LILAC'S POV
People love to pretend that time heals. That if you wait long enough, the sting dulls, the anger fades, and you become better. Wiser. Kinder.
No. Time doesn't heal. It just sharpens the blade.
I was seventeen when I learned that some wounds don't scar—they rot. Fester. Grow teeth. But now, I'm not that girl anymore. That girl begged for dignity. I don't beg now. I build empires. I don't cry in bathrooms. I design boardrooms. And I don't break. I break others.
Success, they say, is the best revenge. That's a lie told by the weak to comfort themselves. Success is just the bait.
I live in a glass-walled penthouse twenty-eight floors above a city that once swallowed me whole. My mornings smell like espresso and imported lilies. I've built a name for myself that makes people long to be near me, people with qualifications beg to be my workers...I could go on and on but right now…..
That's not the point.
The point is what comes next.
My parents think I've made it. In their eyes, I am their prodigy. Their golden girl who went from public school bruises to champagne brunches.
"You're too hard on yourself, Lilac," my mother says over the phone, her voice soft and syrupy like always. "Let yourself breathe for once."
I smile even though she can't see me. "Breathing's overrated, Mama. I've got moves to make."
She laughs, light and clueless. My father hums in the background, and I can picture him reading the paper upside down again, nodding like he understands every word. He never really did, but he always tried. I give him that.
Then there are the twins—Max and Maddie. Born two years after me, but always mistaken for older. They live in their own worlds: Max with his motorbikes and girls he never introduces, Maddie with her poetry and books that smell like damp libraries and heartbreak. They think I'm too cold. "Your heart's a locked vault," Maddie once said during a Christmas dinner where I didn't touch a single bite.
She's right. But she'll never know why.
Today's different. It's the day I take the next step.
A new job—Senior Strategy Lead at Vireon Technologies, one of the largest tech giants on the eastern seaboard. The name alone makes people blink like they've seen God. It's prestigious. Ruthless. Exactly where I need to be.
I hate it already.
Not because it's demanding. I like demanding. I was built for pressure. No, I hate it because it's crawling with people who look like him.
Polished. Powerful. Male.
And one of them is him.
I step out of the elevator into a lobby so sterile it smells like bleach and money. Floors that shine like mirrors. Screens everywhere. Employees moving like they're on invisible tracks—efficient, robotic, perfectly hollow.
"Ms. Wynter?" A woman with a headset and teeth too white to be natural gives me a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Welcome to Vireon. Right this way."
I follow her through a corridor of glass. People look up as I pass. Some nod. Some stare. A few whisper. Good. Let them.
They think they're seeing the newest rising star.
What they're actually seeing is a loaded gun.
My office is sleek—cold and impressive, just how I like it. Black glass desk, leather chairs, a wall-to-wall screen that tracks stock prices like a heartbeat. They've given me everything I could want.
But I want something else.
My handler—I forget her name already—leaves me with a tight smile and a stack of onboarding files. I don't read them. I don't need to. My plan doesn't live in HR forms or team-building exercises.
It lives in the man I'm about to meet.
I check my reflection in the glass. Smooth. Controlled. Unbothered. A little cruel, even. Perfect.
The door opens behind me.
I don't turn immediately. That would give him power. Instead, I wait, then pivot slowly like I've got all the time in the world. Because I do.
And there he is.
Cole Ashbourne.
God, even his name sounds like something you'd carve into a headstone.
He's taller now. Broader. His hair's shorter, suit tailored so well it's almost a weapon. But the eyes? Still the same—sharp, calculating, and unaware of what they destroyed.
He pauses when he sees me. Just for a second.
Like something itches at the back of his memory.
Then he smiles. "Lilac Wynter. I've heard good things."
His voice is smooth. That same voice that once whispered lies in locker rooms and twisted truths in crowded cafeterias.
I smile back. "You will."
He offers his hand. I take it. Firm grip. A little too firm. He's testing me.
I grip back harder. He flinches, just barely.
We let go.
"You'll be reporting directly to me," he says, moving around me toward the view. "Fast-track projects, R&D expansions. I hope you're not afraid of high expectations."
"I set my own," I reply.
He nods, amused. "I like that."
I study him, every movement, every blink. He doesn't recognize me—not yet. He thinks I'm just another ambitious hire, another cog in his machine.
But I remember everything.
The hallway whispers. The fake texts. The laughter that echoed after my tears. He was the ringleader, the charming devil everyone adored. He made pain fashionable. Turned me into a joke.
I'm no one's joke now.
And I'm not here to work. I'm here to unravel him from the inside out. To make him question everything. His power. His instincts. His comfort.
One brick at a time.
He turns back to me, unaware of the storm walking into his life.
"Shall we get started?" he asks.
I tilt my head. Smile just enough to keep it pretty.
"Absolutely."
And as he turns to lead me into the lion's den he calls a company, I whisper to myself, low and quiet—just for me.
"Bingo."