Page 138 of Her Soul to Own

He does.

Fiona watches the entire exchange, then turns back to me, her expression unreadable. She studies me like I’m the headline she hasn’t written yet, calculating, always a beat ahead. “You don’t usually reach out,” she finally says. “And never for lunch. So either you’re incredibly lonely or dangerously serious.”

I pull the folder from my bag, the matte leather cool beneath my fingertips, and slide it across the table to her. “Both,” I answer.

Fiona flips it open without hesitation. Her eyes move quickly, scanning the copies of my mother’s hidden archive. The trust agreements, the shell companies, the offshore transactions, the unfiled depositions from employees who mysteriously disappeared, and, of course, the personal entries from my mother’s journal that she never got to release.

As she reads, her expression shifts from curiosity to something far darker. “This isn’t just corruption,” she whispers. “This is generational rot.”

“He doesn’t just control companies, Fiona. He controls people. And when they stop being useful, he makes them disappear.”

Fiona shuts the folder carefully, then folds her fingers together like a priest about to deliver the last rites. “You’re either starting a war or writing your own obituary.”

I meet her gaze without blinking. “Why not both?”

Her smirk curves again, but there’s respect behind it now. “You know if I run this, your father’s not the only one who’ll burn. This will ignite everything. Corporate boards, political backers, international assets…”

“Good. They stood by him. They profited off him. Now, they can burn with him.”

Fiona’s words sit between us like the loaded gun it is. Then, she lifts her glass and takes a slow sip of bourbon. “I’ll publish it,” she says softly. “But once it’s out, there’s no running.”

“Good thing I’m not running anymore then.”

Her lips part, about to say something else, but she pauses as her gaze flicks over my shoulder. More eyes are watching us. The vultures are still circling. “You’ve got guts, Lyra Vane,” she says. “But guts don’t keep you alive.”

“No,” I reply, my voice calm yet sharp. “But rage does.”

We finish quickly. I leave her with the folder, a time bomb wrapped in black leather, and walk back out through the sea of whispers and sidelong stares like a queen walking through a battlefield. Every step feels heavier, but also sharper. The air outside is crisp and freezing now, and it bites at my skin as if the world itself knows what’s about to come.

When I arrive back at the estate, the house feels different. Silas’s men are everywhere now, quiet, watchful, and tense. The air inside still carries the faint metallic tang of blood from the night of the breach, and my heels echo through the marble as I head straight for the study.

I kick off my shoes and let my bare feet touch the white marble as I head straight for the balcony.

The cool evening air hits me the second I slide the doors open. It carries a faint hint of burning cedar from the estate grounds, but under it, there's something sharper—a kind of emptiness that settles in my chest and won’t move.

The city lights glitter below like a bed of stars that don’t give a single fuck about who lives or dies tonight. And neither do I, if I’m being honest.

I pull my phone from my pocket and stare at it for a long moment. Notifications still flood the screen—comments, reactions, and media alerts. The vultures never rest, and every ping feels like another needle beneath my skin, so I start deleting.

Instagram. Deleted.

TikTok. Deleted.

X. Deleted.

Every app, every account, every carefully curated lie I’ve lived and sold, gone.

With each deletion, the emptiness inside me grows, but it somehow feels cleaner. Like I’m peeling away layers of dead skin. Layers that were never mine to begin with.

When the last app vanishes, I stare at the blank home screen. My thumb hovers for a second before I swipe into the burner platform Noah built for me. Secure, isolated, neutral ground.

The interface is brutally simple. No filters. No hashtags. No validation machines.

Just the truth.

My heart pounds as my fingers hover over the keyboard. The words come faster than I expect, pouring out from that hollow part of me that’s been waiting for this moment longer than I want to admit, so I type, “I’m not an influencer anymore. I’m not your aesthetic. I’m not your fantasy. I’m Lyra Isola Vane, daughter of the woman you forgot, and I’m here to remind you.”

Then, I attach the photo Noah found buried in my mother’s old archive. It’s my mother in 1993 with her hair wild in the wind as she holds a protest sign that reads, “Luxury without conscience is just greed.”

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