Prologue
I’ve ruined many things in my life. Men. Empires. Legacies that should have outlived me.
But I’ve only ever broken one woman. And the cruelest part is this — she walked into my hands already splintering.
People say I manipulate. Influence. Coerce.
They’re wrong.
All I’ve ever done is uncover what was already waiting beneath the surface. Hunger. Ambition. The kind of darkness that clung to you, a heavy cloak before you could even reach for it.
That’s why I saw her, why I recognized her before she ever lifted a camera to her eye… before she ever spoke my name with that mixture of defiance and trembling curiosity.
She thinks she found me. Most people need to believe in accidents. They need to believe they’re the ones steering their own descent.
But the truth is more straightforward. More ruthless.
She stepped into a story I’d already written. A story with her name carved into the spine long before she ever entered my city — or my life.
And she still doesn’t understand this part: I didn’t choose her because she was fragile. I chose her because she was inevitable.
The ending was always going to belong to her. The only question was how many of us she’d destroy on her way there.
