~Narrator’s~

“She might be her sister, you know. Adele. To Jennie. Same eyes. Same damn nose. Just softer.”

The words fall like knives into the quiet of the penthouse study.

They’re muttered by some distant cousin—Miriam, maybe? Or that second-tier executive’s daughter, who always hangs around for gossip. She says it while pouring tea like she isn’t detonating a bomb in the middle of the Cuss Empire.

Reo is standing near the glass wall, with one of his hands gripping the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles turn ghostly.

“What did you just say?” he asks.

Miriam, or whoever she is, blinks. “It’s just a rumor I heard...