Scattered Dreams, Billionaire Promises.

"Sometimes, the loudest silence is the one that never leaves you."

---

The rain came down in slanted, angry sheets, battering the towering windows of the Maxwell estate as though the sky itself had been betrayed. The house-once proud and warm, now echoing with cold tension-stood like a fortress under siege. Thunder boomed overhead, not like a distant growl but like the fury of the gods themselves crashing through the clouds. Lightning lacerated the sky in jagged bursts, each one illuminating the tall hedges and the glistening driveway beyond the wrought iron gates. Even the grand chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings swayed faintly, as though trembling under the weight of what was to come.

Eight-year-old Kira Maxwell sat curled on a velvet chaise in her room, high up in the east wing. Her small frame was swallowed by the ornate upholstery, her pale blue nightgown sticking slightly to her legs with tear-soaked fabric. She had cried without realizing it. The tears had come silently, steadily, like the rain, like the creeping dread she couldn't shake. A sketchpad lay open on her knees. The pencil she held had stilled mid-stroke. The wings of the robin she'd been drawing remained unfinished.

Kira had always drawn birds-sparrows, robins, owls, doves. Creatures that soared. Creatures that didn't know about secrets or screaming or falling. Tonight, the wings she drew looked wrong. Too heavy to fly.

She hadn't meant to stay up. But sleep had become a stranger lately. It was no longer safe to drift into dreams. Not when everything around her felt like it could crack open at any moment. The house, the walls, her parents.

Especially her parents.

Downstairs, voices floated up. Muffled but unmistakable. It wasn't the tone of bedtime conversations or the soft bickering over who had misplaced the car keys. No-this was sharper, crueler. The kind of yelling that made the air feel thinner. Kira had heard them fight before. But never like this.

Her mother's voice-normally warm and rich like honeyed tea-was jagged and rising in pitch. Maria Maxwell was a woman of elegance, with perfect posture, luminous eyes, and a voice that could soothe any wound. But tonight, her voice cracked under pressure.

Her father, John Maxwell-who had always been larger than life to Kira, with his crisp suits, strong jawline, and magnetic charm-sounded less like a man and more like a fraying rope.

Kira couldn't make out every word, but she caught enough to feel something break deep inside her.

"You said we had more time-"

"I thought we did!"

"You lied, John!"

"I did it for us-"

"You did it for yourself!"

"And now-now it's all gone!"

Gone? Kira blinked.

A tremor passed through her. She didn't know what they meant. But she knew what it felt like when grown-ups said "gone." It meant something had been taken. Something that couldn't come back.

The pencil slid from her hand. The robin she'd been sketching stared back at her with unfinished wings and empty eyes.

Just then, the softest creak echoed behind her.

She turned.

Standing in the doorway was her little brother, Liam. Six years old. His tiny form silhouetted against the hallway light. His footie pajamas were decorated with stars, though most of the pattern had faded from countless washes. In one hand, he clutched his teddy bear, stuffing leaking from one ear. His curls, normally bouncing and wild, were damp and flattened to his forehead.

"Kira?" he whispered.

She patted the chaise beside her without question. "Come here."

He clambered up beside her, small arms wrapping around her waist as he buried his face into her side.

"They're fighting again."

"I know," she said quietly.

"Is it bad?"

She hesitated. "It's just... a storm."

Liam knew she wasn't just talking about the rain. But he nodded anyway.

The thunder clapped again-louder, this time-and Liam flinched.

Kira pulled him closer, brushing a hand over his curls.

He had no idea.

None of them did.

Except maybe her.

She felt it. In the way the air had turned heavy. In the way her mother had stopped singing in the kitchen. In how her father had been taking more calls behind closed doors, whispering names she didn't recognize-"Hallifax," "O'Connor," "the board." In how his laughter had become a mask, strained and artificial.

Then-

A scream.

It wasn't sharp like anger. It was low and ragged, the sound of something inside tearing open.

Kira and Liam both jumped.

Kira stood so quickly the sketchpad tumbled to the floor. She reached for Liam's hand. "Stay here," she said.

But he held on tighter. "No. Don't leave me."

So they went together.

The corridor stretched before them like a tunnel. Their steps were muffled by the thick Persian carpet, but the silence between echoes was louder than thunder. Paintings of their ancestors stared down from the walls, their eyes too knowing, too quiet.

When they reached the staircase, Kira halted.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Maria Maxwell was on her knees.

Below her, sprawled on the marble floor, was John Maxwell.

Blood pooled beneath his temple like a dark halo. His limbs lay at odd angles. One arm flung outward, the other curled beneath his torso. His eyes were open, staring at the chandelier above.

