Chap­ter 32 begins with a jolt of pain and regret. My skull throbbed like it had been split open from the inside, and the nau­sea ris­ing in my stom­ach felt thick and threat­en­ing. I turned to the side, wait­ing to throw up, but noth­ing came. Instead, I choked and spat onto the floor, star­ing at the blood, won­der­ing how I had failed to see this unrav­el­ing. Bea had always been the sharpest per­son in any room. Of course, she wouldn’t stay trapped for­ev­er. And I should’ve real­ized it—should’ve planned for more than just a locked door and a clean sto­ry. Pan­ic had dri­ven my deci­sion, not strat­e­gy.

Lying there, bust­ed and bro­ken on the floor, I tried to move, but my ribs screamed and my arms gave out. Down­stairs, I could only imag­ine what Bea and Jane were doing—calling the police, maybe? Toast­ing to my down­fall? I almost hoped it was some­thing sim­ple like that, because any­thing else was worse. The idea of the two of them form­ing some alliance? That ter­ri­fied me more than prison ever could. Jane had always seemed inno­cent, but she wasn’t stu­pid. Bea, on the oth­er hand, was nev­er inno­cent. And now they were both loose, and I was help­less, exact­ly where I’d nev­er allowed myself to be before.

It hadn’t start­ed this way. I hadn’t gone to Hawaii look­ing for a tar­get. Bea show­ing up had been a fluke. But when Char­lie spot­ted her, sip­ping a drink near the pool, every­thing changed. Char­lie had rec­og­nized her instantly—“That’s Bea Mason,” she said, like it meant some­thing. To her, it did. To most women, Bea was a name, a brand, a sym­bol of rein­ven­tion. I hadn’t under­stood the hype until I did a lit­tle research. Self-made. Two hun­dred mil­lion. An empire built from home decor and South­ern nos­tal­gia. She wasn’t just wealthy. She was pow­er­ful. And pow­er had always pulled me in like grav­i­ty.

Char­lie was rich, yes, but it was old money—structured, super­vised, lim­it­ed. Her fam­i­ly gave her just enough to sparkle but nev­er enough to actu­al­ly burn any­thing down. Bea, though, had real cap­i­tal. Her own name on the bank accounts. I start­ed to see the poten­tial, the gap she might have in her life, the open­ing I could fill. And when I final­ly approached her—casual, friend­ly, curious—I did it with the kind of con­fi­dence that comes from study, not luck. I knew what to say, how to lean in, how to make it seem like I belonged in her orbit.

Char­lie had fad­ed from my mind quick­ly after that. I left the resort with­out much fuss, packed my things, and rebooked a stay some­where clos­er to where I sus­pect­ed Bea had gone next. It wasn’t stalk­ing. It was strate­gic tim­ing. Bea had men­tioned her love for beach mar­kets and hotel bars. I found the places she’d like­ly go and wait­ed. Even­tu­al­ly, our paths crossed again, and I made sure it felt organ­ic. I didn’t force it—I gave her just enough curios­i­ty to approach me. That was always the trick. Not chas­ing. Let­ting peo­ple think they were choos­ing.

The thing is, Bea was sharp­er than I gave her cred­it for. She didn’t fall for flat­tery or gim­micks. What got her was sincerity—crafted, of course, but sin­cere enough to feel real. I told her about my mod­est upbring­ing, my strug­gles with pur­pose, how I admired what she’d built. I said I want­ed to cre­ate some­thing of my own. That I wasn’t intim­i­dat­ed by strong women. She respond­ed well to that. She want­ed some­one who saw her as a part­ner, not a com­peti­tor. And I played that role flaw­less­ly.

But the fur­ther in I got, the hard­er it became to sep­a­rate the per­for­mance from real­i­ty. Bea fas­ci­nat­ed me. She was poised, cal­cu­lat­ing, deci­sive. But there were cracks—moments when she drank too much, when she looked too long at noth­ing, when she flinched at cer­tain ques­tions. I chalked it up to stress. Maybe trau­ma. I didn’t real­ize then that beneath all that South­ern pol­ish was some­one who’d done what­ev­er it took to sur­vive. Includ­ing get­ting rid of peo­ple who got in her way.

Lat­er, when she told me about her mother’s death, the ver­sion I got was sanitized—tragic, acci­den­tal, sad. I didn’t ask for more. I didn’t want to know. I had seen the pub­lic records—no charges, no sus­pi­cions. But there was a small voice inside me that kept ask­ing ques­tions. And when Blanche hint­ed at the truth, the time­line made more sense than I was will­ing to admit. That’s when I start­ed think­ing: if Bea was capa­ble of that, then what else had she done?

Even know­ing all this, I hadn’t intend­ed for it to spi­ral like this. Lock­ing her away wasn’t part of some mas­ter plan. It was des­per­a­tion. I want­ed to pro­tect the com­pa­ny. I want­ed to pro­tect myself. But deep down, I also want­ed to pro­tect Bea—from the out­side world, from her worst impuls­es, and from the con­se­quences I knew she wouldn’t be able to out­run.

Now, bleed­ing on the floor, every fan­ta­sy I’d built is col­laps­ing. Bea is free. Jane might know the truth. And all I can do is wait and won­der which of them will come through the door first—and whether it’ll be with help or with vengeance.