Chapter 6 - The Broken Sister
On Friday morning—twenty-four hours before the wedding—I stood on the mezzanine level of Voss Global Headquarters, looking down into the massive, marble-lined atrium.
Ethan had arranged this deliberately. He had known Lila would come. He had instructed the front-desk security not to bar her entry at the perimeter, but to let her pass through the turnstiles straight to the executive elevators.
Lila strode through the glass doors like an empress entering an arena.
She was wearing an ivory, body-hugging cocktail dress that looked suspiciously like a reception gown, her blonde hair styled into cascading Hollywood waves, her makeup flawless. She carried a designer handbag and walked with the exaggerated, swaying confidence of an influencer walking a red carpet.
She assumed Ethan had finally realized his mistake. She assumed that with Robert in jail and Claire "disfigured," the great Ethan Voss would naturally need an immaculate, stunning blonde to save his corporate gala.
When she reached the private executive elevator, the brushed-steel doors opened.
Ethan walked out alone.
He stood in the center of the private lobby, his hands resting casually in his trouser pockets, radiating an authority so cold and unyielding that the two guards standing nearby instinctively straightened their spines.
"Ethan!" Lila cried, her face lighting up with triumphant radiance. She picked up her pace, clicking across the polished granite toward him, arms outstretched as if expecting him to catch her in a dramatic embrace. "Oh, thank God! I knew you'd see through Claire's lies! I knew you wouldn't let those horrible rumors keep us apart!"
Ethan didn't move. He didn't blink. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets.
"Stop right there, Miss Vance," Ethan said.
His voice wasn't loud, but it echoed across the cavernous marble atrium like a whip cracking against stone.
Lila stopped dead in her tracks, three feet away, blinking in confusion. "Ethan? What's wrong? It's me! I came to help you figure out the press strategy for tomorrow! We can issue a joint statement—we can tell the media that Claire decided to step back for personal healing, and that our families agreed I should step in so the merger isn't compromised—"
"What merger?" Ethan asked, his voice dripping with venomous amusement.
"The... the Vance-Voss partnership!" Lila stammered, her smile beginning to fray at the edges. "Dad’s logistics software—"
"Dad’s software?" Ethan took half a step forward, towering over her. "Your father didn't write a single line of that software, Lila. Claire wrote it. Claire designed the neural network architecture when she was twenty-six years old while you were failing out of your second semester of liberal arts because you couldn't wake up before noon."
Lila’s face flushed bright red. "That’s not true! Claire is just an assistant! Dad was the visionary!"
"Your father is an illiterate fraud who couldn't balance a checkbook without his daughter fixing the ledgers," Ethan continued, his tone clinical, devastatingly precise. "And as for you... you stood in that boutique, wearing Claire’s veil, watching her bleed from a hammer strike, and your first thought was to wonder if the dress could be altered to fit your waist."
Lila took a step back, her hands beginning to shake. "I... I was in shock! Dad was out of control! I had to play along so he wouldn't hurt me too!"
"You played along?" Ethan scoffed softly. "At three o'clock yesterday, you called the editor of *Manhattan Chic* and offered to sell exclusive photos of Claire's stitched face for fifty thousand dollars. Did you think my surveillance team wouldn't intercept that call?"
Lila’s jaw dropped. The color drained from her skin until she was as white as her dress. "I... I was trying to protect her image! I wanted to make sure the photos were flattering—"
"You are a parasite," Ethan said with such utter disgust that Lila actually flinched. "You have fed off your sister's labor, your sister's silence, and your sister's brilliance your entire life. You thought that because you were born pretty, the world owed you Claire's mind, Claire's success, and Claire's husband."
"Ethan, please!" Lila lunged forward, trying to grab his lapels, her voice breaking into a desperate, frantic wail. "Look at me! I can be whatever you want! She’s scarred, Ethan! Her face is ruined! She has stitches across her cheek! Everyone at the wedding will be staring at her! Do you really want that freak on your arm in front of the world?!"
A sickening silence descended upon the lobby.
I stepped onto the glass elevator from the mezzanine and rode it down to the ground floor. The soft chime of the elevator doors announced my arrival.
Lila whipped around.
I walked out into the lobby. I wore a tailored black pantsuit, my posture erect, my dark hair pinned back to reveal the neat, dark sutures marching across my right cheek. I didn't hide it with foundation. I didn't hide it with hair.
Lila stared at me as if she were looking at a ghost.
"Claire..." she whispered, her eyes darting between me and Ethan.
"You called me a freak," I said, stopping beside Ethan. Ethan immediately reached down and took my hand, his fingers lacing tightly with mine in front of the entire security detail and lobby staff.
"Claire, I didn't mean it—you know how I get when I'm panicked—"
"I know exactly how you get," I said. "For ten years, every time I bought a dress, you took it. Every time I won an academic award, you threw a tantrum until Dad bought you a car to balance the scales. Every time a man showed interest in me, you flirted with him until he looked at you, and then you discarded him like garbage once you proved you could take him."
I stepped closer to her, watching her eyes dilate with genuine fear.
"You thought Ethan was just another toy to snatch off my shelf," I continued. "You didn't realize that Ethan doesn't see women as decorative accessories. He sees through the veneer. And what’s underneath your veneer, Lila? There’s no intelligence. No kindness. No loyalty. Just an empty, hollow shell wrapped in cashmere you can't afford."
"I have money!" Lila cried, clutching her handbag. "I have my trust fund!"
"Your trust fund was tied to Robert's estate," Harlan's voice echoed as he stepped out from the security corridor, holding a blue legal folder. "Which was declared entirely insolvent at nine o'clock this morning. Furthermore, Miss Vance, I have just been notified by the DA’s office. You have been named as an unindicted co-conspirator for attempting to solicit payment for unauthorized forensic crime-scene photos. You are required to surrender your passport to the 19th Precinct by five o'clock today."
"My passport?!" Lila screamed, tears finally ruining her expensive mascara, black streaks running down her porcelain cheeks. "I'm supposed to fly to Paris next week! I have fashion shows!"
"You aren't going to Paris, Lila," I said coldly. "You're going to court. And when you leave here today, you can walk back to the Oakridge estate and help Mother carry her suitcases to the budget motel across from the highway, because the locks on the main gates have officially been changed."
"Claire! You can't do this to me! I'm your sister!"
"You stopped being my sister the moment you put on my veil while I was bleeding on the floor," I said.
Ethan signaled to the head of security. "Escort this trespasser off the property. If she sets foot within five hundred feet of my fiancée, this building, or tomorrow's wedding venue, have her arrested immediately."
Two massive security guards in dark suits stepped forward, taking Lila firmly by the elbows.
"Get your hands off me!" she shrieked, kicking her heels against the stone floor, thrashing like a toddler in a supermarket. "Ethan! Claire! You’re ruining my life! You’re both monsters! Ethan, look at me! Look at me!"
Ethan didn't look.
May you like
He turned his back on her, wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me close as the guards dragged my screaming sister out into the bright afternoon sunlight.
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