Chapter 15
Cassian just stared at me when I said that. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t stop me. Just handed me water and walked out. Because he knew… This isn’t revenge.
This is war.
And I’m not ready because I’m angry.
I’m waiting because I want to end them in a way they never recover from. I want to gut their legacy from the inside out and make sure the day I return, no one ever speaks their names without shame again.
So yeah, let them enjoy their awards and their foundations and their lies. Let them bask in the light of their performance.
Because the truth? I’m not coming back to survive.
I’m coming back to erase them.
IT’S BEEN a month now. Sometimes I watch TV during my free time with Aziel, my brother. One of my dreams before was to become an actress. I used to mimic lines from soap operas when I was little and sing to my mom while she combed my hair. I used to imagine myself on stage, wearing red lipstick smiling under those big lights while people clapped for me not because I was someone’s wife or someone’s scandal but because I made them
feel something.
Now look at me. I’m not Harmony anymore. I’m Celeste Aragon. And even with a new face and a new name, those old dreams still sit quietly in my chest like embers.
Cassian’s uncle showed up today. Leandro Varela. He walked into the villa like he owned the sky, yelling about a “damn brat of an actress” who walked off his set three weeks before international filming. He ranted about how it was a revenge drama based on a mafia heiress who fakes her death and returns to destroy the people who broke her. I froze when I heard that. Cassian just poured him whiskey and said nothing.
Later, Cassian told me Leandro was crashing for the week to detox and fix the casting. He told me to meet him outside the cliff training site, said we’d practice “public presence and vocal control,” and had me stand under the wind to project my voice.
I was mid–sentence–reading a line Cassian handed me when Leandro stumbled in drunk off his second bottle of wine. He stopped, stared at me like I’d slapped him with a secret, and then told me to do it again. Louder. With fire.
So I did.
I channeled every ounce of betrayal, every silent cry in Hakeem’s mansion, every night I bled through silk sheets while Margaret slept three doors down, untouched. I screamed the words like they were the truth.
My Husband Begged for My Love ofter Destroving Ma
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“You took everything from me and still had the nerve to act like you were the victim!”
Leandro blinked and muttered, “Jesus… that wasn’t acting. That was survival.”
He paced like a madman, then turned to Cassian and asked where the hell he found me. Cassian didn’t say a word. He just folded his arms and watched me quietly like he already knew this would happen.
Leandro offered me the role on the spot. Said the film would be massive, global, award–winning. Said I had something rare–real pain beneath the pretty face, the kind that can’t be taught.
He had no idea who I really was. That I wasn’t just playing a role. I was the goddamn blueprint.
Cassian waited until Leandro walked away, then looked at me. “If you take this, you better know what you’re doing,” he said. “This ain’t fame, Celeste. This is strategy.”
And I told him, “Exactly. Let the world believe what I show them. Let them eat up the story. Let them cry for me, scream for me, love me. Because when the real game begins, I want every soul watching.”
He didn’t smile. Just nodded once.
So yeah… I said yes.
The stage is bigger now. The audience is wider.
And my enemies? They’re about to get front row seats to their own execution.
It’s been two weeks since I agreed to take the role, and every day since then has been war. I’m learning voice control now. How to lower my tone to silence a room, how to cry on cue without needing to cry inside, how to shift accents so fast you’d swear I was born in three countries at once. Leandro says I’m raw talent dipped in grief, and the camera loves it.
But it’s not acting for me. Not really. It’s muscle memory. My pain’s just been re–wrapped in prettier lighting.
Stage presence? They teach it like a weapon here. Posture. Eye contact. The tilt of my head when I lie. The slight lift of my brows when I’m supposed to feel love but don’t. They say the best actresses know how to fake tenderness. I don’t fake it. I erase it.
Cassian watches every lesson, and he never interrupts unless my body starts shaking too hard.
Like today…
We were filming a rehearsal scene. I was on set in the mock living room, wearing a silk
nightgown nretending to her the man I once loved to stay I was knooling hands Chapter 15
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nightgown, pretending to beg the man I once loved to stay. I was kneeling, hands trembling, voice whispering lines I didn’t need a script for. They were words I’d said once
before.
“Please don’t do this. Please don’t choose her. I gave you everything.”
The actor raised his hand in the scene, and that was it. My body locked. My chest clamped tight. I saw Hakeem… towering, furious, gripping my jaw and dragging me to the floor like I was nothing but his leash–broken wife.
I froze.
My breath wouldn’t come. My knees gave in. And everything stopped.
Leandro lost it. “Cut! Cut! Goddammit! We’re filming a drama, not babysitting a trauma patient!”
Cassian was by my side before I even hit the carpet.
He crouched down, eye–level, and said, “We’re done for today. Let’s go.”
I couldn’t talk then, but later after the sweat dried and my hands stopped shaking… I found him outside by the cliff, smoking a cigar.
I sat beside him, staring out at the water, and told him softly, “I’m going to finish this movie. Not for the fame. Not even for the message.”
He didn’t say anything, just handed me a glass of water and waited.
