Chapter 4 EPISODE 4: Auren Draven: The God She Invented
Auren Draven.
The name flashed on the screen like a threat— just six letters, but they sucked the air straight from my lungs. I’d never met him, not in person, but I knew that name like a prayer whispered in reverse. Elara said it more than she said mine. Said it with her mouth, her mirror, her madness. Auren wasn’t just her fiancé—he was her fixation. The heir to Draven Holdings, the multibillion-dollar empire that turned blood into diamonds and scandal into silence.
He hadn’t been in Chicago for years, but somehow, his shadow never left her walls. Every dress she wore, every tantrum she threw, every order she barked at me before sunrise—it all circled back to him. To keep him. To be enough for him.
Elara’s voice drifted in through the smoke, languid but edged in irritation. “Who the hell is calling me this early?”
I hesitated, still holding the phone like it might burn through my fingers. “Mr. Auren,” I said quietly.
For a second, nothing moved. Not the ash falling from her cigarette, not the gauzy curtain drifting in the breeze. Not even me.
Then came the sharp screech of metal as her chair scraped violently against the balcony tile. I barely had time to brace before she stormed inside, and her pupils were dilated, wild, ravenous.
“Auren?” she repeated, as if she didn’t believe me. As if the syllables tasted too sweet to be real.
Before I could nod, she snatched the phone from my hand with fingers that trembled—not from fear, but something hungrier and her eyes locked onto the screen.
And her entire face transformed and her lips curled slowly into a smile—not the kind you give people, but the kind you give mirrors and, for the briefest moment, she looked… girlish. Pleased. Alive.
“Well, well,” she breathed,“So, you have remembered me?”
But she didn’t answer. She just stood there, staring at his name—Auren—as it blinked against the glowing screen and her thumb hovered over the green icon for a second that felt like forever.
Then, with a flick of her wrist, she tossed the phone onto the bed. It landed face-up, still ringing, still vibrating, as if it, too, was desperate for her attention.
She turned her back to it. Took a long drag of her cigarette and exhaled.
The phone continued to buzz where it lay on the bed, Auren’s name flashing over and over like a warning light no one wanted to acknowledge.
I watched her carefully, gathering the courage to ask. “Are you not going to answer him?”
Elara leaned against the doorframe of the balcony, the dying ember of her cigarette glowing between her fingers.
“No,” she said, exhaling smoke like the word itself bored her.
I was confused, and before I could even ask why? We were interrupted by a knock.
Elara didn’t flinch. She straightened slowly, as she called out, “Come in.”
The door opened with a click that felt too loud in the heavy air.
Carol Veyra stepped inside. She looked like she belonged in a Vogue editorial, not in a stepmother role. Tall and willowy, with sun-kissed skin that never seemed to wrinkle, and her honey-blonde hair was swept into a loose, effortless knot at her nape, and her mauve suit clung to her figure like it had been stitched directly onto her body. Diamond studs winked from her ears, a glossy nude on her lips, and not a trace of sleep in her expression.
She was far too young to be anyone’s stepmother.
“Good morning, Elara,” she said.
Elara smiled “Carol,” she greeted, turning fully from the balcony, stubbing out the last of her cigarette in the crystal ashtray like a defiant child caught mid-rebellion.
Carol Veyra was not her real mother—she was her father's second wife, the elegant socialite with razor-sharp ambition who had stepped into the role of matriarch without ever bothering to pretend she cared for the girl left behind. To the world, they were a united front. Inside these walls, there was a chess game with no end in sight.
“You’re early,” Elara said, crossing the room with deliberate slowness.
“I thought I’d stop by,” Carol said lightly,“Save you the trouble of hearing it from a maid or a headline.”
“I’m not in the mood for riddles, Carol.”
“Of course not,” Carol folded her arms. “So I’ll be direct. The Draven family is coming for dinner. Tonight.”
Elara’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Tonight,” Carol repeated,“7 pm, so excuses and whatever plans you have—scrap them and wear something expensive. You’ll want to look... presentable.”
Elara didn’t speak right away. She just stared, the quiet stretching between them like piano wire, but I could feel the shift in her energy.
“You’re joking,” she said.
Carol smiled. “I never joke about things that involve the Dravens.”
Elara leaned forward slightly, “And why, exactly, is this dinner happening tonight?”
Carol blinked, the corners of her glossy mouth twitching upward in the faintest smirk. “Oh, Elara. You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Auren landed last night,” Carol said, “Didn’t he tell you?”
Elara didn’t blink but something behind her eyes sparked—anger, or maybe disbelief.
“That’s not possible,” she said quietly.
She stood perfectly still in the center of the room, her fingers twitching slightly at her sides, as if trying to decide whether to light another cigarette or shatter something expensive. Carol watched her with something like amusement, though it was expertly veiled behind a tilt of her head and the faintest rise of a well-groomed brow. “Oh, it’s very possible,” she said smoothly. “He arrived late last night. I heard it from your father this morning. Apparently, it was unannounced.”
She let the word hang like smoke in the room. Unannounced.
