Chapter 4 | The Nine-Picture Takedown

Outside the glass tower, the sun hit her eyes and she squinted. She stood in the river of Midtown and checked her phone. Her balance read four hundred and thirty-seven dollars, and a heart nobody had frozen.

She laughed out loud. A few pedestrians turned to stare.

"Fine." She said it to no one. "Then I start from four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. The whole way here, I walked it myself anyway."

But her family wasn't done with her.

That same day, Mia published a long essay. Title: To My Beloved Sister. Three thousand tender words about how she ached for Luna, how she cried into her pillow every night, how she begged her sister to come home. The photos were her and the parents, all smiles, the perfect family. It ended: Sister, no matter what you become, I will always love you. The door is always open.

The comments section wept. Angel Mia. The adopted one is more daughter than the real one. Luna is so ungrateful.

Luna read it. She was quiet for a long time.

Then she opened her laptop and pulled up a folder she'd been building for years. The receipts. The screenshots.

She laughed once, short. "Thanks, Mia. I was going to let you keep your dignity. You showed up at my door anyway."

That night she dropped a single post. Nine images. Not one word of text.

Image one: an email from Mia. Sis, I took your proposal. Mom and Dad said you wouldn't use it. I'll turn it in for you. I'll put my name on it.

Image two: a DM from Mia to a gossip account. My sister's unstable. Write more about her meds. I have her medical records (fake is fine, I'll never admit it).

Image three: a security still.

Image four: her, five years ago, falling into the water at her birthday party. And Mia, on the bank, smiling.

Images five through nine: everything Mia had ever stolen. Awards. Slots. Endorsements. Her first boyfriend.

Nine pictures. Each sharper than the last.

Inside three minutes the comments went from huh? to wait to PLOT TWIST to MIA YOU FAKE.

Trending at number two: #MiaSterlingIsTheFake.

Number one was still #LunaSterlingIsCrazy — but the comments underneath had all flipped. Who's actually crazy? How long did she put up with this? So Mia's the unhinged one?

By the next morning, the "gentle perfect sister" brand was ash. The Sterling PR team pulled an all-nighter. Mia's account never posted again. Word was she'd collapsed "ill" at home; her parents, heartbroken, sent out another release saying family matters stay private, Mia is the victim.

Luna read it while she ate cereal out of a pot. The victim. She turned the phrase over. The girl who'd stolen her ideas, fed the press gossip about her, and pushed her into a swimming pool at sixteen — the victim. She should have been angry. Instead she felt only tired, the way you feel tired after finally taking the trash out that's been sitting by the door for a year.

She checked the comments on her nine-image post. The worst ones now had hundreds of replies arguing with themselves. Wait, so she put up with this for years? The water thing — she almost drowned? Mia called a gossip account about her meds? Somebody had already made a compilation video. It had four million views.

Luna saw that release while she was auditioning for a barista job.

"Sorry." She hung up, looked at the cafe manager across the table. "I can't take the shift. My parents just called me a family disgrace in the press. I'm afraid my personal time bomb will blow up your shop."

The manager stared. "...Are you actually that Luna Sterling?"

Luna nodded. "One hundred percent. Want an autograph? Cheap now. Expensive once I'm famous."

The manager blinked. "...What did you say you were starting?"

Luna walked out onto the Brooklyn street and breathed in. On her screen was the headline of her parents' latest release. She swiped it away, opened a blank note, and typed the name, letter by letter.

VELLUNE.

VELLUNE. The brand she was going to build: an adult lifestyle label for the desires polite people didn't say out loud. Season one, a run of lingerie that didn't flatter the male gaze and didn't flatter mainstream morality — it flattered the woman wearing it. Clean cuts, skin-soft fabric. She already had the line.

Wear your own rules.

"All of New York thinks I fell." She pocketed the phone and looked at her reflection in a shop window. "So I'll make falling my business. Since when does a rich girl not get to sell desire?"

That afternoon she ran three fabric suppliers. The first two went pale at her name, mumbled something about being at capacity, and showed her out. The third was a brisk Italian woman who took one look at her, threw a swatch book on the table, and said, "Fine, kid. I'm not afraid of the Sterlings. But let me be clear — cash only. No net terms."

"Why not?" Luna said. "Every other supplier in this city runs net thirty."

"Every other supplier in this city is a coward." The woman — Enza, the sign on the door said — leaned on the counter. "I came over on a plane with four hundred dollars in my shoe and a sewing machine. The Sterlings don't scare me. Their price lists do. Cash. You want soft, you pay soft."

Luna touched the fabric. Silk-modal blend, matte, the kind of thing that felt like nothing against skin. She thought: this afternoon was worth it.

"Three hundred yards." She named a number. "First run. Cash on delivery."

Enza whistled. "You're either very rich or very broke."

"Very broke." Luna pulled out her phone and opened the calculator. "But about to be very on time."

Enza laughed — a short, loud thing — and shook her hand. "I like you. You'll survive. Most rich girls who show up broke cry."

Then she texted a meeting. An investor named Mercer — old-money circle, famous for backing "newsworthy young founders." He had a private club in SoHo.

Luna put on a thrifted black blazer, pinned her hair up, and stood in front of a black door on a SoHo side street.

What she didn't see: at the end of the block, idling against the curb, was a black sedan. The license plate had last been parked outside the Sterling house.

The night she smashed the crest.