Chapter 34 34
“Smiling with that smug little mouth,” Venice added bitterly. “She smirked at me like I was some... street rat!”
There was a long pause. Then Norma’s voice dropped to a low, icy register.
“We need to end this.”
Elias raised an eyebrow. “You want me to—what—try again? She's surrounded by security. She’s untouchable now.”
“No,” Norma snapped. “She’s human. And humans have weaknesses. Pride. Curiosity. Regret.”
She leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “What if we send someone else? Someone who’s... sorry. A sob story. A bridge builder. We get her trust. And then we pull the rug.”
Venice blinked. “Me?”
“No. She hates you now,” Norma said dryly. “She’ll know it’s a trick.”
MJ looked up slowly. “What about Ivy?”
Everyone turned.
Ivy froze with a can of peas halfway to her mouth. “What? Why me? I made her lose her job, duh!”
“She’s the only one who wasn’t directly cruel to her,” Elias said thoughtfully. “And she’s pretty enough to cry without ruining her makeup.”
Ivy snorted. “I called her a cockroach in grade eleven.”
“Well then apologize,” Norma hissed. “You want to keep eating canned beef for the rest of your life?”
Ivy grumbled something unintelligible, but she didn’t say no.
Norma smiled, a tight, cold grin. “We’ll fix this. We’ll act humble. Say we’re sorry. Get her to invite us back in.”
“And then?” Venice asked.
Elias’s face darkened. “Then we remind her where she came from.”
The McLaren house, now dim, cold, and lined with moldy corners, seemed to pulse with something dark that night. Not remorse. Not fear. But desperation.
They didn’t realize that Krystal wasn’t just unreachable.
She was untouchable.
And every step closer to her only brought them closer to the fire.
✦ IVY’S ATTEMPT TO REACH KRYSTAL ✦
(Regret never looked this expensive—and humiliating.)
Ivy McLaren wasn’t used to walking. She wasn’t used to rejection either. Or budgeting. Or hunger. Or reality.
But there she was, trudging through the dripping city streets in a secondhand coat she swore was vintage Chanel (it wasn’t), clutching her cracked iPhone 7 like it was her last lifeline. Her heels—once red-bottomed fake Louboutins—had been resoled with cheap rubber at a stall behind a fish market. They squeaked with every wet step.
Her fake lashes were holding on for dear life. Mascara: smudged. Pride? Peeling, like the polish on her chipped acrylics.
“Just let me talk to her,” Ivy had whispered into Illana’s voicemail a dozen times already. “I need to explain. I was young. Stupid. I didn’t know what I was doing…”
She hadn’t spoken to Krystal for months after she messed up her job—and not since the party where she’d drunkenly called her a “charity case with a Barbie complex.” Not since Krystal had disappeared and Ivy had pretended not to care. Now, it haunted her like a curse.
The nail in her emotional coffin? That Rolls-Royce. The one Krystal casually stepped out of the other week, chin tilted like a Vogue cover, looking like karma dipped in cash.
Ivy had screamed her name that day. “KRYSTAL!” But Krystal didn’t look back.
The car's tail lights were like devil eyes in the rain.
Now, Ivy stood outside the exclusive salon where Krystal had last been spotted. Blanc Noir. It wasn’t a salon—it was a kingdom. Crystal chandeliers. Velvet chairs. A perfume mist that probably cost more than Ivy’s entire bank balance.
She walked in with forced confidence, nodding at the receptionist like they were old friends.
“I'm here to see Krystal McLaren,” she said, trying to smile.
The woman didn’t even blink. “And you are?”
“Ivy,” she said, “her sister.”
The woman tilted her head. “I'm sorry. Miss Hunter didn’t mention expecting guests today.”
Ivy’s lips twitched. “Just tell her Ivy’s here. She’ll understand.”
A few clicks on the keyboard. Then a glance. Then the devastating, surgical cut of rejection.
“She said no.”
No. Two letters. Infinite impact.
Before Ivy could respond, the glass doors behind her hissed open.
Krystal strolled in.
Umbrella held by a suited man, custom white trench coat barely dampened by the rain. Oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses covered half her face, and her hair—raven black and twisted into a flawless bun—looked like it was styled by angels.
Their eyes met.
And Krystal smiled.
Not warmly. Not cruelly. But like a queen nodding to a jester. A small, smug tug at the corner of her lips.
“Oh,” Krystal said, pausing long enough for effect, “I thought you were someone important.”
Then she walked past her, spritzed with citrus-lavender royalty, without a single other word.
Ivy stood frozen, humiliated. Behind her, she could hear faint giggles from salon patrons. One whispered, “Wasn’t that the broke sister?”
The doors slid closed again, leaving Ivy drenched in more than rain.
That night, Ivy returned to the apartment. The smell of sardines and burnt toast greeted her.
Venice was curled up on the couch with greasy hair and a cracked phone screen. MJ was shouting at someone on a scam call. Elias was muttering over legal papers, and Norma was crying because her "lucky plate" shattered in the sink.
No one looked up when Ivy entered.
She marched straight to the bathroom. Looked in the mirror. And cried.
She wanted to hate Krystal. But all she could hate was herself.
“You were the cruel one,” she whispered to the glass. “She just learned how to survive.”
Still, her phone buzzed.
A message. From an unknown number.
> ‘Next time, bring an appointment. Not entitlement. – K’
Ivy clutched the phone to her chest, smiling through her tears.
There was still hope.
Maybe.
Maybe.
But first, she’d have to earn it. The hard way. Then she will make her beg for life. “Bitch!” She mumbled to herself.