Miu's POV

The week following that intense and heartbreaking talk with Lingling was a master-class in high stakes theater.

True to her word, Lingling was the perfect refreshing partner. We appeared at two gala fundraisers and a press conference for the Siriluck-Taechamongkalapiwat merger. 

The first performance was the Annual Emerald Gala at the Waldorf Astoria. It was a sea of black ties, stiff silk, and people who traded secrets like currency. Lingling and I arrived in her convertible, the valet whisking the car away as the paparazzi bulbs flashed in a rhythmic, blinding strobe.

To the cameras, we were the vision of a new era. I wore a backless gown of deep obsidian, and Lingling was a dream in shimmering champagne. She played the part of the devoted partner with a precision that was terrifying. She leaned in to whisper jokes in my ear that weren't jokes at all, and her hand stayed firmly on the small of my back, guiding me through the crowd of investors and aunties who cooed over our elegant beauty.

"Smile, Miu," she whispered as we posed for the Tatler photographer. Her voice was pleasant, but her eyes were dead. "The bank representatives are watching. Give them the look that they paid for."

I smiled. My jaw ached from the effort. Every time she touched me, I felt the phantom weight of her confession in the car. We are both architects of our own misery.

The moment the gala ended, the moment the tinted glass of her car rolled up and cut us off from the paparazzi, the lovey-dovey smiles didn't just die. They dissolved into something much more exhausting.

Lingling didn't pull away. Instead, she leaned her head back against the leather headrest, closing her eyes. She didn't reach for her phone. She reached for my hand, her grip loose but desperate, as if she were checking to see if I was still made of flesh and bone instead of obsidian.

"You were perfect tonight," she murmured, her voice weary. "Everyone thinks we're the most stable foundation in the city. My father already messaged me about the 'synergy' he saw in the photos."

"Ling..."

"Don't," she said, her eyes still closed. "Don't apologize for being good at the lie, Miu. We agreed to this. Lights on, remember?"

She finally turned her head to look at me, her gaze tracing the line of my jaw with a sadness that made my chest tighten. "But I could feel you drifting. Every time a waiter walked by with a silver tray, you looked at the reflection to see if it was her. Every time the doors opened, you breathed a little faster. You're here with me, but you're hunting for someone else."

I didn't deny it. I couldn't. I just squeezed her hand back, a hollow gesture of gratitude for a loyalty I was currently betraying in my mind. "I can't let her only gift be that watch, Ling. I can't let that be the only thing she remembers about this year."

Lingling let out a soft, jagged breath and pulled her hand away, finally picking up her own phone to mask the hurt. "Then find whatever it is you're looking for. Buy her a miracle if you can find one. Just remember, once you give it to her, the performance gets a lot harder to maintain. You aren't just buying a gift, Miu. You're buying an express ticket to your grave. And we're all sitting in the middle of it."

I looked out the window as the Bangkok neon blurred past. I wasn't looking at my calendar. I was looking at the private messages from Elias, at the blurred photos of 1950s German engineering that represented the only truth I had left.

The second event blurred into the first so seamlessly that I almost forgot where one performance ended and the other began.

It was a charity auction for coastal preservation, held in a glass atrium overlooking the Chao Phraya. Everything was white and blue and aggressively benevolent. Lingling wore ivory this time, her hair pulled back into something severe enough to suggest purity but expensive enough to imply power.

We stood onstage together while a representative spoke about sustainability, about legacy, about preserving the future for generations not yet born. Lingling's fingers laced through mine with practiced intimacy, her thumb brushing a slow, reassuring arc against my knuckle.

"Smile," she murmured again, softer this time. "This crowd prefers sincerity."

I smiled.

Somewhere in the audience, my father nodded approvingly. Somewhere else, Mak leaned in to whisper something to Lena, his hand resting possessively at her back.

I felt the familiar tightening in my chest.

The irony wasn't lost on me. We were auctioning the illusion of preservation while quietly dismantling everything real.

In the days that followed, the office became a minefield. I found myself taking the long route to the executive lifts just to pass Lena's glass-walled office. It was a compulsion, a gravitational pull I couldn't resist.

One afternoon, I saw her through the transparency. She was standing over a sprawling blueprint of the East Wing, her hands pressed flat against the table. She wasn't moving; she looked like she was trying to hold the entire building up with her own weight, as if a wrong move might send it all crashing down. 

