Moja menadżerka powiedziała, że ​​zapłaci 100 tys. dolarów, żeby mnie już nigdy nie widzieć, po tym jak kryłam ją 23 razy… Ale nie wiedziała, co po cichu przygotowałam.

But one name stopped me.

Gerald.

The investor from breakfast.

I looked up sharply. “Why is his name here?”

Reeves’ expression didn’t change. “We’re not accusing him of anything. Yet. But one of the victims in Phoenix mentioned a ‘Gerald’ at a charity event. Similar profile. Wealthy. Connected. Loud. We’re casting a wide net.”

A memory flashed—Gerald’s voice at breakfast, the way he’d sneered at Nicole, the casual cruelty.

Too much money. Not enough manners.

I felt something shift inside me.

Because I’d always believed the Whitmores were the predators.

But predators rarely hunt alone.

After Reeves left, Rebecca stayed.

She closed her laptop and leaned back. “You look like you just realized the world is uglier than you thought.”

“I already knew that,” I said.

“Then what?”

I stared at the framed headline on the wall.

“I think I just realized… I’m not done.”

Rebecca’s mouth curved slightly. “No. You’re not.”

When she left, I finally called my mother.

She answered on the first ring, breathless like she’d been holding her phone the entire time.

“Bethany?”

“It’s me,” I said.

A pause.

Then her voice cracked. “I didn’t think you would.”

“I didn’t either,” I admitted.

Silence filled the line.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I didn’t respond right away.

Because I wanted to believe her.

But I also wanted to scream.

So I did neither.

Instead, I said, “Tell me the truth, Mom. Just for once.”

She inhaled shakily. “Okay.”

“Why?” I asked.

Two letters. One word. A lifetime behind it.

“Why was I never enough?”

I heard her swallow.

Then, quietly, she said, “Because you reminded me of myself.”

The answer hit me like a slap.

“What?”

“I had dreams,” she said, voice trembling. “Before I married your father. Before Milbrook. Before… life. And then Garrett came along, and he was easy. He fit. He made me feel like I did something right.”

Her breath caught.

“And you,” she continued, “you were always looking at the horizon. Always wanting more. And I… I didn’t know how to love that without feeling like it was judging me. Like it was saying I wasn’t enough either.”

I closed my eyes.

The room felt suddenly too quiet.

“That’s not my fault,” I said.

“I know,” she whispered. “But I made it your problem anyway.”

My throat tightened.

“I gave away Grandma’s necklace,” she said, rushing now, like she had to get the ugliness out before she lost her nerve. “Because I wanted Sloan to like us. I wanted her parents to think we were… refined. Like you said. I wanted it to look like we belonged.”

I stared at my desk.

“And I thought Garrett was the one helping,” she added. “I thought he was… I thought he was the one keeping us afloat. I was proud of him. I bragged. I… I was stupid.”

I let out a slow breath.

“You weren’t stupid,” I said, and it surprised me, because it was true. “You were selfish.”

She flinched, even through the phone.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I was.”

Another long silence.

Then I said, “I’m willing to talk. But we’re doing it on my terms.”

“Anything,” she said quickly.

“I’m not coming to Milbrook,” I said. “Not yet. You want to see me, you come here. We meet in public. We don’t pretend. We don’t perform.”

“I understand,” she said.

“And Mom?”

“Yes?”

“If you try to guilt me,” I warned softly, “I will hang up. I’m not twelve anymore.”

Her voice broke. “Okay.”

I ended the call, hands shaking.

Not from fear.

From the strange grief of finally hearing the truth and realizing it didn’t fix anything.

It only made it real.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

So I did what I always did when the world felt too loud.

I worked.

I walked the Monarch from top to bottom, checking on staff, stopping in the kitchen to taste a new dessert the pastry team was testing, greeting a honeymoon couple in the lobby who looked like they couldn’t believe they were really there.

No one knew who I was.

And I liked it that way.

But somewhere around midnight, as I walked past the ballroom—the same ballroom where Sandra Williams had stood frozen under my screens—I stopped.

The doors were closed, but I could still hear echoes.

Laughter.

Gasps.

The sound of my own boots clicking on marble like a warning.

I stared at the gold lettering on the door plaque.

Monarch Ballroom.

I had built this place.

And yet, in that room, I had felt like a child again.

Small.

Unwanted.

Measured.

I pressed my palm against the door.

Then I turned away.

Because I didn’t want to live inside that moment.

I wanted to use it.

Two days later, I got in my car and drove to Milbrook.

I didn’t tell anyone.

Not Wesley.

Not Rebecca.

Not Garrett.

Not my mother.

It was a private pilgrimage.

The kind you do when you’re finally brave enough to look at the place that taught you how to survive.

The road into town was the same—fields stretching wide, barns leaning like tired shoulders, the smell of damp earth and cut grass.

I rolled down the window.

Air rushed in, and with it came memory.

My stomach clenched.

Because part of me still expected to pull into that town and become eighteen again.

To become the girl with one suitcase and two hundred dollars, pretending she wasn’t scared.

Milbrook’s Main Street looked smaller than I remembered.

The diner still had the same faded sign.

The hardware store still smelled like paint and old wood.

Mr. Henderson’s cows—new cows now, I assumed—grazed behind a fence like they owned the world.

I parked near the cemetery.

Because there was only one place I wanted to go.

The cemetery was quiet, winter-bare, the trees like skeleton fingers against the sky.

I walked past old stones with names I recognized.

Miller.

Crawford.

Henderson.

Then I found her.

Evelyn Burns.

My grandmother.

The woman who had looked at me like I was a future, not a problem.

I knelt in the cold grass and pulled the necklace from my pocket.

