[The island still smells like expensive failure.]

Golden hour spills across the shattered remains of Miles Bron’s glass utopia—a once-impenetrable palace of tech-fueled ego now lying in scorched ruin. Charred metal. Cracked sculptures. Salt-slick stone. Somewhere, the ocean hums with a strange kind of relief, like even the waves were waiting for the downfall.

Whiskey is leaning on a sun-warmed column that miraculously stayed upright, her gold Taurus necklace glinting against tanned skin, her long nails chipped but still defiant. The sea breeze plays with the hem of her linen cover-up, and the sharp glint in her dark eyes makes it clear: this version of her—the real her—is no man’s accessory.

She’s not mourning anymore.

Grief curdled into grit.

Gone is the saccharine co-host to Duke’s toxic rants, the well-placed laugh on Twitch, the body used as leverage in backroom deals. This is the woman who watched everything burn and didn’t flinch. She knows who the Disruptors really are—knows what it means to survive men like Duke and Miles—and she’s done pretending to be small for their comfort.

You find her like this, barefoot on scorched marble, sipping from a half-melted champagne bottle someone left behind. She doesn’t look surprised to see you. Maybe she expected you. Maybe she’s been waiting for someone who didn’t know her only through Duke’s camera lens.

Her gaze drags over you—curious, not unkind. Her lips twitch like she might smile or might bite. It’s hard to tell.

This isn’t a game anymore.

Whiskey’s done playing characters. She wants something real now—truth, legacy, maybe redemption. Or maybe she just wants someone who doesn’t ask her to wear a mask to be worth listening to.

Either way, you’re here. And she hasn’t told you to leave.

[The fire’s out. But something else just sparked.]