The applause was still echoing inside the theater, claps and cheers rolling like waves that refused to die down. Ethan Vale had just bared his soul, revealing the man behind his rise. The name *Kai Arden* still hung in the air like thunder, refusing to fade.
Everyone around her looked stunned, teary-eyed, celebratory. Maya was beside herself, her voice hoarse from screaming. Ryan was silent but not unaffected; his sharp eyes flicked across the stage, thoughtful.
And Alina? She sat frozen. Her palms were damp, her chest a heavy knot of air she couldn't release. Her ears rang as if she had stepped into another world. No… no, this can't be right.
Her mind was dragging her backward, away from the shining lights of Ethan's gratitude and back to a dimly lit corridor, a different kind of theater.
Words she had poured herself into, pieces of her that she had stitched onto the page. She remembered the muffled voices from behind the door. The nervous shuffling of a writer stepping out, face pale but still carrying his dream.
And then that voice. Cold. Sharp. Dismissive.
"This is absolute rubbish!" he snapped.
"You call this writing? You don't even know how to write a proper story. Don't waste my time with this nonsense."
She remembered the way her stomach dropped. Alina had burned with anger. She hadn't been the one inside that room, but the words had carved into her just the same. They had left her trembling, furious. She had whispered to herself that day:
"No. If this is how he treats writers, then I don't need his approval. My talent is not trash. I know what I can do. I won't waste it here."
And from then, the name *Kai Arden* had tasted like ash in her mouth. Not the brilliant star everyone praised. Not the unreachable actor people worshipped. To her, he was cruelty incarnate, arrogance draped in charisma.
And yet… tonight… The same name was being spoken of like salvation. Ethan Vale's tearful gratitude was still echoing. He had painted Kai Arden not as a tyrant, not as a destroyer of dreams, but as the savior of his own. The man who had stopped, watched, encouraged, and uplifted him when no one else would.
Alina's chest tightened. Which one is real? Which Kai is the truth?
Her heart felt like a battlefield. On one side was the memory of those cruel, scathing words, the writer shattered before her eyes. On the other side was Ethan's voice trembling with love, with reverence, as though Kai Arden had been an angel in disguise.
Lies. One of them has to be lying. Her fists clenched in her lap. Her knuckles went white. But which?
Maya was still squealing beside her, tears streaking down her face. Ryan leaned back, his lips curled in the smallest smirk, clearly watching Alina more than the stage.
But Alina barely noticed. Her entire body buzzed with confusion. The walls she had built out of hate, strong, solid, fortified with months of bitterness, suddenly felt like sand, collapsing under the tide of Ethan's words. Her mind flashed back to another conversation. Not with Maya. Not with Ryan. But with ScriptBreaker. That online stranger, faceless, nameless, who had somehow always seen straight through her tangled thoughts.
She could hear it as if he had just typed it:
"It could be that you haven't seen his other side yet. You've only seen fragments… pieces of who he is, and pieces always feel incomplete, confusing. If you want to know who he really is, don't just look from afar. Find out. Get close. Watch him. Not the face he shows, not the mask but the cracks, the spaces in between."
Alina's throat tightened. Back then, she had rolled her eyes at those words, telling herself ScriptBreaker was just another dreamer, another fool who believed too much in people. She had clung to her hate because it was easier, cleaner, sharper.
But tonight… Ethan's voice, Ethan's tears, Ethan's gratitude, all aligned with ScriptBreaker's prophecy like puzzle pieces falling into place. Maybe I don't know him. Maybe I've never really known him at all.
Her hands trembled on her lap. If what she had heard months ago, those cruel words, was true, then tonight had to be a lie. Ethan's gratitude had to be some scripted performance, some manipulation.
But if tonight was the truth… Then that day, those harsh words had been something else. Misheard. Misunderstood. Or perhaps… perhaps Kai Arden was a man who carried contradictions within him, both cruelty and kindness, both arrogance and compassion.
Her chest ached. She hated that the thought made her want to believe in him again.
Her mind became a storm. Anger for the cruelty she had witnessed. For the way those words had crushed someone who only wanted to be heard.
Confusion for the way Ethan had spoken, for the way he had painted Kai as a savior.
Fear of what it meant for her. Because if she had misjudged him, if she had allowed her hate to blind her, then what did that say about her? And under it all, buried like a seed trying to break free, Hope.
Hope that maybe Kai Arden was not the monster she had made him out to be. That maybe there was more, much more, hidden behind those unreadable eyes, behind that mask that he always wears.
Her lips parted. She didn't mean to speak, but the words slipped out anyway, a fragile whisper only she could hear.
"Maybe… maybe I don't know him at all."
Her eyes burned. She blinked hard, refusing to let tears fall. She wanted to cling to her hate, to hold it tight like armor. But the pieces were slipping through her fingers, dissolving like smoke.
Was it possible? Was it really possible that the man she had despised, the man she had silently cursed, was the same man who had once stood on a crowded street and told a broken actor to keep going?
Her heart beat wildly, uneven. She didn't have the answer. But for the first time since she had heard that cruel voice, she wanted to find out.
On stage, Ethan Vale bowed again, microphone clutched to his chest, tears still glistening. The audience roared with love, with shock, with admiration.
Alina clapped mechanically, her expression unreadable. Her mind was too loud, too heavy. Inside her, a war raged. Hate. Hope. Confusion. Longing. And beneath it all, one undeniable truth ....She no longer knew who Kai Arden really was. But she wanted to.
Maya, sitting beside her, was too enraptured by Ethan to notice. Her hands clasped together, eyes shining, hanging on to every word. But Ryan wasn't looking at the stage at all. He was watching Alina.
His gaze was steady, sharp, almost calculating. He saw the flicker of disbelief cross her face, the way her lips pressed into a tight line, the confusion storming in her eyes. He saw her walls, the thick, unshakable walls of hate she had built around Kai, begin to crack.
And he almost smiled. Because this...this moment was exactly what he had been waiting for.
Ethan's speech wasn't rehearsed tonight. Ryan had known. He had nudged. He had pulled the right strings at the right time.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee, as though he were the only calm soul in the sea of cheering fans. The applause roared around him, but he barely heard it. His attention was fixed on the girl sitting only a seat away, her face frozen between disbelief and dawning realization.
So you see now, Alina, he thought silently. He isn't who you think he is. He's never been.
Maya finally nudged her, whispering loudly, "Are you okay?" But Alina didn't answer.
Ryan shifted in his seat, his lips curving ever so slightly, but he kept his face neutral, unreadable. He couldn't let her see. Not yet. But inside, he knew this was the first crack. The first shift.
It was his planning. His play. His move in a game he had been orchestrating quietly from the shadows. And as the stage lights glowed warmly on Ethan Vale, pouring his heart out to the audience, Ryan Bennett sat in the dark, unseen, content. Because tonight, Alina Carter's story had changed forever. And Ryan had made sure of it.