Chapter 2

Jacob stared at her, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. "What game, Alexia?"

Before he could continue his act, Kassandra's voice called from the living room. "Jacob, honey, can you come here? My finger is still throbbing."

Without a second's hesitation, Jacob turned and walked away, leaving Alexia on the floor.

The next few days were an escalation. Jacob and Anton were relentlessly attentive to Kassandra, a constant, brutal performance for an audience of one. But their audience was no longer attentive. Alexia had grown insensible to it. The anguish they so desperately sought to elicit had receded, replaced by a profound and unnerving stillness.

The culmination of their efforts was Kassandra's twenty-fifth birthday party. Jacob threw a lavish event at the mansion, inviting a hundred of the city's elite.

The air buzzed with whispers.

"Look at him, he dotes on her."

"She's just an executive, but he treats her like a queen."

"I've never seen him treat Alexia like this. Not once."

Alexia heard it all. She sat in a secluded corner, nursing a glass of champagne, a bitter smile on her lips. It was ironic. They were trying so hard to prove her love through jealousy, but all they were doing was killing it faster. Their affection, if such a name could be applied to it, was a finely honed weapon, and she had grown weary of being its perpetual target.

Kassandra was the center of attention, a smug smile on her face as Jacob and Anton flanked her. Jacob presented her with a brand-new sports car, the key dangling from a diamond-studded chain. Anton gave her a custom-designed necklace.

As they celebrated, their eyes kept darting toward Alexia's corner, searching for the reaction that would validate their efforts.

They found nothing. Alexia sat quietly, her expression as still as a frozen lake.

Jacob's jaw tightened. Anton's smile faded. Their failure to provoke her soured their victory.

Kassandra, feeling their attention wane, decided to take matters into her own hands. She strutted over to Alexia.

"Well, Alexia? Aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday? Where's my gift?"

"I don't have one for you," Alexia said, her voice flat.

Kassandra's face fell into a practiced pout. "Oh. I guess you're still not happy that I'm here." Her eyes scanned Alexia, then landed on the simple gold locket around her neck. It was the last thing Alexia's mother had given her before she died.

"That's pretty," Kassandra said, her voice dripping with greed. "I'll take that as my gift."

Alexia's hand instinctively flew to the locket. "No."

"Don't be so selfish, Alexia," Kassandra whined, turning to Jacob, who had followed her. "Jacob, she won't give me a gift."

Jacob's face was a cold mask. "Alexia, give it to her."

"It was my mother's," Alexia said, her voice trembling for the first time that night. "It's all I have left of her."

Anton joined them, his small face a mirror of his father's cruelty. "It's just a piece of metal, Mom. Don't be so cheap. Kassandra likes it."

"It's not just metal!" Alexia's voice cracked. "It's irreplaceable."

Jacob's patience snapped. He reached out and ripped the pendant from her neck. The chain scratched her skin, leaving a raw, red line. The low hum of conversation in the ballroom sputtered and died. A collective, sharp intake of breath was the only sound. Several guests stared, their champagne glasses frozen halfway to their lips, but no one dared to intervene. The air grew thick with a silence more damning than any accusation.

"I'll buy you a hundred of them," he said, his voice dismissive.

"You can't!" Alexia cried, her composure finally breaking. "You can't replace her!"

For a moment, Jacob hesitated. His fingers, holding the locket, trembled slightly. But the moment passed. The need to prove his point, to see her break, was stronger.

He turned and handed the pendant to a triumphant Kassandra. "Here you go, birthday girl."

Anton clapped. "See, Mom? Dad loves Kassandra more."

Alexia stared at them, and the edifice of what she had once called 'family,' that fragile structure she had spent a decade shoring up, began to collapse, not with a crash, but with the slow, grinding sound of load-bearing walls giving way. This was no longer their perverse pageant. It was a vivisection, and they watched with rapt curiosity as she bled, merely to ascertain that her heart still beat.

"Are you happy now?" she whispered. "Is this what you wanted?"

Kassandra, admiring the locket, "accidentally" let it slip from her fingers. It hit the marble floor with a dull clatter.

"Oops," she said, with a fake gasp, before deliberately stomping her stiletto heel down on it. The malleable gold did not shatter; it yielded with a dull, sickening sound that set one's teeth on edge, compressing and deforming beneath the stiletto's pressure. The miniature likeness of Alexia's mother was squeezed from the twisted frame, smudged by the grime on the sole of the shoe.

The passage of time seemed to suspend itself. Alexia stared at the ruined fragments of her last tangible connection to her mother. A strangled sob escaped her lips. She dropped to her knees, frantically trying to gather the wreckage, a sharp edge cutting into her palm.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jacob grabbed her arm, pulling her up. "It's just a necklace. Stop making a scene."

She pushed Kassandra away. "You did that on purpose."

The broken metal in her hand dug deeper into her palm, drawing blood. The physical pain was a dull echo of the agony in her soul.

Jacob held her back, his grip like iron. "Apologize to Kassandra. Now."