Chapter 38: The girl in the mirror.
The door to her old apartment was stuck in its frame. It groaned like it didn’t want to be opened. Sherry stood in the hallway longer than necessary, fingers hovering on the handle. The place had been abandoned for months, untouched since she’d moved into Enzo’s penthouse, that sleek, sterile empire where nothing was ever out of place. But this place… this was hers.
It smelled like dust and memory.
She stepped inside.
Silence.
Broken only by the dull creak of the hardwood beneath her heels.
The furniture was draped in sheets, her old-fashioned sketches yellowing under a forgotten lamp. Her favorite throw pillow, the one with the torn corner she never fixed, still sat at an angle like she’d left it only yesterday.
And then she saw the mirror.
The full-length one beside her closet cracked slightly in the corner.
It was clean.
Too clean.
On the glass, scrawled in crimson lipstick, were six chilling words:
“You became what you swore you’d destroy.”
Her reflection looked back at her, wide-eyed, pale, lips parted in disbelief. But behind her eyes, something flickered. Something she didn’t recognize.
Or maybe hadn’t wanted to recognize.
A girl who no longer knew the line between villain and victim.
The envelope was under the floorboard.
She found it by instinct, knees hitting the floor, fingers scraping through dust and grief, until the board lifted with a groan and revealed a bundle of sealed letters.
Her father’s handwriting.
Old. Familiar. Haunting.
Her heart raced as she opened the first one. The paper was thin. Fragile. Ink smudged from age and maybe guilt.
“If you’re reading this, you’ve seen the truth. I never wanted you to carry this. But it was always going to be you.”
“They’ll tell you I betrayed the Blackwoods. That I sold secrets. Maybe I did. But what they won’t tell you is why.”
“Enzo’s father was building something darker than a dynasty. He was recruiting monsters. Victoria was the first. She would’ve burned the world for power. Still will.”
“I tried to stop them. But it was too late. And you… You were already marked.”
Sherry’s fingers trembled as she flipped through the rest.
Blueprints. Shell companies. A family tree with two branches from her father’s name, one hers.
The other unnamed.
A second daughter?
Her blood went cold.
She pulled the mirror closer.
Looked into her own eyes again.
And whispered, “Who the hell am I?”
Enzo showed up two hours later.
No warning. No call. Just silence… until he wasn’t silent anymore.
He walked through her front door like he owned the air, like he'd never left.
And then he stopped.
She was on the floor, surrounded by a mess of old letters, yellowed paper, and paint she hadn’t finished unpacking. Her legs were folded beneath her, hair a mess, eyes red, and breathing shaky.
Ghosts clung to the room like smoke.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he said.
“But you did,” she replied, without looking up.
Their eyes met anyway.
It was like no time had passed. And also, like, too much time had passed for them to still fit in the same room.
He took one slow step closer. “You disappeared.”
“I had to find the truth.”
“And?”
Sherry rose, the letters still clutched in her hands. They trembled, just a little. “My father was trying to protect me. Not from you. From them.”
Enzo’s jaw tightened. “Same difference now.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You don’t mean that.”
He finally looked at her. Really looked. Not the surface, but the wreckage underneath.
“You think I don’t want to believe you?” he said. “You think I don’t want to burn everything down just to get back to what we were?”
“Then do it,” she snapped. “Strip it. Break it. Take whatever you want from me. But don’t lie to me. Don’t stand there and pretend you’re not still mine.”
The room held its breath.
His eyes darkened, his chest rising and falling faster now.
“You want truth?” he rasped.
Before she could answer, he crossed the space in two strides and shoved her against the mirror. The glass shook behind her. His hand tangled in her hair, pulling just enough to make her gasp.
His body pressed into hers, wounded, wild, and undone.
“You broke into your past and found pieces I don’t know how to hold,” he whispered, his voice rough against her skin. “But I’m not afraid of your blood.”
Her breath caught. “Then what are you afraid of?”
He hesitated, then gave her the one thing he never gave anyone.
“The truth? That I will trust you… And you’ll walk. That I’ll choose you over vengeance, and you will make me regret it.”
She stared at him, something breaking and blooming inside her all at once.
Then, slowly, she took his hand and guided it under her shirt.
“No more pretending,” she whispered.
And his mouth crashed into hers like it was the last thing keeping him alive.
They didn’t make it to the bed.
They didn’t need it.
The wall, the mirror, and the floor, they used all of them.
He lifted her with a growl, pressing inside her so hard and deep she forgot what betrayal tasted like.
He didn’t just take her.
He claimed her.
Every thrust was desperate, like he was trying to erase the space between who she’d been and who he needed her to be.
And she let him.
Because, for once, they weren’t fighting.
They were bleeding together.
After, they lay tangled on the floor.
Sweat. Bruises. Truth.
Enzo traced his thumb over her hip bone. “There was another daughter.”
Sherry’s heart stopped.
“I saw the family tree,” he continued. “The documents you left out. You weren’t an only child.”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“I did.”
She froze.
“What?”
He swallowed. “Victoria. She was adopted by your father. Quietly. To keep her out of the press. She was meant to inherit the shares he couldn't legally give you. In case he was compromised.”
Her stomach turned. “She’s my…”
“Half-sister.”
Silence.
A deep, soul-rupturing silence.
Sherry sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want you to carry that. She’s not your family. Not in any way that matters.”
“She’s blood.”
“She’s a virus.”
“But she’s in me now.”
Enzo sat up too. “No. You are you. You’re the woman I would die for. The woman I almost died for.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“I need to end this,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I need to face her. Alone.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll kill you.”
“Then let her try.”
Later that night, Enzo received a voicemail.
Crackling. Distorted. Sherry’s voice:
“I found her. She knows everything… but she’s not alone.”
A pause.
Then a man's voice in the background, smooth, accented, unfamiliar.
“Put the phone down, sweetheart. It's time you learned who made you.”
The line went dead.
And Enzo’s hands trembled with rage.