"Why didn't you come to us?" she asked, letting her voice crack perfectly—real distress, real concern, the Maya he knew. "We were right there. Looking for you. I had medics on standby. You could have just—"

"Because I don't want anyone else to know what happened."

[PHEI'S BATHROOM]

The words hung heavy in the steam.

"When I hit back," Phei continued, "I want it to be personal. Between me and them. Not public. Not a spectacle."

"But Sierra—"

"If she knows, would burn their houses down by dawn. You know she would."

Maya was quiet.

She did know.

"She'd drag her entire family into it," he said. "Then it's Legacy war—political, public, the kind that destroys everything it touches."

"She'd want to protect you."

"She'd want revenge. There's a difference." He shifted, wincing as his ribs protested. "And then her family will look at me and see the nobody. The charity case. The temporary toy. They'd tell her to cut her losses and find someone suitable."

"That's not—"

"It's exactly how they'd see it. I'm not worth starting a war over more than seven founding families, Maya. Not to them."

"I wouldn't tell you to move on."

The words slipped out before she could cage them, raw and honest.

A beat of silence.

"I just mean—" She made a small, frustrated sound. "I'm not explaining this right. What I'm trying to say is you matter. Not as someone's boyfriend or someone's enemy or someone's anything. You matter because you're you, and I don't think... my—"

"Maya."

She stopped.

"I know what you're trying to say."

"Do you? Because I'm not sure I know what I'm trying to say. Words are hard. Feelings are harder. The combination is basically impossible—"

"You're saying you'd go to war for me."

Silence.

"Yeah." Her voice was small, almost shy—the rambling disaster girl peeking through the composure like sunlight through storm clouds. "I guess I am."

[MAYA'S VAN]

I'd burn Paradise to ash for you.

I'd salt the earth where their mansions stand and dance barefoot in the ruins, laughing while their legacies crumbled to dust.

But you don't need to know that yet.

Maya's expression hadn't changed. Still that soft, patient stillness. Still that composed elegance that would have baffled anyone who'd only ever seen her trip over air or reduce cookie dough to charcoal briquettes.

But inside—inside, the mask was flawless, and the creature beneath it was already rewriting the future in blood-red ink.

The Legacies think they're untouchable. Think their money and their names and their founding-family arrogance make them gods in this gilded little fiefdom.

They don't know about me.

Nobody does.

Her family's wealth and power didn't splash around in Paradise's shallow pond. It swam in oceans older than countries—quiet, endless, the kind that bought governments for pocket change and erased problems before anyone noticed they existed.

She had buried it deep. For years.

The stammering, silver-haired mess who couldn't finish a sentence without apologising. The girl Sierra now dismissed as a "walking bakery disaster" and Maddie affectionately dubbed "adorably unhinged."

Perfect camouflage.

Let them laugh.

Let them underestimate.

When I move, they won't even see the blade until it's buried in their throats.

No one touches my Phei.

[PHEI'S BATHROOM]

"Let's be honest about something." Phei's voice had gone quieter, rawer, like the water had finally soaked through some of the armor. "This isn't the first time the Legacies have pulled shit like this. They've kidnapped people before. Beaten them. Killed them, probably, and buried it so deep no one ever dug it up. Money buys silence. Power buys everything else."

"I know."

"The only time anything sticks in Paradise is Legacy against Legacy. Equal firepower. Mutually assured destruction. But me against seven of them?" A bitter laugh that cost him a wince. "I'm just the moving target they use for practice."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Keep it between us. Heal. Wait. And when the time's right, handle them myself. In the dark. Where no one can see."

"Alone?"

"I'm used to alone."

"That's a terrible answer."

"It's an honest one."

Maya went quiet. He could hear her thinking—could feel that restless, brilliant rambling mind racing through possibilities like a blade through silk.

"Can I say something?" she asked finally.

"You usually do. Permission's just a formality with you."

"Fair." A soft exhale. "I'm going to say it anyway. You called me. Not Sierra. Not Maddie. Me! And you're telling me the truth—the real, ugly truth, not the polished version you fed them. I don't know what that means yet, but I know it means something. And I'm not going to pretend it doesn't just because it's messy and complicated and—"

"Maya."

"—right, shutting up now, Phei, please. My point is: when you're ready. When you decide it's time to move against them. Call me. I'll be there."

"You don't even know what I'm planning."

"Doesn't matter."

"It could get ugly."

"I grew up in Downtown Paradise, remember? Ugly and I go way back. It's practically family."

"Maya—"

"I'm not going to tell anyone," she said, voice steady now, soft but unbreakable. "I'm not going to charge in and start swinging. But I'm also not going to sit here pretending I didn't hear what you told me.

Or that I don't have resources that could help when you need them. She said to herself. "Whenever you're ready. I'll be there. That's all."

[PHEI'S BATHROOM]

Phei had no words for a long moment.

Didn't know what to do with the feeling swelling in his chest—warm, sharp, almost painful in its intensity.

"Why?" he asked finally, voice rough.

"Why what?"

"Why would you—" He stopped. Tried again. "You barely know me. You have zero reason to risk—"

"I know you better than you think."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got right now." A soft laugh, self-deprecating and fond. "Maybe I'll come up with a better one someday. But for now… you're not alone, Phei. Even if you want to be. Even if you think you have to be."

She let it settle.

"You're something else, Maya Scarlett."

"I really am. Mostly anxiety, catastrophic baking skills, and poor impulse control. But occasionally it works out."

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