Chapter 1
Melissa Brooks woke to the taste of ash in her mouth and sunlight slicing through her silk curtains like an accusation. Her ribs ached, like she’d spent the night chasing shadows, and her sheets—cool, expensive, suffocating—felt more like restraints than comfort.
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Just stared at the ceiling, trying to ignore the emptiness pressing in from all sides of the estate. Ten years since her mother died, and still, this place hadn’t learned how to breathe without her.
She had thought that walking away from this estate all those years ago would bury the pain along with the past. But the moment she stepped back through its gates weeks ago, the memories came rushing in—haunting, vivid, and relentless.
Downstairs, her father would already be seated with his paper, sipping his precision-made coffee, planning which of his empires to nudge next. He would ask, again, what she was doing with her life. And she would lie, again, with a smile so practised it hurt.
Dragging herself out of bed, she padded across the marble floor—cold as guilt—and made her way to the breakfast room. “Good morning, Dad,” she said brightly, her voice as thin and brittle as spun glass.
The financial newspaper lowered an inch. Ernest Brooks studied her with those hawk-like eyes. “You sound tired, Melissa.”
“I’m fine, Father.” Always fine. Always composed. That was the rule.
But when he reached for the one thing he always did—her mother’s name—something inside her flinched.
“Your mother always wanted you to show an interest in the business.”
And there it was. The weight. The ghost of a woman so powerful she still managed to run Melissa’s life from beyond the grave. Her coffee suddenly tasted like soot.
“I’m going for a walk around the gardens, Dad,” she said, not waiting for his reply. Her breath hitched just slightly as she stepped into the morning light, letting the chill air slap her awake. Maybe somewhere between the rosebushes and the sharp scent of jasmine, she’d find something of her mother that hadn’t yet turned to memory.
The gardens had always been her mother’s domain—a place of blooming colour and stubborn life, coaxed into harmony by gentle hands that never stayed still. Now, even in full bloom, the garden felt ghostly, its beauty sharpened by absence.
Melissa trailed her fingers along the velvet petals of a crimson rose. The scent hit her like a memory—rose oil and warm soil, her mother’s laughter caught in the breeze. Her chest tightened. She had no tears left for Jane, but the ache had learned how to settle in her bones like an old injury.
Every corner of this estate had been shaped by two people: her father’s ambition and her mother’s patience. Ernest built it with steel and sweat. Jane softened it with life. When cancer took Jane, it left behind the house—but not the home.
Back then, Melissa had been seventeen, all fury and confusion. Now, she was twenty-seven, polished and poised, but some mornings—like this one—she still felt like a little girl caught between two versions of herself. The one who wanted to make her father proud, and the one who just wanted to disappear.
Her heels clicked on the stone path as she moved deeper into the garden. Somewhere, a robin chirped a tune that sounded too cheerful for her mood. She paused at the old bench beneath the magnolia tree and sat, exhaling slowly.
A few petals fluttered down beside her. The breeze smelled of green things and fading spring. Here, time slowed just enough to pretend. To remember. To ache without an audience.
She closed her eyes. Tried to remember the sound of her mother’s voice—not the voice from photographs and videos, but the real one, the one that told stories in the dark when Melissa had nightmares, the one that hummed while tying back her hair.
She couldn’t recall the tone anymore. Only the feeling it left behind. Warmth. Safety. Something rare and fleeting.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She opened her eyes, startled. A part of her expected it to be her father—some brief reminder, a forwarded article, an invitation masquerading as an order. But the number on her screen was unknown. No name. No ID.
Just one message.
“Your father built an empire of lies. Ready to inherit it?”
Her breath caught.
She read it again. Then again.
The words didn’t change, but the ground beneath her seemed to shift. Her thumb hovered above the message as if by not touching it, she could make it vanish. But it didn’t. It just sat there, pulsing like a secret too loud to be ignored.
Melissa looked around as if someone might be watching her. The garden was empty, as it always was now. No footsteps. No voices. Just the whisper of leaves.
Empire of lies.
Her stomach twisted. Ernest Brooks didn’t make mistakes. He built fortunes, acquired influence, and crushed obstacles with a handshake or a contract. Everything he touched turned to power. And shadows.
She thought of the hushed conversations she’d overheard as a teenager. The strange men in suits came and went without names. The way her mother’s health had deteriorated faster than expected, despite all the specialists and care money could buy.
Questions she’d buried deep years ago stirred in her chest like bees in a jar.
Melissa swallowed hard. Stood slowly. Her fingers trembled just slightly as she locked the phone screen and slipped it back into her pocket.
She didn’t know who sent the message. But they knew her. Knew her father. And knew something she didn’t.
And if there was one thing she hated more than being lied to—it was not knowing the truth.