I watched her for five full minutes, observing. Her shoulders were hunched, a tension radiating from her that was almost visible.

She looked up then, her eyes meeting mine through the glass. For a second, the formidable Director vanished. She looked small. Frail. Like the girl who had once told me she hated the way skyscrapers blocked the sunset. I wanted to walk in, to tell her about the No. 105, to tell her that I was bringing her a way to see again, a way to remember.

But then Mak walked in behind her, draped a heavy, proprietary arm over her shoulder, and the steel shutter came down. She blinked, smoothed her hair, and became the Director again, her posture stiffening into the familiar poise. I turned away, the invisible thirty-five million dollar weight in my pocket feeling heavier than ever. My stomach twisted with a mix of fury and desperate longing.

The real work happened in the cracks of the day.

I found myself huddled in the darkened corner of the estate's private gym at 3:00 AM, the air smelling of rubber and cold iron. I was on an encrypted line with Elias, the dealer in Berlin who had become my only confidant in this madness.

I wasn't looking for just any camera at all. I was looking for the Leica 0-Series. The prototype. The ghost of 1923.

I remembered Lena in Chiang Mai, crouched in the early morning light, adjusting her lens with reverence, not haste. The way she'd once told me that good photographs weren't taken, they were waited for.

"This isn't about rarity," I told Elias, my voice quieter now. "It's about origin. Before cameras became commodities. Before images were optimized and branded and sold."

I swallowed. "Before seeing became a transaction."

"The owner in Vienna is insulted that you even asked, Miu," Elias whispered over the encrypted line. "He is one of the wealthiest men in Europe. He doesn't need your money. He wants to be buried with that camera. It's the No. 105....the inventor's personal prototype."

"Everyone has a price, Elias," I said, staring out at the Bangkok skyline. "If he won't sell for fifteen million, offer him thirty. If he won't sell for thirty, tell him I'll buy the auction house he uses and delist his entire collection."

"Thirty million dollars?" Elias sounded breathless. "Miu, for a camera? You could buy a fleet of private jets. You could buy an island."

"I don't want an island," I snapped. "I want that rare piece item. That camera is the reason we see the world the way we do. It's the origin point. Lena lives her life in blueprints and structure....I want to give her the very first vision."

"You're insane," Elias muttered.

"I'm a Taechamongkalapiwat," I corrected him. "We don't buy things, Elias. We acquire them. Get it done. I want it in Bangkok by the twenty-seventh. Use a private security transport. No paper trails."

****

Elias didn't call back on the encrypted line.

That was the first thing that told me something had gone wrong.

Instead, my secure phone lit up with a Vienna number I hadn't saved. No name. No warning. Just the quiet vibration against the marble countertop of the estate kitchen, where dawn was beginning to stain the windows a pale, dishonest blue.

I stared at the screen for three full seconds before answering.

"Talk," I said.

"Miu," Elias said, and I could hear it immediately, the tightness in his voice, the way his breath clipped at the edges. "You need to listen very carefully."

I leaned back against the counter, the cold stone biting through the thin silk of my blouse. "You said that yesterday. Is the owner still insulted, or have we moved past pride and into greed?"

A pause.

"He's agreed to release it."

The relief came sharp and immediate, a dangerous rush that made my pulse spike. I closed my eyes, already cataloguing logistics in my head, transport windows, customs bypasses, private security rotation.

"Good," I said. "Name the terms."

"That's the problem," Elias replied quietly. "There are... conditions."

I opened my eyes.

Outside, the gardens were still wet from the monsoon rain, the hedges trimmed into perfect obedience. Everything about my life was designed to look controlled, orderly, inevitable.

"What kind of conditions?" I asked.

"He won't sell directly," Elias said. "Not on paper. The camera has been tied up in a private trust for decades. If it suddenly appears in a Taechamongkalapiwat collection, it will raise questions. Journalists. Archivists. People who care very deeply about provenance."

"Then route it through three shells and a foundation in Luxembourg," I said flatly. "You know how this works."

"Yes," Elias said. "But that's not enough anymore."

Something in my chest tightened.

"There's another buyer," he continued. "Anonymous, for now. European. Old money. They've been watching the same object for years, waiting for the owner to die. Your offer flushed them out."

