The next morning, sunlight barely pierced the curtains, but Sienna was already awake. Her hands hovered over the edge of the desk, lingering over the file that had arrived while she slept. She hadn't opened it yet. Not because she was afraid of what it might say but because she knew.
The folder was plain, unmarked. No logo. No indication of origin. But inside, the contents whispered the truth she had spent years hiding from herself.
She took a deep breath, feeling Cyrus's presence in the apartment even though he was still asleep on the bed. He hadn't said anything after last night hadn't needed to. But she felt him there, solid, tethering her when the world still threatened to slip away beneath her feet.
The first page was the usual: a summary of her parents, their backgrounds, their last known movements. Then the files diverged. There were letters, receipts, bank transfers, and finally… the video.
Sienna's fingers shook as she pressed play.
The screen lit up with her supposed parents, laughing casually over wine in the living room of some sprawling estate. A man and a woman she had known as home. But their eyes held something she had never noticed as a child sharp, calculating, cold.
Then the conversation shifted.
"…Make sure it's clean," the man said, tone as casual as ordering breakfast. "They can't know. I don't want mistakes."
The woman nodded, smiling. "We've handled worse. The people will think it's an accident.
Sienna felt the air leave her lungs. Her stomach dropped as if gravity had decided she wasn't worthy of standing.
"They will be gone," the man said. "And no one will remember them. It's like they never existed."
It clicked the quiet evenings, the whispered phone calls, the vague unease she had never been able to name. Every instinct she had buried under years of love and fear now screamed in her skull: they were not her parents. Not really. They were monsters wearing masks she had been taught to trust.
Her hand went to her mouth, and for a moment, she thought she might collapse. But she didn't. She had learned to survive worse. She had learned to act.
The folder included coordinates. Names. A meeting set in the outskirts of the city. A trap? Possibly. But the rage building in her chest refused to wait.
"Who sent you this?" She heard Cyrus say behind her" she turned to him she could see the pain and guilt in his eyes. That's when it hit her.
"You...knew"
"Sienna... I" he said trying to come closer but I pulled back.
It was no wonder he kept saying all those things that made no sense no wonder her approached. She finally understood why he said he had been watching her for long.
Sienna left the apartment without a word.
The city blurred past her as she drove, the storm from last night replaced by a brittle, electric cold. Her mind played back the video over and over, each repetition stripping away the illusion of safety she had grown up with.
When she arrived, the house as always felt like a prison. The kind of place you never want to step in.
Her heart hammered, but she forced herself to steady her breathing. One step. One decision. One truth at a time.
The door opened before she could knock.
They were there. Her so-called parents. And the people who had orchestrated the murder of her real ones.
The smiles were still there. But this time, Sienna didn't see warmth. She saw lies. Cold, deliberate, practiced lies.
She stepped inside, letting the door click shut behind her.
"Hello, Sienna," her "mother" said, voice syrupy. "We've been expecting you."
Sienna's gaze didn't waver. "Not for long," she said softly.
And for the first time in her life, she felt that sick, delicate thing inside her fear twisted into something sharper, heavier, more useful: control.
The air in the room shifted. The past was catching up, and she was ready to meet it head-on.