2:37 a.m.

The numbers glowed at me like they were mocking me.

I sat on the floor beside my bed, knees pulled up, the only light in the room the pale glow of my phone. My fingers moved without thinking—refresh, refresh, refresh—scrolling through my Brother’s social media again. And again. And again.

Three days now. Three days of barely sleeping, barely eating, barely doing anything except watching him through that tiny screen because he wouldn’t let me watch him any other way anymore.

Photos of him at business events. Photos at dinners, at meetings, shaking hands, smiling politely for the cameras.

And her. Always her.

His supposed fiancée.

Standing too close. Smiling too wide. Acting like she belonged next to him.

A cold pressure tightened in my chest, like someone had wrapped barbed wire around my ribs and pulled until I couldn’t breathe.

Before I even thought about it, my thumb slid to my contacts and pressed the only number that mattered.

The call rang once. Twice. Three times—

Voicemail.

I swallowed hard. Tried again.

Voicemail.

I stared at the screen until my reflection blurred in the glass. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth.

He was ignoring me.

He was actually ignoring me.

A sharp, electric frustration ripped through me. I stood abruptly, the room spinning slightly from exhaustion and anger and something else I didn’t want to name. I pushed open my door and walked down the hallway with quick, uneven steps, not caring if I woke anyone. Let them stare. Let them talk. Let them wonder.

The mansion felt too big, too empty, too quiet. The kind of silence that presses on your ears until you feel like screaming just to hear something.

This was the silence he left behind when I asked for “independence.” Independence. What a joke.

I reached the front door, shoved it open, and stepped out into the icy early-morning air. The cold slapped my skin immediately, making me shiver. I hugged my arms around myself, staring at the gate like I could will him into appearing.

The street was empty. Dead. But he always came home eventually. He always did.

So I waited.

Minutes crawled. My breath turned to fog. My fingers went numb. My heart felt like it was bruising itself with every beat.

Then—finally—headlights. A sleek black car, the one I knew better than my own pulse, turned the corner and slowed.

My heart leaped up my throat.

Before the engine even fully stopped, I ran. Down the path, through the gate, straight toward him like gravity existed just for this.

“Brother!” The word tore out of me, raw and desperate, before I could hold it back.

Before he could pretend he didn’t hear me.

Before he could pretend I didn’t exist.