The day I was discharged, they all showed up: my adoptive parents and Desmond.

Vienna Cruz stood outside the hospital entrance, draped in a white bridal gown, clutching a bouquet of red roses. She looked like a fever dream of desperation.

She thrust the roses forward. "Desmond, I know you’re busy. That’s why I’m asking you. Marry me."

Desmond didn’t even blink. He gripped my arm and pulled me behind him, shielding me like a piece of property. "Vienna, I’m not marrying you."

"Why not?" Her voice cracked, fingers digging into his sleeve. "We were doing just fine. I’m pregnant with your child, Desmond!"

He swiped the roses from her hands with a single, brutal motion. They hit the pavement, scattering petals like confetti in the biting winter wind.

"I paid you for a service, not for a romance," Desmond spat, his voice cold enough to freeze blood. "And as for the baby, you and I both know whose it actually is."

The color drained from Vienna’s face, leaving her ghost-white.

She whipped her head toward me, eyes bulging with pure, unadulterated venom. She shrieked, "Serenity Knight! Are you really going to cling to him that hard? Do you even know how your parents died? The Knights killed them! My uncle was at the firm when it happened!"

She spilled it then—the truth buried under years of "generosity."

The business merger hadn't been a partnership. It was a loaded game, a rigged deck. The Knight family had kept their own hands clean, ensuring they had an escape route while my father took the fall. Every legal document that mattered had only his signature.

When the roof collapsed, he was the one left under the rubble.

The lawsuits, the media witch hunts, the friends who turned their backs like it was a contact sport—it drowned him. My mother, unable to carry the weight of the ruin, followed him into the grave.

And the Knights? They took me in, playing the saintly guardians to satisfy their own twisted conscience.

Desmond stood paralyzed, his face the color of parchment. He looked at his parents, his eyes wide with a fragile, dawning horror.

His mother lunged for my hand, her voice trembling. "Serenity, listen to me—"

Vienna let out a sharp, jagged laugh of triumph.

I looked at her, truly looked at her. "You’re pathetic, Vienna. You have to claw at someone else’s scars just to prove you’re worth loving. But love isn't something you can extort. You still don’t get it, do you?"

My legs felt like lead, but I forced myself to walk.

Desmond followed, his footsteps echoing right behind me.

Behind us, Vienna collapsed into a raw, ugly sob, the sound slicing through the busy city street. Passersby stared, curiosity flashing in their eyes like vultures, but she was too far gone to notice.

Life is just one long chain of screw-ups and things we can't control. We think we’re the ones holding the pen, but we’re just reading lines written for us years ago.

In this play—this miserable drama of greed and possession—there are no winners.

I didn’t want to stay for another second. Everything in Southside was still in chaos, but I was done waiting. I’d be heading out early to start my life in the ruins of the old one.