Chapter 1 Simplistic notion

Celina

"Absolutely unacceptable-" more specifically, revolting, pathetic, and a fucking blessing. "-is what it is." But I don't dare dump the hard truth onto the hysterical girl crying on the other end of the line.

It's a miracle I'm able to keep my mouth shut for so long, especially considering I've been sitting here, listening to her sob over a mediocre man for the past ten minutes.

This is the issue with women who emotionally involve themselves with men. They give full control of their emotions to a man who is, by textbook definition, a disappointment.

While the rest of us, whether it be their children, mothers, sisters, or the women they fucked, are subjected to this disappointment they seem to ooze out of every clogged up useless pore in their bodies.

Not only had Hana yet to understand this simplistic notion, but she was the worst kind of victim. The kind that saw the good in them.

This was the first thing I'd picked up freshman year about my new roommate, who turned out to be a friend. Only she was the worst type of friend. Sweet, naive, and far too innocent to ever take any of my advice. Even if it was the only right way to deal with her problems.

I examine the dark shade of red coating my almond-shaped nails and briefly wonder how I'm going to find a nail tech that I don't want to slaughter in America.

"Lina?" A choked sob fills the line, louder than the others. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Mhm." With a roll of my eyes, I set the phone on speaker and reach into my bag to pull out my laptop. "Thomas, dick, little brunette from Political Law 101."

If three years at Oxford had taught me anything, it was how to be an expert at listening without actually listening.

That gets her off my ass and back to her breakdown, while I hold up my empty champagne glass, ushering one of the two flight attendants over.

Yet they both are too busy ogling the bodyguards positioned on either side of the bar.

"If word of this gets out... it'll look so bad on me." Hana's soft voice trembles through the line, and despite the annoyance bubbling in my chest, I don't like hearing it crack. "I-I just want him to feel as terrible as I did when I saw him and her-"

I sigh, fed up.

Not only was this trip back to New York so sudden, and frankly, against my will, but I was spending it cooped up hundreds of feet in the air with useless staff, listening to a messy breakdown, completely sober.

"There's only one thing men like Thomas care about." I look to the guard positioned closest to me and raise a brow at the stoic-faced man.

It takes a moment for him to draw his gaze towards me, but when he does, I look from him back to my empty glass, my request clear.

"I-I don't know." My naive little friend answers on the line while my eyes pierce into the reluctant ones of the man."Money?"

I wanted another drink.

He wasn't going to get it because he thought that he was above serving me.

It takes about twenty seconds of my stare for the inept Shrek to begrudgingly grab my glass from my hand and turn to walk towards the bar at the end of the jet.

Only then do I direct my attention back to my hysterical little friend. "No," Thomas Webler was not only an heir, but a distant kin to the royal family. He was as dumb as a rock, yet managed to get into Oxford and spent his time between classes flying women out to snort overpriced coke off their tits.

Yet his record was as clean as a whistle, and had I not been able to sniff out a coke head in my sleep, he'd been able to keep his little issue under wraps.

Information was the highest form of power in my books, and while I didn't have a conventionally powerful family - one that obtained status the clean way, that was, I had the upper hand amongst all my elite classmates.

Dirt.

"Upholding his family's image." I fold open the laptop on my lap. "As long as daddy's happy, he can do whatever-or whomever he wants in secret." I'm a firm believer in karma; she was my favorite type of bitch.

But letting things happen naturally was no fun. But dishing out my own karma as I saw fit? That was the only viable option.

My mouse clicks into my encrypted folder, and I hover over the folder with his name on it. "It'd be a shame if word of this affair got out to daddy dearest."

It'd completely ruin him.

Hana Lim, the daughter of Tae Lim, head of the South Korean parliament, was the only bridge Thomas' father had in maintaining his power. No one got on Tae Lim's good side, but when you did gain his support, the extent of power one had was limitless.

News like this would not only break his ties with the man who currently held the highest status in South Korean society, but it'd bury him alive.

Especially when the only reason Tae Lim put up with Thomas' family was that his daughter was head over heels for his son.

