Her sister burned down her estate when she refused to give up the venue for free—unaware her parents were in the hospital hallway covering up attempted murder.

Monday morning arrived with the heavy, electric atmosphere of an impending storm.

I walked through the glass doors of Carter Design Studio’s temporary headquarters—a sleek, modern loft space downtown that Hayes had set up within forty-eight hours of the fire. My employees—all thirty of them—were already hard at work. When I stepped off the private elevator, every head turned.

For a second, the room was completely silent. Then, Hayes stood up from his desk and started clapping.

Within three seconds, the entire room erupted into thunderous applause.

I felt a rare, genuine lump form in my throat. I raised my bandaged hands in a quiet gesture of gratitude, walking through the rows of desks to address my team.

"Thank you," I said, my voice steady and clear. "When that fire destroyed our old studio, some people thought it destroyed us. They thought ten years of our sweat, creativity, and hard work would vanish into smoke. But a building is just glass and steel. Carter Design isn't a location—it's us. And we are just getting started."

The applause renewed, fiercer this time.

Just as I finished addressing the team, the glass double doors at the front of the loft chimed.

Two figures stepped inside.

My father and mother.

They looked like ghosts of their former selves. My father’s tie was crooked, his hair uncombed, and his skin had a sickly grey tint. My mother looked as though she hadn't slept in seventy-two hours, her designer suit wrinkled and stained.

Hayes immediately stepped forward to block their path. "You’re not authorized to be here. Security is on standby."

"Mave!" my father croaked, pushing past Hayes with a desperate, pathetic shuffle. "Mave, please! You have to talk to us! The police are at our house!"

I didn't stand up from my desk. I slowly spun my executive chair around, resting my elbows on the armrests, and looked down at the two people who had given me life—and then tried to sacrifice it for a wedding.

"You're trespassing," I said calmly.

"We're your parents!" Cresa wailed, taking a stumbling step forward, her eyes wide with frantic disbelief. "How can you do this to your own family? They arrested Fallon this morning! She's in a holding cell downtown! They're charging her with arson and attempted murder!"

"Then the justice system is finally working correctly," I replied evenly.

My father slammed his hand down on the nearest desk, his temper flaring through his desperation. "You arrogant, ungrateful little bitch! We raised you! We gave you everything! You destroyed your sister's life over a stupid house!"

I stood up slowly, towering over him with a cold, unyielding glare that made him instinctively step back.

"You gave me nothing," I said, each word dropping like lead weights. "I paid my own way through college while you funneled my tuition money into Fallon's luxury cars. I built this company from the ground up while you enabled her toxic narcissism. And when she tried to burn me alive, your very first instinct wasn't to check if I was breathing—it was to protect her wedding."

I pointed a bandaged finger toward the glass doors.

"Get out of my building. If you are within five hundred feet of me or my employees by the end of this hour, I will have you arrested as co-conspirators in the arson cover-up. Security—escort them out."

Two burly guards materialized beside my parents, grabbing them by the elbows and marching them toward the elevators as my father screamed obscenities and my mother wept openly into her hands.