Chapter 2 The Diabolical Dragon Lady

Morgan's POV

It was like someone was trying to drum the "Immigrant Song" on my front door. "Morgan? Open this door right now," my stepmother said, her voice as warm as an arctic blizzard. I paused, asking myself who'd planned this family reunion from hell at precisely the moment my life was exploding. But when the knocking turned into what sounded like someone trying to break in with a battering ram, I heaved myself up and went to the door.

Much to my utter dismay, my stepmother, Victoria, stood there with my father, Richard. His expression was grimmer than a mortician with a toothache. "Stepmother, Father, I'm sort of in the midst of my life crashing spectacularly to the ground..." I started, but my dad interrupted me with all of the subtlety of a chainsaw.

"We must address an urgent matter that cannot wait under any circumstances," he said in his CEO voice - the voice he used when firing people or ordering at expensive restaurants. Anxiety swirled with my already roiling emotional cocktail.

"What calamity brings you to my door?" "Why?" I asked, stepping aside, reluctantly. My father's laser-focus zeroed in on Kylie and Ethan on the couch, his eyebrows narrowing with the disappointment he usually reserved for my career choices and haircuts.

"We'll talk inside," Victoria said, stomping into my apartment, as if she were checking out a property about to lowball herself. My father trailed behind, eyes glued to the guilty pair. I shut the door and surrendered to this new layer of nightmare.

As we stepped into the living room, Victoria's meticulously penciled-in eyebrows flew toward her hairline. "Kylie? What are you doing here, pour a pea? she snapped, her voice crisper than her stiletto heels. My father's face darkened to a shade I'd seen only when someone scratched his vintage Porsche.

"Kylie, you will explain yourself this instant," he thundered, the very furniture seeming to cower. Kylie clenched in on herself, tears springing in her eyes as though she were auditioning for a soap opera.

"I...I can explain," she stuttered, with all the authority of a toddler caught coloring on the walls. Victoria squinted into dangerous slits, her arms folding across her designer blazer.

"Explain what exactly?" She spat out, each word laced with venom. Kylie hesitated, her gaze bouncing between Victoria and my father like a nervous ping-pong ball.

"I ... I ..." she stammered, words seemingly on backorder. Victoria's anger made her expensive foundation work overtime.

"Well? We're waiting!" she barked, hands on her hips as if she were auditioning for "Intimidating Stepmother Monthly." The room was suddenly quiet, the tension thick enough to be sliced and served at an upscale dinner party.

As Kylie kept up the excellent work of a mute, Victoria turned to me like a military turret. "Morgan? Tell me what is going on and what this is..." she pointed accusingly at Ethan with a manicured finger, "specimen is doing here?" Ethan whitened as pale as my walls.

I took a deep breath, combing my fingers through my hair as though to comb out the chaos. "Well...I just got home and found Kylie having an intimate Netflix and chill episode with my boyfriend. The words dropped into the air like a stink bomb, the space going as quiet as a library after hours.

Victoria's face twisted with fury, her eyes popping as if she'd seen someone wear white after Labor Day. "WHAT?! " she shouted, her voice likely triggering car alarms three blocks away. "This is why you don't wear out with family at all," wrote one user. "Well, you're engaged, for Christ's sake!" She stalked toward Kylie like a predator closing in for the kill.

Kylie melted into tears, mascara running in impressionistic rivulets down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, I just..." she blubbered, her sentence fading into nothingness.

Victoria was furious in a most nuclear manner. "You just what?" she snapped, nearly vibrating with rage. "Thought your sister's boyfriend seemed like a fun ride? Do you have the FIRST CLUE how sky high this is?" She threw her hands up dramatically, appearing disgusted enough to require a hazmat suit.

Kylie looked up at her mother with green-brown puppy eyes that had stopped working by the time she was twelve. "It's not what it looks like," she protested feebly, with all the credibility of a politician's pledge.

Victoria raised her eyebrow skeptically, as if she was judging a science fair. "Oh really? Please, do tell us what that looks like, Kylie. Because I'm so confused right now." She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot - tap tap tap - as if trying to send morse code signals of disapproval.

Kylie fell back a step, her eyes darting around like she was looking for an escape hatch. "I...I love you both, but...but..." she stammered, words hanging ineffectually in the atmosphere like discarded Christmas ornaments.

My father's face turned as dark as thunderclouds. "How dare you bring shame on this family? We didn't pay good money for your education to act this way!'" He moved toward Kylie, his voice lowering to the dangerously whispery pitch that usually warned someone was about to get cut out of the will.

Kylie's eyes filled again, her face desperate. "Please, you can just listen to me," she insisted, her voice splintering like cheap glassware. "There's more to this story than meets the eye."

