Chapter 3

AURORA BRUCE POV:

Kassandra's face, usually so perfectly composed, contorted with a mix of disbelief and escalating fury. "Tyler? What in God's name are you talking about?" she spat, her voice no longer sugary, but laced with venom. "You're Bruce! Aurora Bruce! A glorified assistant!"

"My mother chose her maiden name for me, to keep me safe, to keep me out of this circus," I replied, my voice steady, betraying none of the tremor in my hands. "A mistake, it seems. Perhaps if I had worn this pin seven years ago, Josh would have seen more than just a 'useful workhorse.'"

My words struck a nerve. Kassandra's face flushed crimson. "How dare you! You think a fancy pin changes anything? You're still just... her! The pathetic little shadow he kept hidden!" She turned to her bodyguards, her eyes blazing with a feral rage. "Get her! I don't care who she thinks she is! Get her out of my sight!"

The bodyguards, a pack of well-trained but ultimately subservient dogs, surged forward. I tried to brace myself, but there were too many. A fist connected with my jaw, sending a shockwave of pain through my head. My vision blurred. I stumbled backward, hitting the cold marble floor with a jarring thud.

Hands grabbed me, pulling me up, then shoving me down again. I kicked, I struggled, but it was futile. They were bigger, stronger, and there was a primal fury in their eyes, fueled by Kassandra' s command. One of them twisted my arm, pinning me against a pillar. The emerald dress, once a symbol of hope, now tore with a sickening rip, exposing my skin.

Kassandra stood over me, her sapphire gown pristine, her smile a cruel slash across her face. "Look at you," she sneered, her voice dripping with contempt. "So much for your grand reveal, huh? Just a broken little girl, exactly where you belong." She raised her hand, her long, sharp nails glinting under the lobby lights. "Maybe a little less of that pretty face will remind you of your place."

A searing pain erupted on my cheek as her nails raked across it. Blood welled up, hot and sticky. It wasn' t just physical pain; it was the humiliation, the sheer brutality of her attack, that twisted something inside me. But even as I gasped, a cold, hard voice in my head whispered, This is it. This is the moment.

"You think this means anything?" I choked out, my voice raw but still defiant. My eyes, brimming with tears of pain and fury, locked onto hers. "This changes nothing. You' ve just signed your own death warrant."

Kassandra laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Oh, what's little Aurora going to do? Tell her mommy? Oh, wait. That's right. Mommy's not here, is she?" She raised her foot, her stiletto heel hovering menacingly close to my face. "Maybe I'll just step on that pretty little mouth of yours, silence you for good."

Just as her heel descended, something caught her eye. It had fallen from my purse when I was thrown down, landing near my outstretched hand. A small, leather-bound journal. My mother' s journal. The one she had written in every day until her death, filled with her thoughts, her dreams, and her love for me. It was the only tangible piece of her I had left.

Kassandra' s eyes narrowed. She snatched it up, her fingers, still stained with my blood, defiling the soft leather. "What's this? A diary? Oh, how quaint. Still writing down your little fantasies about Josh, are we?" She flipped it open, her gaze scanning the elegant script. "Wait... is this... your mother's? Oh, how sweet. A family heirloom." Her voice was sickly sweet, laced with malicious intent.

"Don't you dare," I whispered, my voice trembling now, not from pain, but from a desperate, primal fear. "Don't you dare touch that."

But she did. She looked at me, a cold, calculating smile playing on her lips. "This little book, Aurora? This is a symbol of everything you cling to, everything that makes you weak. Your past, your sentimentality." She held it up, then, with a contemptuous flick of her wrist, she tore out a page, then another. The delicate paper ripped with a sound that echoed in the silent lobby, a sound that tore through my soul.

"No!" I screamed, struggling against the bodyguards, a raw, animal cry of anguish. "Stop! Please!"

But she didn't stop. She laughed as she continued to rip, tearing the journal page by page, the precious words of my mother falling like confetti around me. "See, Aurora?" she said, her voice a cruel whisper. "This is what happens when you hold onto things that don't matter. They get destroyed."

Then, with a final, vicious glee, she slammed the heel of her stiletto down onto the remaining pages, grinding them into the marble floor. The sound was sickening, a final death knell to my last connection with my mother.

Time seemed to slow. The pain in my body faded, replaced by a chilling emptiness. The tears on my cheeks dried, leaving behind a cold, crusty trail of blood. The anger, the humiliation, the fear – it all coalesced into something far more potent, far more dangerous.

This wasn't just about Josh anymore. This wasn't just about betrayal. This was about profound, unforgivable desecration. My mother's memory, her love, her very essence, had been trampled and destroyed by this arrogant, malicious woman.

As Kassandra stood over me, her chest heaving slightly from her exertion, a triumphant smirk on her face, I looked at the scattered fragments of my mother's journal. And in that moment, something inside me snapped. The gentle, loyal, patient Aurora Bruce died.

A queen was born in her ashes. A queen with nothing left to lose, and an empire' s worth of power to wield.

My voice, when it came, was colder than the deepest winter, an icy whisper that seemed to chill the very air around us. "You just made the biggest mistake of your life, Kassandra Dixon. You didn't just destroy a journal. You destroyed the last piece of the woman I used to be. And now, you will pay."