It glittered in the weak sunlight, the pendant heavy in my palm.

“Hi, Grandma,” I whispered.

My voice sounded strange in the open air.

“I got it back,” I told her. “I wish you could’ve seen her face.”

I laughed, but it came out rough.

Then my throat tightened.

“I did it,” I said softly. “I built something. I built everything.”

The wind moved through the trees.

It sounded like a sigh.

“I’m tired,” I admitted. “I’m tired of being strong. I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t hurt.”

I swallowed.

“I wanted them to love me,” I said. “And I hate that I wanted it. I hate that part of me still does.”

My eyes burned.

I stared at the name on the stone.

“You were the only one who ever told me I wasn’t too much,” I whispered.

A tear slipped down my cheek.

I brushed it away angrily.

“Anyway,” I muttered, trying to steady myself, “I’m not here to fall apart.”

But I was.

Because grief doesn’t care what you plan.

I sat there for a long time, fingers wrapped around the pendant, breathing in cold air until my lungs stopped feeling tight.

When I finally stood, my knees ached.

I looked around the cemetery.

And I realized something.

I didn’t feel like I was coming home.

I felt like I was closing a chapter.

On the way back to my car, I passed my old high school.

The building looked exactly as it had—brick, plain, functional.

I could almost see myself on those front steps, staring at the world like it was a locked door.

For a moment, I pulled over.

I didn’t get out.

I just sat behind the wheel and watched a group of kids spill out into the parking lot, laughing, shoving each other, oblivious to how quickly life would start demanding things from them.

I wondered if any of them felt like I had felt.

Like they were born with a hunger nobody understood.

I thought of Nicole.

The way she’d walked into my breakfast looking like she wanted to vanish.

Then I thought of myself.

And suddenly, I knew what I had to do.

Back in the city, I called Wesley.

“Bethany,” he answered, relief in his voice like he’d been trying not to panic. “Where are you? I didn’t want to bother you, but—”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I needed air.”

He paused. “Are you safe?”

“Yes,” I said. “And Wesley? I need you to set up a foundation.”

Silence.

Then he cleared his throat. “A foundation.”

“Yes,” I said. “Scholarships. Internships. Training programs. I don’t care what it takes. I want Birch Hospitality to be known for more than hotels.”

Wesley’s voice softened. “Okay.”

“And one more thing,” I added.

“Anything.”

“I want a full review of every investor and partner we’re connected to,” I said. “Every one. I want background checks, financial histories, connections. We’re not letting anyone use my company as cover for their ugliness.”

Wesley was quiet for a beat.

Then: “Understood.”

When I hung up, I sat in my office and stared at the skyline.

I had thought winning looked like revenge.

But maybe winning looked like protection.

Maybe it looked like building doors for people who never got keys.

The next week, the story broke wider.

National outlets picked it up.

Blogs wrote think pieces about it.

People I’d never met sent me messages on social media—some supportive, some cruel, most invasive.

The nickname followed me like a shadow.

The stinky country girl.

At first, it annoyed me.

Then, slowly, it turned into something else.

A brand.

A reminder.

A warning.

Because people underestimated that girl.

And they paid.

One afternoon, I was reviewing renovation plans for one of our smaller properties in Virginia when Wesley knocked and stepped into my office with a look I hadn’t seen on him since the engagement party.

“What?” I asked.

He shut the door. “We have a problem.”

My spine went straight. “Say it.”

“Someone tried to access our reservation system,” he said. “From outside. They weren’t successful, but the attempt was… sophisticated.”

I felt the room cool.

“Do we know who?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. IT is tracing it. But…”

He hesitated.

“But what?”

“We also received a booking request,” he said, “for the Monarch Ballroom. Private event. High budget. Cash up front. The name attached is… Sandra Williams.”

My blood turned to ice.

“She’s in custody,” I said.

“She is,” Wesley agreed. “Which means someone used her name intentionally.”

A chill crawled up my arms.

“This is a message,” I said.

Wesley nodded. “That’s what I think.”

I stared at the framed headline on the wall.

Then I looked back at Wesley.

“Cancel it,” I said.

Wesley’s jaw tightened. “Already did. They called back.”

“What did they say?”

“They didn’t say much,” Wesley admitted. “Just… ‘Tell the owner we remember her.’”

My stomach twisted.

For the first time, fear brushed my ribs.

Not fear for me.

Fear for my staff.

For my guests.

For the people who didn’t sign up to be part of someone else’s game.

I picked up my phone and called Agent Reeves.

She answered on the second ring.

“Reeves,” she said.

“It’s Bethany Burns,” I said. “They’re reaching.”

A pause.

“Tell me,” she said.

I told her everything.

When I finished, Reeves exhaled once, sharp.

“You did the right thing calling,” she said. “They’re testing. Seeing if you’ll flinch. Don’t.”

“I’m not flinching,” I said.

“Good,” she replied. “We’ll increase patrol in the area. And Burns?”

“Yes?”

“Get personal security,” she said. “Not because you’re weak. Because you’re valuable.”

The word valuable landed differently than I expected.

It wasn’t flattering.

It was a warning.

After I hung up, I sat in silence for a long moment.

Then I called a name I hadn’t thought I’d need.

Miles Carter.

He was a former Marine, now head of private security for several high-profile properties in the city. We’d crossed paths at a charity gala years ago. He’d been polite, professional, and terrifyingly observant.

He answered with a voice like gravel wrapped in calm.

“Carter.”

“Miles, it’s Bethany Burns.”

A pause.

“Monarch Bethany Burns?” he asked, amusement flickering.

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need a security consult,” I said. “And I need it discreet.”