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The next morning, I woke to shouting.

I glanced out the window and startled: directly below the apartment was a cemetery. Gray and still, row upon row.

I scrambled out of bed and ran to the door.

"Julian, you ungrateful—" Elaine Harrington's voice, furious. "You tore down the Harrington Group. What is wrong with you?"

Julian's laugh was flat. "You already know why. And don't pretend you didn't see this coming — you know everything I found out."

"Don't bring that up. You'll always owe this family. If it weren't for you, Ivy would never have—"

Julian's expression shifted. Then he saw me step out.

He crossed the room in long strides.

Elaine turned.

She'd aged. The sharpness around her eyes had grown cruel; the old polish was gone. She looked worn, hollowed out. When her gaze landed on me, she let out a sound that wasn't quite a scream.

"Ivy — Julian, is she—?"

Her lips trembled. A single tear slipped down.

It brought back a memory I'd buried: the day she came to the orphanage. So many pretty girls to choose from. She walked past all of them, stopped in front of me, and looked me over like I was a transaction she hadn't quite decided to make.

"Change her name," she said to the staff, without lowering herself to speak to me directly. "Call her Ivy."

As if she didn't like me, but had no choice.

I pressed myself behind Julian.

He raised an eyebrow. "Just someone I hired to look like her. Surgery. Nothing to lose your mind over."

Elaine grabbed her purse and threw it at him. "You're insane. You're sick."