Word of this breakup and his endeavors would be catastrophic, but more importantly, so entertaining to watch unfold.

"No..." The gasp in her voice tells me she knows where my head is at. "That'd be too cruel.... Lina, I can't. I won't."

Luckily for her, I could and I would.

If there was one thing Ademaro's upheld, it was the notion of an eye for an eye.

We didn't just let things go. We didn't take the high road.

When you're wronged, you retaliate. When things don't work, you manipulate them into working. And when you're double-crossed, you bury them so far into the ground, they can do nothing but stare at the dirt swallowing them up with the look in their eyes similar to that of a terrified puppy crying out for help.

It was therapeutic, really.

"I totally understand." I reason, clicking through the array of photos I have stored for safekeeping. "Let's just take the high road."

Thomas in Bora Bora, snorting a line off the prime minister's wife. Thomas was at a strip club with the dean of our university. And most importantly, a video of Thomas in said club, ranting about how important a man he was in comparison to all the lazy common folks. And that was only the surface of his spiel that would soon send him into his downfall.

As if the universe is rewarding me for my findings, I'm handed my glass of champagne by an annoyed-looking, inept Shrek.

"Here's what you're gonna do." The pleasant velvety taste of my drink reaches my tongue before I take another sip and begin drafting the email, "Block his number, take a spa weekend to clear your head, and when you're all well rested, the universe will straighten out this mess."

"You really think so?" Hope fills her voice.

"Positive." Said universe was currently drafting the email, attaching the photos, and addressing it to the UK's biggest gossip column.

A light swoosh sounds, telling me I've just ruined someone's life with the raise of my finger, and I finish my drink in celebration.

"Have a little faith, Hana. Things will sort themselves out." Fate was nothing but a lousy excuse humans used to cover up the fact that they were terrified of the unknown.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd been terrified, let alone left room for unknowns.

"I truly don't know what I'd do without you, Lina." She'd probably drown in her sea of melodramatic emotions. "My summer's gonna be so miserable without you. I don't know how I'll get over it."

A smile touches my lips. The thought of her, miserable with nothing but those stuck-up snakes she called friends, oddly makes me feel appreciated. "Thanks."

She's quiet, like she's waiting for me to say more, but I don't have anything else to say, and so with another overdramatic sigh, my friend speaks. "I'll miss you, but I'll see you soon. Kisses."

"Kisses." I hum, yet despite forcing affection into my tone, the word still escapes, drizzled in sarcasm.

It wasn't that I disliked Hana. I didn't mind having her around. I even cared enough about her to see through all those friends she surrounded herself with and deem them as snakes waiting to pounce on her fortune.

I, on the other hand, was different.

I didn't care for her money. I cared for the connections and status she's one day be useful for in my pursuit to the top. And until then, I needed her reputation clean and untouched. So if it meant talking to her about feelings and other useless things I couldn't care less about, I'd do it.

It wasn't personal, nor did I have her worst interest in mind. In fact, I was every bit of a perfect friend.

The only difference is my knowledge surrounding our friendship and how I didn't believe it to be real. The truth is that I didn't like anyone enough to befriend them.

My phone chimes, drawing me out of my mind, and with the soft shut of my laptop, I check the thirty-two text messages, all sent from the same contact.

Did you get onto the jet?

Have you identified the pilot?

Have you made sure you've got all your things?

How's your blood sugar?

Blah, blah, blah.

I'd love to sit here and say that my papà wasn't normally this overbearing, but that'd be a lie, and while I loved a good lie, my father's need to treat me like his little girl at all times gave me a severe migraine, and I never gave half-assed lies.

However, it was clear that something was severely wrong for him to be ordering me back to New York, a place he always seemed to be pushing me out of.

Another five texts filter through, and I get so fed up, I respond to his texts with one of my own.

I think I'm being harassed.

My finger still hovers over the send button when his response comes through.

By who?!

Are they around you

right now?

Where are my men?

They are supposed

to be watching you.

Call me this instant.

He calls me.

I decline and text him back.

It's some old man who

won't stop texting me.

Three dots appear in the corner of my screen, and then they disappear as if the realization settles.