|Serena's POV|
|Flashback|
It always starts the same way.
With the scent of old cologne and mint chewing gum. The echo of footsteps down the marbled hallway. The soft click of a door that should've never been opened.
I'm eleven. The penthouse is too quiet, wrapped in the eerie hush that only comes when my mother's away—filming in Milan, or Monaco, or god knows where. Beatric Van der Bilt, the world's darling. The kind of beautiful that makes people stupid. She married Fredrick Caine when I was nine. A business arrangement dressed as a whirlwind romance. He came with two sons—sixteen-year-old twins with gleaming smiles and cruel eyes.
Cain and Colin.
They call me "Pretty Little Step." Like it's a joke.
Like it's a game.
It's always a game.
I'm sitting on the white velvet chaise in
