Page 140 of What Comes Around

They didn’t understand what it took to become someone. What it cost. What I had done.

What I had endured.

My gaze drifted to the mirror across the room. The face staring back was perfect. I had made sure of that. A nose job at nineteen. Lip fillers at twenty-one. Subtle cheek implants last year. Every procedure carefully researched and chosen.

No one had given me anything. I had built myself from nothing. I’d transformed myself into someone people couldn’t look away from.

But God, the things I’d done to get there. Things I'd never admit to anyone.

The yacht parties in Dubai still made my stomach twist. Those men with their cold hands and colder eyes, the things they expected, demanded, took. I could still smell the expensive cologne mixed with salt water and something darker, could still feel the way my skin had crawled even as I smiled and played the part.

The last time had nearly broken me. The Saudi businessman who’d gotten too rough, too perverted. I’d locked myself in the yacht bathroom afterward, mascara streaked down my cheeks, staring at a stranger in the mirror and trying to remember why the money mattered.

But it mattered.

It had paid off.

Ten million followers at my peak. Sponsorships. Free products. Invitations to exclusive events. A life people envied.

I’d made myself into someone.

And then Ashley ruined everything.

It had to be her. Who else would leak those photos, those messages, those carefully buried secrets? She always pretended to be harmless, but she’d been sabotaging me since childhood. This was just the grown‑up version of stealing my spotlight.

My phone buzzed with another bill notification. Another reminder that my empire was collapsing.

I considered calling Dad, but I already knew the answer. He’d cut me off the moment the scandal hit, canceled my cards without warning, frozen me out like I was nothing. His own daughter, and he'd discarded me the moment I became inconvenient.

“You’ve embarrassed this family enough,” he’d said. "Figure it out yourself."

Figure it out myself. As if he hadn’t been absent my entire life. As if his money wasn’t the only thing he’d ever given me. And now, when I actually needed him, he turned his back.

And Mom… God. Her arrest was everywhere. Murder charges. Headlines. Mugshots. How could she have been so stupid to get caught? And then she had the nerve to call me from prison, like I was going to come visit her.

Was she insane?

Did she stop to think how humiliating that was for me? How humiliating it was to have my mother’s face on every tabloid, associated with something so sordid?

If she was going to ruin everything, she could have at least finished the job. Ashley had been right there in the house. A baby. Helpless. An inconvenience she chose to leave alive.

And somehow, it had still come back to me. It always did.

If it weren’t for Ashley, I never would have ended up in that man’s hands all those years ago. Never would have gone through any of it.

God, I hated her.

The thought of her made something sharp and ugly twist inside me, hot and suffocating, until it was almost unbearable. I imagined often, what it would feel like to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until she stopped breathing.

I paced my apartment, the heels of my shoes striking against the floor in uneven rhythms, the sound echoing through a space that looked like luxury but felt anything but. A high-rise I could barely afford now, hemorrhaging money on rent I couldn’t sustain much longer.

The designer clothes in my closet were last season's, and I'd already sold most of my jewelry. The sponsorships had evaporated overnight when the cancellation hit. One day I was promoting luxury skincare and designer handbags; the next, brands were scrambling to distance themselves from me.

My jaw tightened.

Ashley thought she’d won. She thought she’d won him. She thought she could take everything from me and walk away untouched.

She was wrong. She had no idea how close she’d come to losing everything.