Outside, the city streets were glittering with holiday cheer. Couples held hands. Kids carried candy canes. Every passerby seemed to be heading home.
Home. That word didn’t mean much to me anymore.
I kept walking. No destination. Just moving.
Somehow, my thoughts drifted back to that night—when the call came about our parents. Plane crash. Routine business trip. Gone.
I’d cried myself to sleep on the living room floor. When I woke, all three of my brothers were curled around me like a fortress.
Asher, brave and gentle, had held me tight and whispered, “Don’t worry, Kaia. You still have us. You’re never alone.”
I wondered if that version of Asher would even recognize himself now.
The sister he’d once sworn to protect? He’d thrown her out like she never mattered.
One week. That’s all I had left.
Then I’d be gone. I hope my brothers can be happy about it. It was not like they wanted me to be her anymore.
…
I was always the smart one. Top of my class. Genius-level in chemistry and physics. While my classmates lined up for jobs at Fortune 500s, I didn’t bother.
I went home.
The Renner family business didn’t exactly make Forbes lists. We dealt in drugs—the kind that didn’t come with a prescription.
And me? I was the youngest chemist in our entire operation. My job was simple: develop new products that could flood the market and rake in the cash.
My brothers never saw the value. To them, being a chemist was a support role. The muscle, the deals, the money-laundering—that’s what really mattered. What good were formulas if no one was moving the product?
They never understood that without me, there’d be nothing to sell.
But I had one foot out the door, and a week left to tie up loose ends. That meant finishing the final product tests in the lab. I buried myself in formulas, flasks, determined to leave with my work complete.
By the time I peeled off my gloves and left the lab, it was well past midnight.
Then I remembered—I still hadn’t cleared out my old room at the mansion.
I hadn’t lived there for years. But I’d never officially moved out either. My things were still tucked away in drawers and closets.
I slipped into the house like a ghost, taking the back stairs up toward my room.
“You look more like a thief than someone who used to live here,” came Asher’s voice, low and flat behind me.
I turned, “Sorry,” I said. “I’m just here to clear out my stuff.”
He folded his arms, staring hard. “You said the other day you were heading out to test new products. Where exactly are you going?”
“I…” My eyes flicked behind him. Sylvie had crept out of the shadows, watching me with innocent curiosity.
“Just the old lab in Cuba,” I said smoothly. “Nothing major.”
“Good.” He nodded once. “Do your job well.”
He turned to go. Sylvie hesitated.
“Kaia,” she whispered, her voice low enough that only I could hear, “how long will you be gone?”
“A long time.” I watched her face brighten like I’d handed her an early Christmas gift.
Asher glanced back. “Sylvie, is Kaia bothering you again?”
“No!” she shook her head, too fast. Then she turned to me with wide eyes and a syrupy smile. “I just don’t want Kaia to leave. And I can’t stay in her room. Please don’t move out…”
“Don’t worry,” I said quietly. “I won’t ask for it back.”
Jace strolled up the staircase, arms crossed and smirking. “Wow. So dramatic. If you’re really leaving, maybe just… leave. Spare us the monologue.”
I didn’t answer. Just turned and walked into my room.
…
The second I stepped inside my bedroom, the truth hit hard.
My childhood sketches were still on the corkboard. A faded family photo sat on the desk. In the corner—my pink tulle princess dress from my seventh birthday, still preserved in plastic like it meant something.
I swallowed hard and got to work. No time for tears.
By the end, I’d packed five boxes. Every trace of me—gone. Even the little pencil marks carved into the wall, tracking my height through the years, had all but erased.