He wasn't moving.

He wasn't breathing.

He wasn't-

"Mama?" Kira whispered.

Maria let out another scream-a raw, guttural sob. "John! JOHN!"

She shook him, cradling his lifeless head in her lap. Her silk robe, once the color of ivory, was now streaked with red. Her hair fell in wet strands around her face, and her voice... her voice didn't sound like hers anymore. It was broken. Shattered.

Liam wailed beside Kira.

And Kira?

She didn't move. Didn't blink. The sight of her father lying so still burned into her memory like fire into paper.

---

The rest came in flashes.

Red and blue lights flashing against wet windows. Uniformed men with radios. Boots echoing on marble. A tall man gently ushering them upstairs. A zipped black bag. Maria collapsing.

Then the funeral.

So many black cars. So many sad eyes. A closed casket. People Kira had never met saying how wonderful her father had been. Some cried. Some whispered.

But no one explained why.

Kira held Liam's hand. Her little sister, Nia-just three-fidgeted in Maria's lap. Maria, dressed in all black, stared blankly ahead, her makeup barely hiding the darkness under her eyes.

No one spoke to the children. No one asked what they remembered.

A photo of her father sat next to the coffin. He was laughing, wind in his hair, standing at the bow of a yacht. A man who seemed immortal.

But he wasn't.

After the service, colder men came. Not with tears, but with files.

"Bankruptcy."

"Fraud investigations."

"No liquidity."

"Nothing secured for the family."

"Everything defaulted."

The words rolled past Kira like waves crashing, too fast and too loud.

That night, she heard her mother sobbing in the bathroom. Not the sob of grief.

The sob of a woman unraveling.

---

One week later, it came.

Not with a storm.

But with a phone call.

Kira was helping fold laundry on the narrow bed in their shared room. Nia was giggling on the floor with her doll. Liam was trying to read, but he wasn't.

Then the phone rang.

Maria answered in the hallway.

When she returned, Kira knew something had changed.

Her mother's face was blank. Not shocked. Just... void. Like someone had taken a wet cloth and wiped away all expression.

"They're gone," she whispered.

Kira blinked. "Who?"

Maria didn't answer.

"Everything," she said, sitting slowly. "The accounts. The trust. The backups. It's all gone."

GONE.

"But I thought..." Kira's voice trembled. "You said we'd be okay."

"I thought we would."

Maria's hands shook. Her gaze drifted. "He lied to me," she said to no one. "I begged him. I knew something was wrong. He promised me everything would be okay."

She wept.

Kira didn't. She stood very still.

Because something inside her had just... changed.

---

The house was next.

It didn't happen all at once. First the art. Then the cars. Then the piano. Men came with polite smiles and strong arms. Maria signed everything.

Then the house keys were turned in.

They moved into a small apartment in a part of the city Kira had only seen through tinted car windows. Graffiti covered walls. The elevator worked once every three days. Sirens howled at night.

Their unit was two bedrooms. But they all slept in one.

Kira took the floor.

---

Maria stopped brushing her hair. She wore the same clothes for days. She started staring. Sometimes for hours.

Doctors said depression. Grief-induced.

But therapy cost money.

So Kira took over.

She boiled water. She learned how to stretch every can. She figured out where to buy rice cheaper. She patched Liam's torn clothes. She braided Nia's hair in the mornings. She wiped her mother's tears when she cried into her pillow.

She stopped sketching.

The robin in her pad remained unfinished.

One night, she found Maria sitting in the dark kitchen, staring into nothing.

"Mama?"

No response.

Kira poured water and sat beside her.

Maria finally turned. "He promised to protect us. But he didn't. He left us with nothing."

Kira swallowed the lump in her throat.

Then she reached over and covered her mother's hand with hers.

"I'll take care of us now."

Maria looked at her.

Something in her softened. "You're strong, Kira. Stronger than I ever was."

Kira wanted to say no. That she missed their old life. That she didn't want to be strong. That she was just a little girl.

But she didn't say any of it.

She just nodded.

---

And from that moment on, the girl who danced barefoot across polished marble... was gone.

In her place stood a quiet child.

One who no longer waited to be rescued.

One who knew-this world would never protect her.

So she would protect them.

All of them.

No matter what.

Even if it meant sacrificing her dreams.

Even if it meant becoming a grown-up far too soon.

Even if it meant never flying like the birds she used to draw.

Because

now-Kira Maxwell had learned the truth:

That even the strongest can fall.

That love doesn't always win.

And that life can change...

In a single, silent, storm-scarred night.