We are sisters

The rain hit the windshield like shattered glass-hard, wild, relentless. Drace Vellion barely blinked. He was numb. The whiskey burned in his veins, but not enough to erase the ghosts clawing at his mind. The city blurred past his window, neon lights bleeding into the shadows like wounds refusing to close.

He shouldn't have been driving.

But he needed to escape.

He needed silence.

And then-

a scream.

A body.

A loud, sickening thud.

His foot slammed on the brakes, tires screeching on wet asphalt. The world lurched into stillness, except for his own heartbeat pounding like a war drum in his ears.

Drace stumbled out of the car, drenched in guilt and rain. His heart dropped when he saw her - a girl, limp on the pavement, her dark hair tangled in blood and water. Pale skin. Cracked lips. Eyes barely open. She looked fragile, like she didn't belong in the filthy violence of the night.

But there was something else... Her eyes. For a second, they flickered - like someone else was staring out at him. Someone not afraid. Someone... cold.

And then, she passed out.

Later... At the Hospital

Drace sat in the emergency room, hands shaking. He'd turned himself in. Called the ambulance. The guilt gnawed at him - not because he feared the consequences, but because something in that girl shook him to his core.

He found out her name: Ruby Elgrave. No family on record. No emergency contacts. No job. Nothing. Just a girl with too many bruises and a strange, almost haunted stillness about her.

The doctor mentioned something odd.

"She's talking to herself in different voices. Saying different names. It's... unusual."

Drace couldn't explain it, but he didn't leave.

He stayed. Watched her through the glass. Waited.

And inside Ruby's mind, behind the bandages and silence...

The sisters had awoken.

Twelve hours before the accident, Drace Vellion stood on the edge of everything he thought he knew about love.

His tie was still straight, his shoes still polished, and the ring box in his pocket still untouched - but something in his chest already felt... off. Cold. Heavy.

He had rehearsed it in his mind a thousand times.

Tonight, he was going to propose.

To Elowen Sinclair, the glamorous, enigmatic heiress of Sinclair Global Shipping. She had it all - the name, the money, the eyes that pulled you in and drowned you in velvet darkness. And she chose him.

Or so he thought.

The Betrayal

The security guard at her penthouse looked uncomfortable when Drace arrived unannounced. "She wasn't expecting anyone," the man said. "She said not to be disturbed."

Drace smiled politely. "I'm full of surprises."

He took the elevator alone.

When he opened the door to her apartment - using the spare key she'd given him "for emergencies" - he didn't expect roses or candles.

But he didn't expect to find Elowen with Dominic Ryker either.

Dominic. His oldest rival, a venomous creature born from privilege and corruption. They had history - a blood feud layered in business, betrayal, and a bitter college war.

And now? That man had his hands on Drace's future.

Elowen gasped when she saw him.

"Drace- I can explain-"

But there was nothing to explain.

Drace didn't speak. Didn't shout.

He dropped the ring box at the threshold like it weighed a thousand bricks.

And walked away.

The Descent

He drove blindly, the city's bright towers blurring into smears of hate and heartache. The first bar welcomed him like an old friend. The second made no questions. By the third, his jacket was gone, his tie undone, and the pain had fermented into something darker. Something hollow.

He wasn't drunk because he was weak.

He was drunk because she made him feel like nothing.

And for a man like Drace Vellion - who built himself from the gutter without a family name to carry him - being nothing was worse than death.

The Accident - Again

He staggered into his car after refusing a cab.

The bottle on the passenger seat mocked him.

Rain started to fall.

Harder.

Faster.

The streets bled silver, his vision blurred, and somewhere between self-destruction and denial...

A figure appeared.

Too fast.

Too close.

Thud.

Screech.

Silence.

The moment Ruby's body hit the ground, so did the last piece of the man he thought he was.

In His Mind

He didn't know who she was.

Didn't know what kind of life she lived.

But something about her eyes-right before she passed out-unlocked something in him he hadn't felt in years.

Recognition.

Not of her... but of pain. A familiar pain. One that didn't need words.

And without knowing it yet, in hitting her, Drace hadn't ended a life.

He had just collided with four of them.

They called him a Vellion.

Not just a name - a legacy. A warning.

In certain circles, the Vellion name bought loyalty, in others it bought fear. And in a few... it bought blood. When Drace Vellion walked into a room, you didn't ask questions. You just stood up and tried not to make eye contact.

Because you didn't want to know what he was thinking.

You just prayed you weren't in his way.

Born into Power

Drace was the only son of Lucien Vellion, a man who turned steel, oil, real estate, and political dirt into an empire stretching across continents. A man known for turning enemies into ashes and contracts into wars.

Drace didn't inherit wealth.

He inherited control.

And he learned fast that power wasn't in money - it was in what you made people believe you were capable of doing.

He wore suits like armor. Smiled like a predator. And built his reputation not through noise, but through silence. He spoke only when it mattered - and when it did, people obeyed.

His name appeared on stock boards, tabloids, and intelligence watchlists. Some said he had his father's empire in his right hand... and a hidden empire of his own in the left.

Cold. Until She Broke Him.

He had only ever let one person in.

Elowen Sinclair.

Beautiful. Untouchable. Heiress of the Sinclair shipping dynasty. The only woman who'd ever held a piece of his soul.

And she shattered it.

Drace had planned to propose. Build a legacy. Unite two powerful bloodlines.

Instead, he found her tangled in his oldest enemy's sheets.

Dominic Ryker.

And Drace?

He didn't scream. He didn't beg.

He just walked away... and the version of himself that could love?

He buried it that night.

The Collapse

The whiskey didn't numb the pain, but it made the voices quieter. The memory of her body with Ryker... her moans still echoing from behind that half-open door. The sound had broken something inside Drace that couldn't be put back together.

He got drunk. Not slurred, sloppy drunk.

Sharp, angry drunk.

The kind that feels like a weapon.

The kind that makes you drive into the night with no destination.

Until a girl walked into the road.

And everything changed.

Back to the Present

She was still unconscious. Pale. Silent. Her name: Ruby Elgrave.

Drace sat in a chair outside her hospital room, untouched coffee in hand, tailored coat drenched in rain. He hadn't moved in hours.

He didn't know why he stayed.

Maybe guilt. Maybe curiosity.

Maybe because her eyes-right before she passed out-looked like they'd seen the same hell he had.

But the doctor had said something else, too.

"She talks in her sleep. Different voices. Different names. Like she's not alone in there."

Drace leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

Not alone?

He had no idea just how true that was.

And no idea that the girl he nearly killed... might be the one to save him.

Or destroy him.