The Cold Asphalt
1352 Words
Gravity is a thief. It stole the ground from beneath my feet before I even registered the shove.
My hands scrambled for purchase, fingernails tearing against the rough concrete of the balcony ledge. I didn't scream. Screaming was for people who believed help was coming.
I just stared up at him.
Lysander Thorne stood framed by the neon glow of the Neo-Veridia skyline. The wind whipped his golden hair, making him look like the angel the public adored. But the smile on his face was something else entirely. It was the smile of a predator who had finally finished playing with his food.
"Don't struggle, Vespera," he said. His voice was calm, pitched at that soothing baritone he used to charm shareholders. "It ruins the aesthetic of a tragic accident."
My grip slipped. My shoulders screamed in protest as I dangled twenty stories above the asphalt.
"Why?" I rasped. The wind tore the word from my throat.
He leaned over, resting his elbows on the railing as if watching a parade. He looked bored.
"The audit is next week," he said, checking his watch. A Patek Philippe I had bought him after we closed the Merrivale deal. "Elara needs the liquidity. Your trust fund unlocks upon your death, and frankly, darling, you’ve become... expensive."
"I built this company," I spit out. "I wrote the code. I cooked the books for you."
"Exactly." He reached down. For a second, a foolish, broken part of me thought he was going to pull me up.
Instead, he pried my fingers loose, one by one.
"You know too much," he whispered, his breath smelling of the expensive scotch I’d decanted for him an hour ago. "And a grieving widower polls so much better with the board than a divorced one. Elara thinks the black suit brings out my eyes. What do you think?"
He pried the last finger loose.
"I built you," I screamed, the rage finally overtaking the fear. "I can destroy you!"
Lysander laughed. It was a soft, dry sound.
"You’re just a tool, Vespera. Tools get replaced."
He pushed my forehead with a single finger.
The world tilted.
The wind roared in my ears, a deafening tunnel of sound. The lights of the city—Aethelgard’s glittering jewels—blurred into streaks of violent color. I saw the windows of the empire I had built rushing past me.
Thorne Enterprises. My code. My strategies. My life.
I didn't pray as the ground rushed up to meet me. I didn't think of God.
I thought of the Q3 financial reports stored on the encrypted drive in the wall safe. I thought of the shell companies I had set up for him in the Caymans. I thought of every dirty secret, every bribe, every lie Lysander Thorne had ever told.
*If I survive this,* I thought, a final, impossible spark of defiance burning in my chest. *If there is a hell, I will drag you down to the boiler room with me.*
The asphalt slammed into me.
Then, nothing.
---
Darkness.
Absolute, heavy, suffocating darkness.
Then—air.
It rushed into my lungs with a violence that arched my back off the mattress. I gasped, a ragged, desperate sound that tore at my throat. My hands flew up, clutching at my chest, expecting to find shattered ribs, a caved-in sternum, the wet warmth of my own blood.
Silk.
My fingers dug into cool, slippery silk.
I sat up, heaving, sweat drenching my skin. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, frantic and alive.
*Alive.*
I scrambled backward, tangling myself in the sheets, until my back hit the headboard. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain. Waiting for the paralysis. Waiting for the final fade to black.
But there was no pain. Just the phantom sensation of falling, the lingering vertigo that made the room spin.
I opened my eyes.
Moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating a room I hadn't stepped foot in for three years.
The guest suite at the Thorne Manor.
My old room. Before the marriage. Before the penthouse. Before I signed my life away.
"No," I whispered. My voice shook. "This isn't real. Purgatory shouldn't look like this."
I threw the covers off. My legs were trembling, but they held me. I stumbled toward the full-length mirror in the corner.
The woman staring back at me wasn't the twenty-six-year-old corpse I was supposed to be. She was younger. Her cheeks were fuller, lacking the hollow gauntness of the last year of my marriage. Her platinum blonde hair—a color Lysander insisted on because it made me look "angelic"—fell in perfect, undamaged waves around her shoulders.
I reached out and touched the glass. The reflection touched back.
My heterochromatic eyes—one ice blue, one hazel—stared back wide with shock.
I spun around, searching for a clock. My phone sat on the nightstand. Not the cracked generic model Lysander had forced me to use after he cut off my accounts, but the latest flagship model from three years ago.
I grabbed it. My thumb hovered over the screen.
*Please.*
I pressed the button. The screen lit up, blindingly bright in the dark room.
**September 14, 2024.**
**05:43 AM.**
I dropped the phone. It bounced silently onto the plush carpet.
September 14th.
The morning of the Golden Gala.
The morning Lysander was going to propose on stage in front of the city's elite. The morning I would cry happy tears, sign the engagement papers, and hand over the rights to my trust fund as a "wedding gift."
Laughter bubbled up in my throat. It started low and rough, then climbed into something hysterical. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle it.
I wasn't dead.
I was back.
I walked to the window. Down below, the sprawling gardens of the Thorne estate were perfectly manicured, the hedges shaped into mazes I used to hide in as a child.
Lysander was probably sleeping in the master wing right now, dreaming of the merger I had orchestrated for him, dreaming of the fortune he was about to steal from me. He thought he was waking up to a lamb ready for slaughter.
He had no idea he was waking up to a wolf.
I looked down at my hands. They were steady now. The terror of the fall was receding, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity that settled in my marrow.
I remembered the wind. I remembered his smile. I remembered the exact account numbers for his offshore holdings. I remembered the code for the security backdoor in his flagship software. I remembered every scandal that was about to hit Neo-Veridia in the next three years.
He wanted a tool? I would be a wrecking ball.
A soft knock on the door made me freeze.
"Vespera?"
The voice was muffled, sickeningly sweet. Elara. My stepsister. The woman who needed my assets.
"Are you awake? Mother wants to check your dress fitting before the stylists arrive. We want you to look... presentable."
I stared at the door handle as it began to turn.
The last time this happened, I had panicked. I had rushed to open the door, apologized for sleeping in, and let them dress me in a beige sack that washed out my complexion so Elara could shine in emerald green.
Not this time.
I walked over to the door and clicked the deadbolt into place. The handle rattled against the lock.
"Vespera?" Elara’s voice sharpened, the sweetness cracking just a fraction. "What are you doing? Open this door."
I didn't answer. I turned back to the mirror, tracing the line of my jaw.
Karmic law. That was what the novels always talked about. Those who did evil in the first life must suffer tenfold in the second.
Lysander wanted a show tonight? He wanted a spectacle at the Golden Gala?
I smiled, and for the first time, it reached my eyes. It wasn't an angel's smile. It was the smile of the devil coming to collect a debt.
"Game on," I whispered.
- Writer
