A VOW FOR VENGEANCE

Hanna’s POV "Hanna still has no idea." Lucas's voice filtered through the small opening of the door, calm, low and unbothered, the way a man sounds when he is completely certain of his safety and is not afraid of getting caught. That was the first thing I heard, my name, and the way he said it made me stop breathing. "She will not, either. Not until it is too late." A soft laugh followed. One I had heard my whole life. Mia. I stood very still in the long hallway of Lawson Arts, with a large painting of one of my father’s most priced pieces, pressed against my chest, and my heart suddenly beating in a way that felt indecent. Like my own body was trying to warn me about something my mind was still refusing to receive. Walk away. The thought was quiet and urgent. Put the painting down and walk away. I took three steps closer instead. Through the thin gap in the door, I saw them. Mia sat lightly on the edge of the antique display desk, her fingers gently grabbing the collar of Lucas's shirt. He stood between her knees, close enough that there was no version of this that was innocent. No angle that could explain it away. His hand rested on her hip the way hands only rest on someone they have touched a hundred times before. My throat tightened. "Once the wedding goes through," Lucas said, "I will make sure to get everything. Her shares, the accounts, all of it. Six months, Mia. That is all." "Mom has already got the paperwork moving." Mia tilted her face up toward him, kissing him gently. Her smile was the most beautiful and terrible thing I had ever seen. "Hanna will hand us her whole inheritance and think she is doing it out of love." The painting slipped. I caught it before it hit the floor, barely. I gripped it so hard that my knuckles turned white. The scraping sound of the frame against my ring felt ridiculously loud in the quiet hallway. I stood there, shaking, waiting for one of them to turn. Neither did. They were too caught up in their own world. Too comfortable to be afraid. Too emotionally tied up to have noticed my presence. That was what broke me. Not the betrayal itself, at least not yet. It was the comfort. The ease of them. The audacity. The way Lucas laughed at something Mia whispered, quiet and fond, as if they had all the time in the world. As if my whole life was simply a transaction or a prize they had already agreed on and were patiently waiting to collect. Four years. I have loved this man for four years. I made myself small in arguments so he would not feel intimidated. I had forgiven his distance and called it independence, even while other men were dying to get my attention. I overlooked his coldness and called it stress. I even picked out white peonies for our wedding because he mentioned once, three years ago, that they reminded him of fresh beginnings. Meanwhile, he had been having a secret affair with my stepsister the entire time. Frustrated, I set the painting down against the wall. Gently. Slowly. As if a sudden movement might c***k something open in me that I would never be able to close. Then I turned, and walked. Through the corridor. Past the gallery staff coordinating the exhibition placements. Past the caterers arranging food for the reception preview. Through the lobby, through the revolving glass door, out into the garage. I could not process the thought of having people I called my family, plan and betray me. I got into my car and sat there for exactly three seconds before pulling out of the lot and driving with no destination because every destination I had imagined was full of people who had just stabbed me in the back. “Mom has the paperwork moving.” That line kept on ringing in my head. Isla. My stepmother. The woman who had braided my hair for school and sat at my bedside when I had my tonsils removed at eleven and told me, so many times, “you are as much mine as Mia is.” I had believed it. All of it. All the lies and pretense. A lot of questions ran through my mind. Was I too naive and overly trusting? Where did everything go wrong? Was I so desperate to have an equal share of maternal love to believe their lies that every time a small doubt crept in, I would push it away, smile at the dinner table, and tell myself I was loved? I thought of my father. The once mighty and great Rowland of Lawson Arts was now lying helpless like a vegetable; pale and thin against white hospital pillows, his big hands that had once lifted me onto his shoulders now lying still, trusting Isla completely. Trusting her with his company, his legacy, and even his most vulnerable hours. My heart, which had been feeling empty all this while, began aching. My vision blurred. Not from tears, the tears would not come, which were almost worse, but from something hotter and heavier, a grief that lived below crying. My hands began shaking on the wheel. I pressed hard on the accelerator because stopping felt like dying, and I was not going to fall apart in the middle of New York City while Lucas's name lit up my phone from the passenger seat. I watched his name disappear. Along with the last soft humane thing inside me, go quiet. My car began to feel suffocatingly hot. I reached down to increase the air conditioning, my eyes dropping from the road for just a second. Just one second to escape the heat in my own skin. A sudden, violent blast of an air horn shattered my thoughts. I quickly lifted my face up. I was so scared that I could not speak. Two huge, blinding headlights filled my entire windshield as a giant truck was heading fast in my direction like the speed of light. Time seemed to slow down. My stomach sank. In that split second, my anger vanished, replaced by a cold, total fear that froze the breath in my lungs. My brain screamed, but my body could not move fast enough. I threw my weight onto the brakes and turned the wheel to the right. Hoping to maneuver the situation. However, It was too late. The truck swallowed everything; the sound, my scream, the hurt, my family, the thought of my revenge, even before I was able to fight. All of it, gone in an instant. I felt my soul leave my body for exactly one second. Then it was not anything at all. Just long, total, consuming dark.