Switzerland
The alpine morning unfolded like a painting—mist curling above the emerald slopes, the faint scent of pine drifting through the open windows of the little countryside cottage. Viv stood at the kitchen table, sleeves rolled to her elbows, dusted with flour as she shaped the last golden rings of dough. There weren't enough ingredients for the grand layered cake Daphne had been craving, but Viv had improvised—glazing warm donuts with honey she'd bartered from the farmer down the road.

When she carried the tray out to the veranda, Daphne was already waiting, hair loose from the braid Viv had tied earlier, green eyes glinting in the mellow sun. Viv set the plate down between them, but before Daphne could take one, Viv leaned in, holding it just shy of her lips.
"For making you wait," she murmured, the words low enough to be swallowed by the breeze. Daphne bit into it from Viv's fingers, a soft laugh escaping as honey clung to her lower lip—Viv's thumb brushed it away, lingering just a second too long.

They spent the afternoon delivering the extra donuts to the villagers—elderly couples who waved from their porches, children who darted barefoot down cobblestone paths to grab the warm treats. On the walk back, Daphne's hand stayed in Viv's pocket along with hers, a silent anchor.

By the time they returned, the sun was setting over the silver-blue lake. Inside, the fireplace cast a soft amber glow, shadows flickering along the cottage walls. Daphne curled against Viv on the couch, her legs tangled over Viv's lap, head resting on her chest. Viv said nothing, just let her fingers trace idle, unhurried paths over Daphne's arm, memorizing the quiet warmth in a way that felt almost dangerous—like she was allowing herself to keep it.

Miles away, Lux was nowhere near such peace.

She sat in the velvet half-dark of her living room, one leg bouncing restlessly, a glass of untouched wine sweating on the table. The woman's words still echoed like shards in her skull, each repetition more infuriating than the last.

Alexine. That name again—and yet not a name at all. Lux could still see the curve of her mouth in prison, the calm, deliberate way she shielded Pen. She'd never bought the story entirely, but the thought that she might have been played—by her—lit a hot, sour fury in her chest.

She began retracing memories in slow motion: the brawl in the yard, Alexine taking that hit and bleeding for Pen, the staged sisterly camaraderie with that other girl. The more she picked at it, the more it felt like an elaborate theater staged right in front of her... and she had been sitting in the front row, oblivious.

For a moment, Lux's lips curled in a bitter smile. She could tell Pen—oh, the look on Pen's face when she heard. She imagined the fracture, the betrayal, the shock. Delicious. But no. Not yet. She wouldn't waste this card on a half-formed suspicion. No, she would pull apart Alexine's truth thread by thread, until she had the whole picture. Then—then—she would deliver it to Pen in one fatal blow.

For now, she would keep her silence. But the idea was there, glowing like a coal in her chest. And Lux Donnelly never let her grudges die quietly.

Lux leaned back into the velvet embrace of her armchair, eyes fixed on the faint ripples of wine in her glass. She hadn't taken a sip. The liquor smelled faintly of berries and oak, but right now it was nothing but a mirror—reflecting her own thin-lipped scowl back at her.

Alexine.

She let the name roll through her mind like a coin down a stairwell—clink, clink, clink—each step a memory, each sound sharper than the last.

Prison yard. The wind had been cold that day, slicing through the thin orange fabric. She remembered the scuffle—two women shoving, a curse in Spanish—then Alexine's sudden pivot, taking a hit meant for Pen. The crack of knuckles against bone. The way she staggered, blood slipping from her lip... and yet she had smiled.

Lux could see it now, in slow motion: not a protective instinct, but a calculated performance.
A deliberate wound, deep enough to sell the story.

Her mind leapt again—cafeteria trays clattering, Alexine sliding her own bread roll toward Pen without a word. The air between them tight with some unspoken pact. And that other girl, the one with the steel-blue stare... always hovering just close enough to seem incidental, but never really incidental.

Lux pressed her thumb into the glass stem until her knuckle whitened.
This wasn't kindness. This was choreography.

She paced to the window, city lights glittering like a scatter of broken glass beneath her. "If you're a liar," she murmured to the dark, "you're a good one. But not good enough."

The first step would be Pen. Not to confront her—no, that would spook the prey. She'd drip information into their conversations, carefully measured, just enough to make Pen doubt without realizing she was doubting. A question here, a story there. A slow poison.

And while Pen stewed in the quiet acid of suspicion, Lux would dig. She had names, faces, dates burned into her brain. Somewhere in that tangle, Alexine's thread would snag. And when it did, Lux would pull—until the whole thing unraveled in her hands.

She smiled faintly at the thought, a curve of satisfaction touching her lips for the first time all night.

Not yet. Not tomorrow. But soon.

Lux could wait.
Obsession had made her very, very patient.

The day after, the penthouse windows framed the city like a jagged crown, each skyscraper lit in cold white and gold. Lux sat in the leather armchair by the floor-to-ceiling glass, a glass of untouched wine dangling from her fingers. Across from her, the woman she'd been cultivating—an elegant, silver-haired ex-diplomat with a voice like velvet and a smile that never reached her eyes—was speaking.

Lux should have been listening. The woman was giving her exactly what she wanted: names, dates, travel manifests—threads that could unravel Vivienne Blythe Wrenford's carefully spun life. But Lux's mind snagged on something else entirely.

On the coffee table between them lay a phone, unlocked for only a moment while the woman checked a message. Lux had seen the photo.
Viv. In the cottage. Sitting on a weathered veranda with Daphne. Flour on her hands. Daphne biting into something Viv was holding, their faces too close.

Lux smiled, but it was the kind that felt like barbed wire against her teeth.
"You're sure she's still in Switzerland?" she asked, voice silk over steel.

The woman nodded, leaning in to share another detail—but Lux was no longer hearing her. Her eyes drifted to the skyline again, to the glittering distance that felt like a locked cage. She tapped her nail against the glass of the wine glass, slow and deliberate, imagining it was Viv's heartbeat she was controlling.

If Viv thought she could vanish into some forest fairytale with her perfect little girlfriend, Lux would make sure the fairytale rotted from the inside.