Sylvie
I step out of the alcove. The shadows cling to me for a moment before the ballroom's light finds my face. Marin gasps, her hand flying to her chest in a theatrical display of shock. Marcus just stares, his face a mixture of anger and confusion.
"Predictable little doll," I repeat, my voice quiet but carrying in the relative hush of the corridor. "Is that what you think I am, Marin?"
Marin’s practiced composure returns in a blink. "Sylvie! We were just worried. You disappeared."
"I was having a fascinating conversation with Gavin Holt," I say, enjoying the way his name makes them both flinch. "But I seem to have interrupted a more important one. You were telling Marcus to 'handle me'."
"This is ridiculous," Marcus snaps, stepping forward. "What has gotten into you tonight? First the dress, then Holt, now this? You're causing a scene."
"Am I?" I raise a perfectly calm eyebrow. "It seems to me the scene was being created in the shadows. My best friend giving my fiancé instructions on how to manage me. Tell me, Marcus, do you often require her guidance on how to be my partner?"
His jaw tightens. He has no answer. My words have hit their mark, framing Marin not as a helper, but as an interloper pulling his strings.
Marin’s eyes fill with crocodile tears. "I was only trying to help, Sylvie. You’ve been so distant. So cold. I thought… I thought maybe the pressure of the wedding was getting to you. I was concerned for your well-being."
"My well-being?" I let out a soft, humorless laugh. "Your words weren't 'help her', they were 'remind her who she is'. The two are very different. One is an act of friendship. The other is an act of control."
I let my gaze drift from her face to Marcus's. "It makes one wonder what, exactly, is so threatening about me being 'a different person'. Is it a threat to you, Marin? Or is it a threat to the merger?"
The mention of the merger hangs in the air between us, ugly and explicit. I have taken their private anxieties and put them on display.
"That's enough," Marcus says, his voice low and strained. He looks at Marin, then back at me. The certainty in his eyes is gone, replaced by a flicker of doubt. "We'll talk about this later."
"There's nothing to talk about," I say, my tone final. I give Marin a smile that doesn't reach my eyes. "Thank you for your concern. It's been… illuminating."
I turn my back on them without another word, leaving them in the silence of their own making. As I walk back into the heart of the party, I feel a cold, hard satisfaction settle in my chest. The first crack in their foundation is made.
And I am the one holding the hammer.
The next morning, the house is quiet. The ghosts of last night’s party have been scrubbed away by the cleaning staff. I find my father in his study, a cavernous room of mahogany and old leather, a half-empty glass of scotch on the desk beside a stack of folders. He looks up as I enter, his eyes sharp and assessing.
"Sylvie," he says. His tone is not warm. It never is. "I trust you've recovered."
"I was never unwell," I reply, closing the door behind me. "I need to talk to you."
"If this is about your little performance last night, save it. Marcus already called. He's confused. So am I."
"This isn't about Marcus," I say, walking directly to his desk. "It's about the Kenner-Lyons acquisition. You can't let the board sign it."
My father leans back in his chair, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. "And what do you, the art history major, know about a multi-billion dollar tech acquisition?"
The dismissal stings, a familiar phantom of the life I left behind. But that girl is gone.
"I know that the prospectus is a work of fiction," I say, my voice steady. "I read it last night after the party."
"You read a three-hundred-page financial prospectus?" he asks, disbelief coloring his words.
"Every page," I confirm. "Kenner-Lyons is leveraging its value on three key patents for micro-processing. But a German firm filed an infringement lawsuit two weeks ago. An injunction is pending. If they win, and my sources say they will, those patents become worthless."
He stares at me, his expression unreadable. "What sources?"
"A clause in a new European trade agreement," I lie smoothly, recalling the disastrous news reports from my future. "It changes the very definition of patent viability. The lawsuit is just the first domino. The entire valuation is a house of cards."
He picks up his scotch, swirling the amber liquid. "Our due diligence team is the best in the business. They would have found this."
"They're looking at the company, not the global political landscape," I counter. "They see a profitable asset. I see a time bomb. This deal won't just fail, Father. It will be catastrophic. The debt we'd assume would open us up to a hostile takeover within a year."
I know this because it’s exactly what happened before. Marin’s family, the Crofts, used the chaos to force a merger that was essentially an absorption, swallowing what was left of Crane Industries.
"You seem very certain," he says, his voice quiet. He's no longer looking at me like a flighty daughter. He's looking at me like a peer. Or a rival.
"I am," I say. "Kill the deal. Blame it on market volatility. Do whatever you have to do, but do not sign that paper."
I hold his gaze, unflinching. I pour every ounce of certainty, every bit of the terror from my past life, into that stare. This is the first move on the real chessboard. If he doesn't believe me, my entire plan for vengeance becomes infinitely harder.
He sets his glass down with a decisive click. He looks at the thick Kenner-Lyons folder on his desk, then back at me. For a long moment, the only sound is the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Finally, he reaches for the intercom on his desk. He presses the button. "Helen, get me the legal team on a conference call. Immediately. And hold the signing on the Kenner-Lyons deal until further notice."
He releases the button and looks at me. He doesn’t smile. Richard Crane does not smile. But he gives me a short, sharp nod. A gesture of respect I haven’t earned from him in twenty-four years.
It’s enough.
I am no longer a doll in their dollhouse. I am a player in the game. And I just took my first piece off the board.
