Chapter 23
I collapsed to the floor, curled up like a madwoman, shaking, cursing, spitting.
“She doesn’t get to win. I planned everything. I did it all. For him. For Niccolo. And now they’re making me the villain?! I was supposed to be Mrs. Salvacion. I was supposed to be queen!”
I pulled myself to my knees, looked at the cracked mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. My lips were dry and cracked. I didn’t even recognize the woman staring back.
The next day… The walls are talking.
I can hear her voice again. Geneva’s–clear, calm, smug. Whispering in my ear like she’s standing right behind me.
“You can’t fake royalty, Margot.”
I grab the edge of the sink and scream so loud my throat burns. I throw the nearest wine bottle
at the mirror and watch it explode into a thousand little Geneva faces. Each shard looks like her laughing at me.
“You lost before you even started.”
“SHUT UP!” I scream at the broken glass, voice cracking, chest heaving.
I stumble to my laptop and slam it open. My fingers are shaking as I type-“Montenegro heiress… Geneva Montenegro… Del Vale gala.”
The results pop up like bullets. Photo after photo. Black velvet gown. That fucking mask. Her standing between the Del Vale and Montenegro heirs like she was born for that world. Captions say her name now.
‘Geneva Montenegro. Daughter of Don Domino. Heir to the bloodline throne.”
| freeze. My mouth dries up. My lungs stop moving. I whisper to myself, “She was royalty all along. That bitch tricked all of us…”
don’t even feel the tears anymore. Just rage. Pure, white–hot rage boiling in my stomach. I slam the laptop shut, but it dings again…an anonymous email. No subject. No sender. Just a link.
click.
The page loads like a death sentence. A full exposé. Her legal team didn’t just fight me in the shadows–they burned me alive in public.
Leaked documents with my name all over it.
Fake pregnancy reports.
4 full timeline of my lies.
CCTV stills of me stalking Niccolo through the Del Vale halls like a deranged ghost.
Audio of that damn doctor laughing about the ketchup burns.
A damn tab with me getting cozy with two other men in Manila and Dubai photos I forgot existed.
And at the top of it all?
་་
12:58 pm p p p p
“MARGOT JENNER THE MAFIA HEIRESS IMPOSTOR. LIAR. MANIPULATOR.
HOMEWRECKER.”
My photo’s everywhere. News blogs. Mafia watchlists. Social scandal pages. Even black marke groups are reposting it. Everyone’s eating it up like I’m tonight’s main course.
I run to the sink and throw up everything I’ve ever swallowed to stay calm. Wine. Painkillers Bitterness.
My knees hit the tile. My head rests against the cold porcelain.
“God, no. No. No…” I whisper.
I ruined Geneva. I ruined her. I had it all. I was winning. I had Niccolo. I had his bed. His empire His name was almost mine. She was supposed to die.
So why the hell am I the one disappearing now?
I crawl across the floor, wipe the vomit from my lips with the sleeve of a thousand–dollar robe can’t even afford anymore. My eyes land on the only unbroken mirror in the room.
And in the silence, her voice whispers again.
“You thought you could wear my crown, Margot? Try choking on it.”
I cover my ears, screaming again until my voice goes hoarse. I need to end her. I need to erase her, for real this time.
And if I can’t? Then I’ll burn everything she loves… until the only name the world remembers is mine.
“Ms. Jenner, you’re four days past due. We’ve suspended all services. Please settle your balance immediately or vacate.”
I don’t have a black card anymore. The accounts are frozen. The money’s gone. The name “Margot Jenner” is being hunted by creditors, lawyers, and men with bullets. I ripped the card to pieces three days ago and flushed it. Now I survive on what I can sell.
I stared at my reflection as I pulled off my earrings, one by one. Diamond studs that once got me into any room. I slid off the Cartier ring Niccolo gave me when he first said he “might” marry me. I sold them all in the backroom of a pawn shop run by a woman who didn’t ask questions, just counted cash with pity in her eyes.
She didn’t even recognize me. No one does now.
That’s the point.
I dyed my hair darker. Cut it with kitchen scissors. I layered on makeup to change the shape of
my
face. I burned my old IDs and used one of the last fake passports I kept buried in my suitcase. The one I swore I’d never use unless I needed to disappear.
And I did. I needed to disappear.
Geneva made sure of that.
She didn’t just ruin me–she erased me. Contacts stopped answering. Even the vultures I once paid off now saw me as a rotting carcass. My parents vanished. My name’s poisoned. Every
time I hear my own voice I want to scream.
But Geneva forgot one thing.
70.98
12:58 pm P p p p.
I always crawl back.
I booked the cheapest one–way flight I could find. Spain. Midnight. I wore all black and no perfume. Sat in the very back row and kept my head down the whole time. On the plane, I clutched an old phone I kept powered off for months. I turned it on. It lit up like a match.
Photos.
swiped through each one slowly.
Elle.
Smiling as she skipped toward Geneva at a school pickup.
Geneva in sunglasses, hugging her tight. Kissing her forehead. Like she won. Like she got her fairy tale ending. Like I hadn’t torn her apart once already.
zoomed in on Elle’s innocent face. She looked so much like that dead boy. The one Niccolo sobs for now. I traced her face on the screen and smiled to myself, cold and wide.
‘You took my future, Geneva. Now I’ll take yours.”
You want to play daughter of a king? Let’s see how you scream when I rip your little princess out of that crown–lined castle.
Let’s see what you do when you can’t protect the only thing that still makes you human.
Let’s see who survives this time.
93
