Chapter 36 Open Secret
Serena
I pushed down the humiliation burning in my chest and got to work.
I opened the camera like a good little puppet, my thumb hovering over the record icon for a second before I changed my mind and scrolled straight to the ugly filters and started exploring every single one.
The horse head, the big cartoon mouth, the long, compressed alien face. I switched to the one where poop was raining from the sky.
I used it the most, little brown mounds of poop dropping endlessly. Oh, this was fun. I could do this all day!
The first video was Lara mid-laugh, looking like a smug queen while literal shit rained on her head.
I tried not to laugh, I really tried, but it burst out of me after suppressing it for minutes.
A guy crashed into the frame. He was tall and wearing an entitled smirk, blocking my shot.
“Record me,” he demanded.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I hissed, rolling my eyes so hard I nearly saw my own brain.
He crowded closer, his chest almost bumping mine, cutting off the room behind him.
“I want three minutes alone.”
“What are you? Elon Musk?” I shot back.
“You have a smart mouth for a dumb bitch.” His voice took on a hostile tone. “Start recording. Now.”
“Get out of my way.”
I was starting to suspect this wasn’t random. Lara was watching from across the room, wearing a look that could only be described as ‘interested.’
Was this a setup?
“You were given an order,” he said, leaning in, “and you’re not following it.”
A few people dancing nearby slowed, watching the drama unfold.
The music felt suddenly too loud and too quiet at the same time.
“I don’t take orders from anyone,” I said, putting the phone down by my side.
Lara finally stepped in, like she’d been waiting for her cue.
“Wanna prove it?” Lara asked, pretending to smooth an invisible crease in her dress like she had all the time in the world.
I lifted the phone higher subtly so the poop filter kept raining little brown emojis down on her perfect hair, her flawless makeup, and her smug little smile.
“What more do you want from me?” I asked, my voice small and soft on purpose, hoping she’d buy the act. “I’m doing what you asked. Isn’t that enough?”
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing like she could smell weakness.
“No,” she said sweetly. “Nothing you do will ever be enough until you drop dead.”
Oh. So that’s how it was. She didn’t just hate me, she despised me to the bone, to the point of wanting me gone forever.
I let my gaze drop to her phone still in my hand. Quietly and without breaking eye contact, I connected the snaps to her Instagram and TikTok feed.
The notifications popped up almost instantly:
‘Your uploads were successful.’
I exited the camera app. I held the phone out to her.
“Since that’s the case,” I said calmly, “I’m of no help to you, then.”
She reached for it with the speed of a snail. The phone slipped from her manicured fingers.
It hit the marble floor face-down with a sharp, satisfying crack.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, dropping to her knees like a woman who’d just watched her firstborn die. “You threw my phone!”
“No, I didn’t.” I shrugged. “You wasted too much time taking it from me.”
Her face twisted with anger. She shoved me hard in the chest.
I staggered back two steps before catching myself.
“You did it on purpose,” she hissed. “I’ll beat the shit out of you right now.”
She lifted her hand and I braced myself, squeezing my eyes shut, waiting for the slap that never came.
When I opened them, Sin was standing in front of me.
His large hand had caught her wrist mid-air and mid-swing, his fingers wrapped around her wrist like steel.
“How dare you?” He growled at her.
The whole room went quiet. Lara gave a nervous, breathy laugh, trying to play it off.
“I’m trying to discipline her!” she said, her voice pitching higher. “We shouldn’t let her behave mannerlessly and walk away scot-free.”
Sin didn’t let go. He twisted her wrist just enough to make her gasp.
“Discipline?” he repeated, the darkness in his eyes coming alive. “You don’t touch her. You don’t speak to her. You don’t even look at her unless I say so.”
The room had gone completely still. Even the DJ stopped playing the music entirely.
She tried to yank free, but he didn’t let her.
Instead he pulled her closer and twisted her hand. She winced, pain flashing across her face.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Lara,” Sin said quietly. “Don’t tempt me.”
“We made a deal,” she hissed through her teeth, glowering at him. “And you’re breaking it.”
“I don’t care about the deal anymore.” Sin’s voice left no room for doubt. He'd probably agreed to play her game because he thought she would play nice. There was nothing nice about Lara. She was a manipulative bitch.
He released her wrist in one smooth motion.
She ducked fast to snatch her cracked phone from the floor, cradling it like a wounded animal.
“It’s over between us!” she announced loudly,
projecting to the room like she was on stage.
“We were over a long time ago.” Sin's laughter was full of dry humour.
“Watch me ruin your lives.” Saliva flew from her mouth as she said those words.
I knew what she was doing the second the familiar audio started leaking from her speaker. It was faint, but unmistakable.
It was Sin’s voice from the last family meeting they'd had.
Lara lifted her head from the screen exactly twenty seconds later.
Phones started chiming, pinging and buzzing at the same time.
Notifications were rolling in across the room like a wave. She did it. She wasn't bluffing.
She raised her voice to address the entire room.
“Everyone, let me present to you… Sinclair Rivers. The dark heir of the Rivers family.”
Someone else laughed nervously, calling her a wannabe prankster who just wanted to trend overnight.
But a few people actually pulled out their phones to check the notifications, and when the audio started leaking from their loudspeakers, those who didn't believe it changed their minds.
“He killed two girls! Two innocent girls!”
“I can't believe we've been deceived so easily! There's another twin?”
“I see the difference now. He's broodier than his brother, and scarier. If he wasn't a murderer I bet he'd be America’s hottest guy.”
Sin still hadn’t looked at me, despite the comments the partiers were throwing at him.
He seemed to thrive in the chaos, as if all of it was child's play to him.
Lara stepped closer to him, her eyes searching his face for any sign of reaction.
Sin's face was blank despite the fact that she was stretching on her toes to look at him.
“You thought you could just discard me?” she asked, poking his chest . “I warned you. I tried to play fair, Sin. The world knows now. They know what you are. What you’ve done. And they know exactly who you’re obsessed with.”
Just like that, the Rivers' secret, buried for years, was now out in the open.