Chapter 4
Chapter 4
At midnight, someone hammered on my apartment door hard enough to shake the chain.
“Mara!” Celeste screamed from the hallway. “Open this door right now!”
I stood barefoot in the dark living room, wearing an old sweater and holding a cup of tea that had gone cold.
The knocking came again.
Harder.
“Mara, I know you’re in there!”
My father’s voice followed, lower and broken.
“Please, sweetheart. Just talk to us.”
Sweetheart.
He had not called me that in three years.
I walked to the door but did not open it.
Through the peephole, I saw Celeste with her hair half-fallen from its perfect gala twist, mascara smudged beneath one eye, emerald gown wrinkled at the waist. My father stood behind her, tie loose, face gray.
Celeste slapped her palm against the door.
“You had no right,” she hissed.
I smiled then.
Not because I was happy.
Because she had finally said the quiet part out loud.
No right.
She had thrown me out of my mother’s hotel.
She had erased my mother’s portrait.
She had spent years treating me like an inconvenience in my own family.
And now she was furious because the law disagreed with her imagination.
I unlocked the chain but kept the deadbolt on.
The door opened two inches.
Celeste leaned forward.
“You will reverse this immediately.”
I looked past her at my father.
“Did you know?”
His mouth trembled.
“Mara…”
“Did you know the hotel was mine?”
He swallowed.
Celeste snapped, “That is not the issue.”
I never took my eyes off him.
May you like
“Yes,” he whispered.
The hallway went silent.
