“You’re very greedy,” Blake says.
“I’m very honest,” she counters. “And I have a trump card.”
She slides her phone across the counter. A draft email to MEDIA—TOP TIER. Subject: Second Chances Fraud? The body is a neat recap of my cancellations and payment schedule, with a few phrases that would look ugly in headlines.
I set my cup down. “You’d blow up your seat on the rocket to take a shot at the pilot?”
“I’d strap myself to the hull,” she says, eyes bright. “I want the ride. I want to learn how to fly.”
“Shae,” Blake warns—half plea, half threat.
I let my mouth make the shape of a smile. “You think you can learn from me?”
“I know I can,” she says. “You’re a savant. You’re a machine. I want to be a machine.”
“No one wants to be a machine,” I say. “They want the results and the applause and the clean conscience. Machines don’t get out clean.”
She shrugs. “I gave up clean at nineteen.”
I tap her phone with a nail. “You’ll keep this draft forever. Every time you want a new purse, you’ll open it and show me the subject line.”
“I’ll keep the draft,” she says. “And I’ll keep your secrets, and you’ll keep mine. Reciprocity. Community care. Call it sisterhood.”
I think of Iris—the woman claiming to be my sister. I think of Dean. I think of Kelly, of my father, of all the hands that once tried to steer me. Everyone who betrayed me insists they were just trying to survive. So was I. I just did it better. I wasn’t broken. I was perfected.
And the best part? The Watcher.
The world assumed I’d collected another enemy. The reality is I put on the mask to boost ratings and launch myself into legend.
A cheap voice changer was all it took to dupe the internet.
I emailed Declan from an anonymous email asking for any recorded audio he may have access to while I was inside. To say he was eager to help was an understatement. That’s how I knew he was playing both sides from the start. He wanted to touch the flame of infamy, but I saw him coming. He was so easy to manipulate—a few seeds of affection was all the currency it took to get him to pocket a tiny thumb drive and deliver it to the anonymous podcast producer I hired to upload the first episode. With so many expenses and royalties coming and going in my account, my lawyer didn’t blink when I asked her to cut a check to CAV Productions.
The box of letters from that storage unit in Pismo. The transcripts. Bishop’s interview. All fakes—bait for outrage, gasoline for attention, a shove toward Costa Rica. Another season. A bigger platform.
So why did I stop? Why did The Watcher vanish as quickly as they appeared? To build buzz. To dial up interest and create more questions than answers. To make the internet sleuths wild.
The body in the barrel that surfaced? Unrelated. Convenient. A cherry on top. And the breadcrumbs about Brianna? Intentional. Circumstantial is my favorite kind of evidence—useful, slippery, and impossible to convict. You can’t try me twice.
I’ve realized legends don’t need defending. They only need time.
I laugh—sudden, full of delight. God, I love ambition that wears perfume.
“Fine,” I say. “Assistant director. Partnerships. Fifteen percent net, not gross. You take the logistics I don’t want and you smile while you do it. You sign my NDA with your blood.”
“Ten percent gross,” she counters. “And I don’t sign with blood. I’m offering something better—loyalty.”
Blake pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two deserve each other.”
“We do,” Lila says, not looking at him. “Deal?”
I lift her phone, hold it over the edge of the counter, eyebrow raised.
She breathes. Then, without breaking eye contact, she deletes the draft. The trash icon flutters like a white flag. She turns the screen toward me—empty.
“Deal,” I say, offering my hand like a queen who stays queen either way.
She takes it. Warm, dry, strong—like she grew up shaking men’s hands and making them doubt themselves. Good. Useful.
