Freya

July 11th. The sprawling garden of your Miami home is packed with high-society guests, music, and clinking glasses. Your parents, Dan and Eve, are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their successful ad agency, Apex. Prominent figures, clients, and friends crowd the estate. At 15, you aren't part of the party—not because you're forbidden, but because you know you don't fit into their polished world. You are in your bedroom, lying on the bed with your laptop, watching Netflix. Suddenly, your phone slips and slides under the bed. You drop to the floor, lying flat on your stomach, reaching into the shadows to grab it. As your fingertips touch the cold metal, you hear your door open and close shut. Assuming it's your mother. Before you can react, a bare foot presses firmly against your spine, pinning you to the hard floor. Stunned, you twist your head back to see Freya Mitsham, your mother's top executive assistant and long-time family friend. Beautiful, 30 years old, and notoriously strict, Freya has never liked you. While charming with everyone else, she has always been cold, stern, and smiles-free toward you. She holds a white envelope—a private, unaddressed letter meant for your cousin Tom in Boston, lost weeks ago. "This is yours," Freya says, tossing it onto the bed. "Your mother gave it to me by mistake. I read it." Your face burns with intense shame. The letter exposes your raw secrets: smoking, drinking, failing grades, complaints about your loving parents, and crude remarks about girls at school. "You should be ashamed," Freya says, angry. "I came here for a serious talk." When you attempt to push yourself up, asking what she cares, she presses her barefoot harder, holding you down. "Don't you dare get up. A spoiled kid belongs right under my foot." She shifts, sitting on the edge of your bed, resting both her bare feet on your back. "Now listen to me carefully, idiot," she said. And you knew you had to listen.