Victoria presented an 'unconvinced' pose with raised eyebrow and head tilt. "What plot twist could make this OK?" she said, sarcasm oozing on to my carpet. She shifted her weight, as if waiting for a particularly underwhelming magic trick.

Kylie looked at the floor like she was looking for her dignity. She froze like a deer caught in headlights - if the deer had just been busted sleeping with her sister's boyfriend. Her shoulders shook as if she were standing in an earthquake that only she could feel.

Richard crossed his arms, his face more stone than diamond wrapped around Victoria's finger. "Kylie, your behavior is simply disgusting," he bellowed, his voice ricocheting off the walls like a racquetball.

Kylie's head jerked up, a small rage-switch flipping to life. She prepared, squaring her shoulders as if she was readying for battle. "Mother...I can't marry him. "I can't marry Maxwell Prescott Fleming," she declared, her voice wavering, but resolute.

Victoria's perfectly shaped brow furrowed, rage replaced by confusion for one millisecond. "What do you mean you 'can't marry Maxwell'? she asked, her voice sharp enough for surgery.

Kylie met her eyes, finding her spine all of a sudden. "I'm pregnant with Ethan's child," she declared, tossing the words like a grenade in the room.

CRASH!

My heart broke like a wrecking ball, exploding pieces of emotional shrapnel through my entire body. My parents froze as if someone had pressed pause, their faces a master class in shock and horror. I felt sucker-punched by the universe, my lungs forgetting how to work. The man I believed loved me didn't just fuck around; he created life with my stepsister. The room lurched and swayed as though I was riding a carnival ride for which I'd never bought a ticket.

I couldn't breathe, my chest tightening as if it were in a vise. My fingers began to clutch at my heart, digging into my skin as if I could somehow physically keep the pieces together.

My head was spinning faster than a washing machine on final cycle. I staggered back, darkness closing in at the corners of my vision like spilled ink. I instinctively reached out, starving for help.

But there was nothing. No one rushed over to me, no one gave so much as a "there, there." I was alone, bleeding emotions into my IKEA rug.

Victoria's voice came out low and stretched, as if she were speaking through molasses.

"You...are...pregnant?"

She did take a step back, her eyes raking Kylie as a human lie detector.

Kylie answered back, her voice barely above a ghostly whisper.

"Yes, Mom." More tears streamed down her face, and her body shook like she was in a freezer.

Richard's eyes bored into Kylie with laser focus.

"Are...you absolutely certain?" he exclaimed, voice steady but laced with desperation that this was all some awful gag.

Kylie nodded so hard I thought her head would fall off. "Yes," she said, in a voice cracking like thin ice.

"I took a test. It was positive. And I took three others just in case."

The room fell into such absolute silence you could hear dust settling. Richard glanced at Victoria, who was looking as though she'd seen a ghost, in particular the ghost of her social standing and carefully managed family agendas.

Victoria raised a perfectly manicured finger to her mouth, her nail-biting habit rearing its ugly head like a groundhog on February 2nd - an obvious sign her conniving mind was at work.

Hushed and urgent, Richard prodded her.

"Victoria, say something, for Christ's sake.

But Victoria just stood there, staring at Kylie as if she were running an equation in her head about how much this whole thing had cost her in money and social capital.

Victoria's attention snapped to me like a small animal sighting prey. A chill colder than my ex's heart crept down my spine as she paused chewing on her nail - the international sign that Victoria had devised a plan. Her eyes captured mine with tractor-beam intensity, and I knew with sinking certainty that I was about to be collateral damage in whatever scheme she'd cooked up.

"I think I have a solution for our little hiccup," she said, a smile working across her face that would make a shark back away slowly.

My father sat up like a dog who hears the rustle of a treat bag, leaning in with interest. "Really? What good plan do you have?" he asked, every syllable dripping with hope.

Victoria's eyes were trained on me like a sniper scope. She stared at me as though she were choosing a sacrifice. "Maxwell Prescott Fleming will marry Morgan."

I dropped my jaw so quickly it almost popped out. "Hold up...WHAT?! " I squeaked, the sound fading into the stratosphere.

The nod of Victoria was sharp and definite as an executioner's axe. "Her character is just perfect for the situation.

It left me standing there, shellshocked, my mind barely able to process this new horror. Marriage? To Maxwell Prescott Fleming? Conversations with a man who had more syllables in his name than our entire relationship? This couldn't be happening. But Victoria was glaring at me, challenging me to say anything, her eyes threatening dire repercussions if I did.

And just when I was sucking back breaths for what would've been the protest of the century, she added the finishing touch: "You'll be leaving for the Fleming estate tomorrow, Morgan. Your wedding dress is already waiting for you..."