I have to annoy her to get her out of my orbit, then so be it.

“What did you say to me?”

“You heard me clearly! I don’t want your help. You think you’re preventing me from harming myself?” I laugh then, a jagged sound. “I could take a knife from that kitchen without your knowledge and end it all. Easy.”

Silence.

“What has gotten into you, Fabiola?” She’s crying now. That’s my cue to leave. I stand and move past her, but she pulls me back.

The move knocks her oversized purse off the counter. The contents spill. Lipstick, keys, loose change… and a thick manila folder.

Courtney gasps. “Don’t look at that.”

She dives for the folder.

But I’m already moving. Something about her reaction isn’t right. I snatch the folder before she can reach it.

“Give it back, Fab. It’s nothing.”

I open it. The logo at the top of the page makes my blood run cold.

The Alfred jet empire.

“Why do you have this?”

Courtney slumps against the counter, defeated. “I was going to throw it away. I found it at the temp agency. It’s a job listing.”

I scan the paper.

Role: Household staff.

Employer: The Estate of Maximus Alfred.

Requirements: Discretion, no criminal record, European background preferred.

“Maximus Alfred.” I read the name out loud, tasting bile. “The patriarch. The man Alex died trying to expose.”

“That’s why I hid it!” Courtney cries. “I don’t want us getting involved with them, Fabiola!”

I look at Courtney, then back at the file.

Getting a job in the Alfreds’ company is as hard as finding water on Mars. I had tried to infiltrate them many times, out of desperation for evidence. It was always futile.

Attached to the back of the file is a passport and a résumé for a woman named Ava Vance—a certified governess from Europe who died in a car crash three months ago.

“Courtney,” I ask slowly. “Where did you get the ID?”

“I… I bought it. From a guy who sells dead people’s IDs. He said this woman’s death hasn’t been confirmed on the internet, but she is, in fact, dead. I bought it just in case I was ever brave enough,” she sniffs. “I wanted to avenge Alex. But I was too scared. I didn’t want to leave you.”

I stand up, clutching the file to my chest. Maybe the stranger on the bridge was right. I have been holding on for dear life. I’ve been holding on for this moment.

The despair evaporates, replaced by something else.

Hope.

“You were right to be scared,” I say, walking to the window. “It’s not your duty to avenge my husband.”

“Fabiola—”

I turn back to her, a genuine smile touching my lips for the first time in four years. “I’ll take the job.”

She straightens, hot with protest. “You think you can just barge into these people’s mansions like some f*****g spy?! You’re out of your mind, Fabiola! I won’t let you!”

“You can’t stop me. I made a promise to Alex. A promise I must fulfill.” I trace the edge of the passport. “Fabiola Mendoza died on that bridge. But Ava Vance? She’s going to burn their empire to the ground.”