Elara’s lips parted, but nothing came out. For a girl who had always been three steps ahead of everyone, the sudden blind spot seemed to rattle her. I could see the flicker of questions sparking behind her eyes—Why didn’t he tell me? Why now? Why is it like this?
Then, just as quickly, the mask came back on. She inhaled sharply through her nose, and lifted her chin, like she could output the uncertainty clawing through her.
“Well,” she said with brittle calm, “I suppose I should be flattered he still remembers we exist.”
Carol offered a tight smile. “You should be ready. The entire Draven family will be present. His grandfather, his mother, father too. So please, Elara, do try not to be… dramatic.”
The insult was sugar-dusted, but it landed like a slap.
Elara didn’t respond. She just walked to her vanity, and her hands were steady as she reached for her brush.
I stood there frozen, unsure whether to breathe or blink or speak.
Carol turned, already halfway out the door. “Seven sharp,” she said, pausing only long enough to add, “And wear something that says future Mrs. Draven, not starlet in decline.”
The door shut with a whisper, but the words echoed louder than any slam.
Elara turned sharply from the mirror, eyes snapping at me like a crack of thunder. Her robe swirled around her calves as she moved—quick, agitated, electric.
“Why are you still standing there?” she snapped. “Did I stutter, Sera?”
I stiffened. She didn’t wait for an answer.
“Auren is coming tonight. Do you have any idea what that means? Everything has to be flawless—I mean immaculate.” She ran a hand through her hair, already tearing through its perfect waves. “God, why didn’t anyone tell me sooner? I should’ve known—of course he’d show up unannounced. That’s so him. Dramatic entrances and zero courtesy.”
She was spiraling. Her voice was climbing with every breath, climbing toward the edge of something only she could see.
“I need a dress that screams effortless dominance,” she muttered, pacing across the room like a lioness trapped in a glass cage. “Something couture. Something cruel. No sequins—sequins are for insecure socialites. I want silk. Backless. Maybe gold. No, no—red. He always liked the red.”
She whirled on me, eyes flaring.
“Go to DuVall’s. Gold Coast,” Elara said, her voice already pitched with panic, halfway through rummaging in her vanity drawers. “Ask Marina... She knows tell her I want Red Reign. From The Severance Line. It better be there or I will personally burn that place down.”
She moved like a woman possessed, tearing through drawers, yanking open closets, tossing scarves and lingerie like debris in a storm.
“Not the mauve. Not the lamé,” she snapped to no one in particular, but her gaze caught mine for a split second. “The red one, Sera. That stop-breathing, artery-slit, blood-on-snow red. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Elara,” I said quickly.
She whirled around. “And try it on first. If it looks good on you, it’ll look divine on me. I need your pathetic little body to confirm it’s tight in all the right places.”
“Got it!”
“And don’t even think about bringing me back anything satin,” she cut in. “If I sweat, it stains, and if I stain, I murder. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I murmured, already backing toward the door.
She lit another cigarette with trembling hands, exhaled smoke into the chaotic, and kept pacing like a general before war. I hesitated, watching her sift through her jewelry drawer, flinging diamonds like they were worthless. “Do you need anything else—?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “I need a miracle. I need a facial. I need the pores of a newborn child. I need abs I don’t have and lashes that look like a butterfly sneezed on my face. And I need to look like I didn’t spend the last thirdteen years being ignored by the one man who promised me forever.”
She turned toward me slowly “I need to walk into that dining room tonight and make him ache. I want Auren Draven to see me and forget London, forget the boardroom, forget his goddamn last name. I want him to choke on how much he still wants me.”
“Yes, Elara,” I murmured,
She spun away again, muttering as she opened another jewelry case, lifting velvet trays like they were surgical tools.
“I need fresh flowers in the entryway. Not lilies—he hates the smell. Peonies. No, hydrangeas. And fix the bulbs in the east wing hallway—they flicker. I swear, this whole house is trying to sabotage me.” She laughed, but it was brittle, humorless.
“The dining room needs to be re-plated. Get the ivory set with the silver rim. And candles—eucalyptus and fig. Subtle, expensive. And make sure the wine is decanted an hour before, not thirty minutes like last time. If he smells tannins again, I’ll scream.”
“I need a blowout. Book Kira. No one else. And have the tailor on standby—I’m not squeezing into anything for Auren Draven. He can squeeze into me.”
I almost choked, but said nothing.
She paused at the vanity again, pressing two fingers against her temple. “God, I’m sweating. Why am I sweating? He hasn’t seen me in years. What if he—what if he’s changed? What if I’m just... not enough anymore?”
Then, just as quickly, she caught herself and lifted her chin.
No one ever saw Elara Veyra vulnerable for long. Not even herself.
She turned to me again, a new sharpness in her eyes.
“You’re still here,” she said flatly. “Move. Now, and go in the car with Kevin, it will be fast. If you’re not back in an hour, don’t come back at all.”
I turned to leave.
“Oh, and Sera?”
I froze.
“If anyone asks where I am today... I don’t exist. Not until I look like the future Mrs. Draven.”
I didn’t waste time.