The Queen of Ash: No One Leaves This Island Alive
You thought she was a pawn? Think again. Mia just flipped the table on the men who destroyed her life. But can she survive the fallout?
The sand under my knees is cold now. The sun is high, but the warmth feels like a lie.
Leo stood ten feet away, holding the hand of the man I thought I had poisoned. Yes, Arthur Sterling—my "victim" of a husband—was standing right there, wipe-dry and perfectly healthy. The "poison" I had been micro-dosing into his wine? It wasn't poison at all. Leo had switched the vials months ago. They weren't fighting over me; they were laughing at me.
"You played your part beautifully, Mia," Arthur said, adjusting his watch. "The grieving widow, the vengeful daughter... it was the best entertainment I’ve bought in years."
It turns out, my father’s downfall wasn't a business failure. It was a wager. A bet between two bored billionaires to see how far a "broken girl" would go for a revenge that was staged from the start. Leo, the man I cried for every night for three years, was never a victim. He was the director.
They want the hard drive now. They want the final codes to the offshore accounts that I spent years infiltrating. They think I’m kneeling here in this white bikini because I’m defeated. They think I’m trembling because my heart is broken.
They forgot one thing: When you spend three years pretending to be a monster, you eventually stop pretending.
I looked up at Leo, then at Arthur. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I just let the white lace of my wrap fall into the sand.
"The codes aren't on the drive," I said, my voice as steady as the tide. "I uploaded them to a dead-man's switch an hour ago. If my heart rate stops—or if I don't check in with a certain server in San Jose every sixty minutes—the entire Sterling empire's data goes public. Every bribe, every murder, every offshore leak."
The smiles on their faces vanished. The predators realized they were standing in a room full of gasoline, and I was the only one holding a match.
"Now," I said, slowly standing up, the wind catching my hair. "Who wants to talk about my 'severance package' first?"
In this game of dogs, I’m no longer the bone. I’m the cage.
