---- Chapter 6 Alyssa POV: "How do you know that name?" | whispered, my knuckles white as | gripped the phone. The name felt foreign on my own tongue. Alyssa Dyer. A girl from another lifetime. "Are you kidding me, Lyssa?" Mark' s voice was incredulous. "Your brother has had half the private security firms on the East Coast on a low-key retainer to watch for your name popping up on any grid for the last seven years. You finally surface, asking me to run a check on a ghost, and you ask how | know? The real question is, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?" Alexis. Of course. My protective older brother, the consummate political strategist, would never truly let me go off-grid. He had been watching over me from afar, respecting my wish for distance but never fully abandoning me. A wave of guilt and gratitude washed over me. "He' s not a ghost, Mark. He' s real. He' s my... he' s the father of my son." The words were acid in my mouth. There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line. "Give me his picture," Mark said finally, his voice dangerously low. "Send me a photo. Now." ---- | scrolled through my phone, my hands shaking. Every photo was a testament to the lie. Us smiling at a pumpkin patch. Him holding Joshua on his shoulders. A happy, loving family. | found a clear shot of his face from this past summer and sent it. The wait was agonizing. Each second stretched into an eternity. | could hear the faint sound of typing on Mark' s end. Then, he swore. A single, vicious curse. "Alyssa," he said, his voice strained. "That' s not Brad Smith. That' s Bradford Yates. Of the Boston Yates family. His father is a senator. His grandfather practically owned the shipping industry. The man isn' t just rich; he' s a goddamn dynasty." Bradford Yates. | sank back against the wall, the phone slipping from my grasp. It clattered to the floor. The name echoed in the vast, empty space of my mind. Bradford Yates. A name that dripped with old money and untouchable power. A name | had read in society pages years ago, before | had shed my own privileged skin. This wasn' t just a test. This was a game for the bored, ultra- wealthy. | was their entertainment. A little social experiment to see how the other half lives. My poverty, my struggle, my desperation-it was all a source of fascination for them. Jaime. My mind snagged on her name. She must have known. ---- She had to have known from the beginning. Her ambition, her obsession with status and wealth-it all made sense now. She wasn't my friend. She was a social climber who had found her golden ticket in my boyfriend, and she was willing to help him destroy me to get a piece of the prize. My love. My son. My friendship. My name. My job. My home. All of it was fake. A carefully constructed stage for their amusement. The only real thing was the lie. My phone buzzed on the floor, lighting up with a new message. It was a full dossier from Mark. A PDF file filled with Bradford Yates' s entire life story. His education at Harvard, his position as a VP in his family' s global logistics firm, his photo at charity galas with supermodels on his arm And there, in a photo from a polo match last year, was Jaime. She was standing next to him, her hand possessively on his arm, laughing up at him with an adoring expression. The caption identified her as Jaime Briggs, a rising star in the Yates Corporation' s marketing department. She didn't just know him. She worked for him. A wave of nausea washed over me. | felt dirty, contaminated by the sheer scale of their deception. My phone buzzed again. It was Alexis. ---- "| booked you a ticket. First flight out of Boston to D.C. tomorrow at 6 a.m. A car will be waiting for you. Just tell me where. | stared at the message. D.C. Home. A place | hadn't seen in seven years. A life | had run from, thinking | was choosing love over privilege. What a bitter irony. | had run from one gilded cage straight into another, far crueler one. | took a deep breath, the cold, sterile air of the hospital seeming to solidify the ice forming in my veins. The grief was still there, a massive, gaping wound. But the rage was crystallizing into something hard and sharp. Something that felt like purpose. They wanted to see if Alyssa Dyer was worthy of being a Yates. They were about to find out what happens when you awaken a Dalton. | typed a reply to my brother, my fingers steady now. "Send the car to 125 Willow Creek Lane. | have to pack." Then | picked up my phone, my thumb hovering over Brad' s contact information. No. Bradford' s. It was time to stop playing by their rules.