Chapter 52

Chapter 52
MELISSA’S POV

I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until Matt says,

“You need to see this.”

His voice is low, tight, shaking in a way that makes my stomach sway. I step closer, and he turns his phone toward me. The screen is filled with photos of Paula in a lobby, eyes red from crying. Her makeup is smeared. She looks small and humiliated in every frame. Every photo shows her in a frantic state, like she’s running errands. Some show her holding coffee.

My breath hitches. For a moment, everything inside me goes disturbingly quiet. Then my heart kicks in. It feels like I’m watching the world crumble and rebuild in front of me. I yank the phone from his hand before he can say anything else, zooming into every picture. Paula’s posture, her expression, the shame on her face - it’s all too real. Too raw.

“What… what is this?” My voice cracks even though I try to steady it.

Paula has always been a woman of class. Matt grew up filthy rich. This woman never had to work a day in her life.

What’s going on?

Matt drags a hand through his hair, pacing like a man trying to outrun his own panic. “Why would Kat do this?” he bursts out. “What the hell is going on, Melissa? What is this?” His voice is trembling with anger, confusion, betrayal - everything I have been screaming inside me for weeks.

And suddenly all the fear, all the doubt, all the gaslighting I feel from everyone, including him, comes crashing out of me.

I step closer, gripping the phone like evidence in a crime I’ve been trying to prove.

“See? SEE?!” I hiss. “Do you believe me now? She wants to ruin us! She’s doing this on purpose!”

The words spill out of me fast and for the first time Matt doesn’t shut me down. He stares at the floor, fists shaking. His jaw isclenched so tightly a vein pulses in his neck.

Then he mutters, “She… she paid off Paula’s debts.”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“The person told me,” he says quietly “Kat offered to clear everything… if Paula agreed to work for her. As her personal assistant.”

The room shrinks around me.

“She what?”

“Paula thought it was harmless,” he continues. “Until this.” He gestures toward the photos. “Melissa… this is revenge. Kat is coming after us. After you. How could she humiliate my mother like this?”

That last part sends a sick thrill through me. Terror twists with vindication.

I’m not crazy. I’m not paranoid.
I have been right. I have been right the whole time.

Matt’s breathing grows louder, harsher. He spins toward the wall and punches it so hard I scream. His knuckles split instantly. Blood then smears across the paint.

“I swear I’m going to kill her,” he growls. “I swear, she’s dead. How dare she? How fucking dare she?”

I just stand there, staring at the blood dripping from his hand, feeling this disturbing mix of triumph and dread twisting inside me.

“Matt…” I whisper, not knowing what I’m trying to say.

Should I comfort him? Encourage him? Stop him? I don’t even know anymore.

He shakes his head violently. “I need air. I need, fuck, I just need to think.”

He grabs his keys and storms out, slamming the door so hard the frame rattles.

When silence falls, it isn’t peaceful. It’s suffocating.

I stumble back into the living room, my legs barely cooperating. My thoughts race so fast they overlap. They keep crashing  into each other like waves during a storm.

I pace, clutching my head, trying to breathe, but every inhale feels too shallow, too tight.

I replay every single interaction I’ve ever had with Kat. Every argument. Every insult. Every moment I thought I’d “won”

Every moment that I dismissed as petty rivalry now rearranges itself in my mind into something calculated, sinister, deliberate.

She’s plotting. She has always been plotting.

I feel it snap inside me - some fragile line that has been holding me together.

I grab everything I can find: sticky notes, old notebooks, receipts, even napkins and torn envelopes. I dump them all on the floor and drop to my knees, scribbling like my life depends on it.

“Brand deals… sabotage… Kat’s timeline…”

I write nonsense “connections,” arrows pointing to nothing, dates that mean nothing but feel meaningful.

“Did she talk to the PR team?”
“Is she planning to ruin us?”
“Why Paula? Why her?”

My handwriting is messy, frantic. I feel my fingers shaking as I tear pages, slap sticky notes onto the wall, tape pictures and documents in a crooked web. My breathing turns rapid again as I step back to look at the mess.

“Yes,” I murmur. “There’s a pattern. She’s everywhere. She’s been doing this for years.”

I don’t realize I’m crying until a tear hits one of the notes and smears the ink.

Then I hear it – small whispers behind me. Like someone murmuring my name from just beyond my peripheral vision.

I turn around but I see nothing.

There is no one.

But I hear footsteps upstairs. The creak of a floorboard. The shift of weight.

My chest tightens painfully.

“She’s here,” I whisper. “She’s here, she’s here…”

My voice shakes as I back into the wall.

Suddenly a bottle rolls across the floor, tapping lightly against the leg of the coffee table.

I scream, clamping my hand over my mouth.

“Stop it!” I shout at nothing. “STOP IT!”

I start pacing again, sweating, pulling at my hair because everything feels too loud, too close, too wrong.

“She’s taking everything,” I mutter. “Everything. She wants my life. She wants to replace me. She won’t stop until I’m gone.”

The words spill out in a loop. It’s like my mind is feeding on its own terror.

I sink onto the floor surrounded by the chaos I’ve created - papers everywhere, sticky notes falling off the walls, broken glass glinting under the living-room light.

My heart hammers violently as I whisper,

“Kat is trying to erase me.”

Saying it aloud makes it feel even more real. My voice cracks as I repeat it over and over, like a mantra.

“She’s trying to erase me… she’s trying to erase me…”

I push myself up slowly and walk toward the wall where I’ve taped a picture of Kat. My hands are trembling as I grab a marker. I circle her face slowly, like I’m outlining the target.

Then I slash a large, dark X through her image.

Something inside me shifts. And then twists into a smile.

I lean in close to the picture “I’m not going down without a fight.”