Chapter 3 - The Aftermath of HubrisThe estate of the bride’s family was not the place Julianne wanted to be.
It was a cold, cavernous structure.
It smelled of failure.
Her father, a man who had spent forty years building a name for himself, was waiting at the door.
He wasn't angry.
He was terrified.
"What did you do?" he whispered, his hands trembling.
"He was just a kid," Julianne sobbed, pacing the library. "A kid!"
"He was the Fire heir," her father snapped.
"Do you have any idea who they are? They don't deal in lawsuits. They don't deal in apologies."
"They deal in erasures."
Julianne felt the cold settle into her bones.
For the first time, she thought about the boy.
Not the maid’s son.
The boy with the eyes of a king.
She remembered the look in his eyes—not fear, but a strange, quiet dignity.
She had spent her life looking down at people, thinking the world was a ladder meant only for her.
She had looked at the maid, a woman who worked in silence, and seen only an object.
She had been wrong.
"We have to fix this," she said, her voice frantic. "I'll go back. I'll apologize."
"There is no back," her father said, his face gray.
"They have already cleared our accounts."
"They have already initiated a hostile takeover of our primary holdings."
"We are ghosts, Julianne."
"We don't exist in their world anymore."
The silence in the library was heavy.
Julianne sat down, the wedding dress now just a heap of ruined fabric.
She looked at her hands.
The hands that had slapped a child.
She realized then that the slap hadn't been an act of power.
It had been an act of suicide.
She had thought she was striking someone beneath her.
But she had struck someone who owned the very air she breathed.
"How long do we have?" she asked.
"Until sunrise," her father replied.
He walked to the window, staring out at the dark, expansive gardens.
"They won't come for us with weapons," he said.
"They will come for us with the truth."
"And the truth is, we are nothing without them."
Julianne closed her eyes.
She could hear the wind howling outside.
She could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock.
Time.
May you like
It was the one thing she couldn't buy.
And she was running out of it.
