Lana stood in the center of her once perfect bedroom, staring at the empty walls like they were strangers. The room that had once smelled of designer perfume and lavender linen now held the faint scent of cardboard and dust.
Every luxury she had known every framed photo, handbag, jewelry box, and soft cashmere throw was gone. Either taken by authorities or boxed away under her mother's sharp eyed supervision. She wasn't allowed to keep anything that might be seized as "evidence" of ill gotten wealth. She wasn't even allowed to take her phone her mother insisted it was safer to disappear, at least for a while.
Disappear.
That word clung to her like a second skin.
Downstairs, a moving truck groaned as two sweaty men carried out her mother's favorite French mirror. The kind that once reflected ball gowns and flawless makeup, not this version of Lana barefaced, wearing a hoodie that smelled faintly like mothballs.
"Lana, we don't have all day!" her mother shouted from the hallway. "Take what's necessary. We're leaving the rest."
Lana picked up a small velvet pouch containing her late grandmother's locket. Somehow, it had escaped notice. She slipped it into her hoodie pocket like it was contraband.
One suitcase. That's what she was allowed to take. One suitcase to carry her entire life.
She paused in the doorway of her room, turning around to look one last time. The blush pink walls, the chandelier, the once overflowing walk in closet that now held only a few forgotten wire hangers.
Her castle had become a tomb.
She pulled the door shut, sealing it behind her like the last page of a book she hadn't finished reading.
⸻
They didn't go far.
A tiny apartment on the east side of the city, with a cracked elevator and peeling paint, became their new home. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, and neighbors who shouted through the walls. The smell of fried onions and car exhaust clung to the hallway like wallpaper.
Lana had never seen her mother carry a box before. Watching Celeste Kingsley once the face of an Italian perfume brand lug a suitcase up four flights of stairs was something out of a parody movie.
Inside, the apartment was… livable. Barely. A couch that sagged in the middle. A fridge that buzzed constantly. No dishwasher. No walk in anything.
No Valentino, either.
Lana sat on the edge of her new bed if you could call a twin mattress on a metal frame a "bed"and stared at her chipped nail polish. She didn't even have the energy to take it off.
Her mother was in the next room, furiously typing on her old laptop, trying to find a job any job that didn't involve walking runways or hosting charity galas.
Her father, meanwhile, had been taken in for questioning.
They were officially… nobodies.
And still, Lana couldn't cry.
Not because it didn't hurt. But because the numbness had spread too deep.
She didn't know how to be poor. She didn't know how to be normal. She didn't even know how to boil an egg, for God's sake.
She was utterly and completely lost.
Until her mom walked in holding a flyer.
"I found you a job."
Lana blinked. "What kind of job?"
Her mother handed her the crumpled paper. "Part time cashier or assistant. Local auto shop. Walking distance."
Lana stared at her. "I don't know anything about cars."
"Well, you're about to learn," her mom said firmly. "Unless you want to starve."
And just like that, Lana Kingsley's last string to her old life snapped.
She was about to work. For the first time ever.
At a place where no one would care who she used to be.
⸻