Alice's POV
"Wait—" Miles reached for me, but I was already at the door.
"Don't." My voice came out sharp. Hard. "Don't touch me."
He froze, his hand suspended in mid-air. "Alice, please. Let me explain—"
"Explain what? That you've been stalking me for three months? That you knew exactly who I was when you sat next to me in that bar? That you—" My voice cracked. "That you slept with me knowing we're related?"
"We're not—" He stopped, his jaw clenching. "It's not what you think."
"Then what is it?" I demanded. "Tell me right now. No more secrets. No more games."
He stared at me for a long moment, something painful flickering across his face. "I can't."
Those two words shattered something inside me.
"Of course you can't." I laughed, but it came out strangled. "Because this whole thing was a setup. The bar, the conversation, the connection—all of it was fake."
"No." He moved toward me, desperate. "Nothing about last night was fake. What I felt—what we had—"
"Stop!" I held up my hand. "Just stop. I'm done being lied to. Done being used. Derek used me. Lily used me. And now you—" Tears burned my eyes but I refused to let them fall. "I actually thought you saw me. Really saw me. But you were just playing a part, weren't you?"
"Alice—"
I yanked open the door. "Stay away from me. Stay away from my mother. Whatever sick game you're playing, I'm out."
I ran.
Down the hallway, into the elevator, through the fancy lobby where people stared at me—yesterday's clothes, yesterday's makeup, yesterday's stupid dreams. The doorman tried to ask if I needed a cab, but I shoved past him onto the street.
The morning air hit me like a slap. Cold. Sharp. Real.
My phone buzzed. Miles calling. I declined and blocked his number. Then I pulled up the unknown number from last night—the one about my mother—and blocked that too.
I was done. Done with all of it.
The walk home took forty minutes. My feet hurt. My head pounded. But the pain felt good. Real. Not like the fantasy I'd lived in Miles's penthouse where I actually believed someone could want me for me.
Stupid. I was so stupid.
My apartment building looked smaller than I remembered. Sadder. The paint was peeling near the entrance, and someone had left trash bags in the hallway. This was my real life. Not penthouses and mysterious strangers. Just this.
I climbed the stairs slowly, dreading what I'd find. Would Derek be there? Would Lily? Would I have to face them again?
But when I unlocked the door, the apartment was silent.
Empty.
They'd cleared out everything of Derek's—his clothes, his laptop, even the stupid gaming chair he loved more than me. The only thing left was a note on the kitchen counter in his handwriting:
Took my stuff. Lily says hi. Hope you're happy now.
Hope I'm happy? I almost laughed. Almost.
Instead, I walked to my bedroom—the one where I'd caught them—and started packing. Everything I owned fit into three suitcases and two boxes. Twenty-five years of life. That's all I had.
My phone rang. Different number. I almost didn't answer, but something made me.
"Hello?"
"Alice Chen?" A woman's professional voice. "This is Linda Martinez, the executor of your mother's estate. I'm calling because your mother passed away this morning at 6:47 AM."
The world stopped.
"What?"
"I'm so sorry for your loss. Your mother left specific instructions that you be contacted immediately. There are documents you need to sign, and she left you a letter—"
"I can't do this right now." My voice sounded far away. "I need to—I'll call you back."
I hung up.
My mother was dead.
The mother who kicked me out five years ago. The mother who called me a disappointment. The mother I'd spent last night with a stranger instead of going to see.
The mother I'd never get to talk to again.
I slid down the wall, phone clutched in my hand. No tears came. Just this hollow, empty feeling that swallowed everything else.
She died alone. Asking for me. And I wasn't there.
Because I was too busy falling for a man who'd been lying to me from the start.
My phone buzzed. Text from a number I didn't recognize:
Alice, it's James, Miles's assistant. He asked me to tell you that your mother's funeral arrangements have been handled. Everything is paid for. The service is Thursday at 2 PM. He'll stay away if that's what you want, but he thought you should know.
Another text: Also, he wanted me to give you this.
A file downloaded. A voice recording.
I shouldn't have opened it. Shouldn't have pressed play.
But I did.
Miles's voice filled my room—raw and broken in a way I'd never heard it:
"Alice, I know you won't listen to this. I know you hate me. But I need you to know—last night wasn't a lie. Nothing I said was a lie. When I told you that you saved me, I meant it. When I held you, it was real. All of it was real."
A pause. I could hear him breathing.
"I can't tell you everything yet. There are things you need to hear from someone else first. But I swear on my parents' graves—we're not cousins. That text you saw was... complicated. And yes, I knew who you were. I've been looking for you for three months because I promised your mother I'd find you. But falling for you? That was never part of the plan."
Another pause, longer this time.
"Go to your mother's funeral. Read her letter. Then, if you still hate me, I'll disappear from your life forever. But please, Alice. Give her this chance. She loved you. She always loved you. Everything she did—it was to protect you."
The recording ended.
I sat there, staring at my phone, my packed suitcases, my empty apartment. Everything I owned, everything I was, fit into five pieces of luggage. I could leave. Start over somewhere new. Forget Miles, forget my mother, forget all of this.
But I couldn't.
Because he said we weren't cousins. Because my mother apparently loved me. Because nothing made sense and I needed answers.
I needed the truth.
Thursday. The funeral was Thursday. Three days from now.
I could do this. Go to the funeral. Read the letter. Get answers. Then leave and never look back.
Simple.
Except nothing about this was simple.
I pulled up my boss's number at the diner and quit via text. Then I called my other job at the convenience store and did the same. Two jobs gone in two minutes. But I didn't care anymore. I needed time to think. Time to breathe. Time to figure out who Alice Chen really was.
Because apparently, I didn't know.
My phone buzzed again. Another unknown number. Another text.
I was about to ignore it when I saw the preview:
Alice, we need to meet. Your mother wasn't who you think she was. Your father isn't dead. And Miles Ashford—
The message cut off.
I opened it with shaking hands, but there was nothing else. Just those words hanging in the air like a bomb waiting to explode.
My father wasn't dead?
My mother had told me he died in a car accident before I was born. Told me I had no other family. Told me it was just us against the world.
Another lie?
I called the number back. It rang once, then disconnected. When I tried again, it said the number was no longer in service.
What the hell was happening?
I looked around my empty apartment—the place where Derek betrayed me, where my old life died, where I'd been so sure I knew who I was.
But I didn't know anything.
Not about my mother. Not about my father. Not about Miles. Not about myself.
The only thing I knew for certain: three days from now, at my mother's funeral, the truth would finally come out.
The question was—could I handle it?
My phone lit up with one final message. No number. Just words:
Some secrets are kept to protect. Others are kept to destroy. Your mother died keeping both kinds. The funeral will reveal which is which. Come alone. Trust no one. Especially not Miles Ashford.
Then: Your life depends on it.