Chapter 24
No stage. No bright lights. Just one cold underground room, twenty encrypted streams, and the truth sharpened like a dagger.
Cassian called it the Judgment Broadcast. I called it payback.
The anonymous international press conference dropped like a missile on every major news outlet in the world. Screens turned black before showing one message: “TRUTH
LEAKED BY AN UNNAMED SURVIVOR.”
Then came the first clip.
My father’s car exploded on a peaceful highway. The smoke. The fire. And right after, grainy security footage showing Senator Lawrence: Margaret’s saint of a father, stepping out of a black car, laughing with a cigarette and shaking hands with one of Hakeem’s uncles like they just signed a real estate deal.
Then came the second.
The one that ripped the air out of my lungs even after I edited it twenty times.
Me. Harmony. On the ground. White dress stained red and Hakeem’s men were circling me. One of them raised a whip; the kind used on traitors and slaves, and cracked it across my back until I threw up blood and cried through the gag.
Cassian had watched that clip in silence with his fists clenched until his knuckles cracked.
And last… came the financial trail.
Every cent. Every ghost account. Every offshore deposit made by Hakeem under shell companies to fund arms deals, media bribery, and election interference. I didn’t just bury them in shame. I let the world dig up their graves.
I watched it stream live from Cassian’s main command room while holding Aziel in my lap. He didn’t fully understand what was playing, but he knew. He kissed my cheek and said, “You’re the brave one now, Harmony.”
And the world? The world flipped.
“Who is Celeste really?”
“Is she the lost Harmony Masterson?”
“Why does this woman’s voice sound like justice wearing lipstick?”
I didn’t answer any press. I didn’t tweet. I didn’t blink.
Cassian just placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “They can wonder. But they can’t unsee.”
Meanwhile…
Hakeem?
My Husband Begged for My Love after Destroving Me
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That bastard went feral the second the footage dropped. He stormed out of a board meeting, broke a glass screen with his bare hands, and ordered a full hunt for whoever posted the videos. “Find where the fuck this came from. Shut it down. Now!”
But Cassian’s system had already wiped every fingerprint, every trace, every IP trail before
the first frame even aired.
And Senator Lawrence?
He went nuclear.
He smashed a bottle against his desk and screamed for Margaret. His men dragged her into his office like she was a prisoner, not his daughter.
Cassian’s hacker team tapped into the senator’s building. I watched the feed on one of our monitors in real time. Margaret cried and pleaded. He slapped her across the face so hard, her nose bled instantly. Called her a disgrace. Said she should’ve died instead of dragging his name through the dirt.
“You let that girl survive! You let her turn into a fucking firestorm!” he yelled. “I built this empire and you let your jealousy burn it down!”
Margaret screamed that it wasn’t her fault. That she thought Harmony was weak. That
Hakeem was the one obsessed.
He didn’t listen. He ordered his men to beat her, right there, inside his private office.
And I watched. I didn’t smile. I didn’t cry. I just leaned back in Cassian’s chair, ran a finger along the edge of the silver hairpin my mother once wore, and whispered,
“Let the rot devour its own.”
Cassian turned to me, eyes dark, voice calm. “Ready for the next phase?”
I nodded once. “Let’s finish this. Let’s make them beg.”
After two weeks of watching the senator swim in lawsuits and Hakeem’s investors run for the hills like rats from a sinking ship, I was starting to breathe again.
Not relax–never that–but breathe.
We were wrapping the final scenes of the film, and honestly? I was exhausted. Makeup melting on my collar, fake tears drying on my cheekbones, and a plastic champagne glass still in my hand from the wedding scene we just shot. The air inside the studio dressing room was warm, soft, and smelled like hairspray and cheap perfume. Aziel had just called to say goodnight. I was about to change into my usual hoodie and wipe my face when I heard it.
The door slammed open so loud the mirror cracked a little.
Margaret.
Hair wild, jack
Chapter 24
crooked, eyeliner running like she’d been crying for days and still didn’t
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know why.
She looked like a corpse wearing my old name.
And in her right hand, hidden underneath that ugly coat?
Steel. Sharp. Real.
I saw it the moment she stepped inside.
But I didn’t flinch. I didn’t yell. I didn’t panic.
Instead, I tilted my head and said in my softest, dumbest Hollywood accent, “Um… are you lost? This is cast–only access.”
Her mouth twisted like a broken marionette.
14
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she spat, stepping closer. “With your dresses and your fucking fake voice and your new face. You think you can play innocent and win? I should’ve buried you when you were Harmony.”
I let her get close.
Closer.
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I shifted just enough–angled my body so if she stabbed, it wouldn’t be my heart.
And she did.
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With all the rage and delusion inside her rotten spine, Margaret stabbed me right in the shoulder, steel sinking through skin like butter. The pain hit instantly–hot and splitting–but I bit my lip, screamed just enough to sound helpless, and fell like a broken doll.
“YOU STOLE MY LIFE!” she was screaming. “YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! YOU’RE A FAKE BITCH AND HE STILL LOOKS AT YOU!”
Security burst in within seconds. Crew members were shouting. Someone was already on the radio for Cassian. Two guards slammed her to the ground, handcuffing her as she thrashed and cursed.
“She’s Harmony! She’s fucking Harmony, you idiots! SHE’S NOT REAL! NONE OF THIS IS
REAL!”
But the more she yelled, the crazier she sounded. “LET GO OF ME! I’M PREGNANT AND I’M GOING TO KILL THAT BITCH!”
She didn’t look like a victim anymore. She looked like what she always was a murderer unraveling in broad daylight. And I? I clutched my shoulder, smeared with red, crying just enough, wincing with perfect timing.
Someone helped me up. Someone called a medic.
Chapter 24