I let out a slow breath through my nose. "Then outbid them."

"That's just it," Elias said. "They aren't bidding."

Silence stretched between us, thick and dangerous.

"They don't want to own it," he went on. "They want to exhibit it. Loan it to a museum. Turn it into history instead of memory."

My fingers curled against the stone.

"No," I said softly. "That camera doesn't belong behind glass."

"That's exactly what they believe it does," Elias replied. "And they have influence. Legal reach. The kind that doesn't care about money as much as legacy."

I pictured it then, the Leica under museum lights, sterile and untouchable, stripped of the intimacy that made it sacred. A relic instead of a witness.

"How much time do we have?" I asked.

"Hours," Elias said. "Maybe less. The owner is... wavering. He likes your conviction, but he's afraid of what happens after. He wants assurances."

"Assurances of what?" I snapped.

"That it disappears," Elias said carefully. "That it won't resurface. That it won't become a headline or a scandal. He wants to know it's going somewhere private. Somewhere it will be understood, not displayed."

My throat went dry.

"That can be arranged," I said.

"Yes," Elias agreed. "But there's more."

Of course there was.

"He wants a clause," Elias said. "A personal one."

I straightened. "Explain."

"He wants you to sign," Elias said. "Not a corporation. Not a proxy. You."

I laughed once, short and humorless. "That's impossible."

"He insists," Elias said. "He wants your name attached to the transfer. Quietly. No lawyers. No board knowledge. If this ever comes out, it doesn't fall on the Group. It falls on you."

The kitchen felt suddenly too large, the ceiling too high.

"That's reckless," I said. "You know what my family would do if—"

"I do," Elias interrupted gently. "Which is why I'm telling you now. This isn't an acquisition anymore, Miu. It's a risk."

I looked down at my hands. They were steady. That scared me more than anything.

"And the price?" I asked.

Elias hesitated. "Thirty-five million."

I didn't blink.

"And silence," he added. "Complete. No photographs. No exhibitions. No public acknowledgment. The camera vanishes."

For a moment, all I could see was Lena's face in the cold glow of the library monitors. The way she studied images as if they were blueprints of the soul. The way she spoke about seeing, not owning the world.

"I'll do it," I said.

"Miu—"

"I'll sign," I repeated. "Personally. Route the funds however you need to, but the liability stays with me. Not the Group."

Elias exhaled sharply. "You understand what you're agreeing to."

"Yes," I said, though I wasn't sure that was true. "Get me the documents. I want eyes on everything before noon. And Elias?"

"Yes?"

"If anyone asks," I said quietly, "this camera was never for me."

Another pause.

"For who, then?" he asked.

I ended the call without answering.

The kitchen was silent again, save for the distant hum of the estate waking up around me. Somewhere upstairs, Lingling would be sleeping. Somewhere else, Lena was probably already at work, carrying the weight alone, like she always did.

I rested my palms against the counter, grounding myself.

This wasn't a gift anymore.

It was a confession.

And once I signed my name, there would be no erasing it.

While the house slept, I sat hunched over my laptop in the gym's small office, the screen casting an eerie blue glow on my face. I had found scanned journals, brittle and yellowed, detailing the feverish work of Oskar Barnack.

 I studied the way he had meticulously built the prototype, not as an indulgence, but out of necessity. He was frail, suffering from asthma, unable to lug the heavy plate cameras that were standard at the time. He created the Leica because he wanted to take photographs without being burdened; he wanted to make the world light enough for his own weak body.

I looked at the blueprints of the East Wing on my other monitor, heavy, concrete, immovable. Mak was giving Lena a watch that measured time and weighed her down with the responsibility of it. I was giving her a device born from the desperate desire to be weightless, to capture life without crushing it. The thirty-five million dollars felt like a small price to pay for a piece of machinery that understood the difference between a burden and a vision.

****

The documents arrived via a courier who looked more like a ghost than a man, gray suit, gray eyes, and a silence that felt heavy. I signed the papers in my private study, my signature jagged and desperate.

Thirty-five million dollars. My personal inheritance, bled dry for a piece of brass and glass.

The thirty-five million wasn't just a number; it was the price of my invisibility.

In our world, wealth is a cage built of gold bars you aren't allowed to melt down. Most of my value was tied to the Group...trusts that matured when I married, stocks that were locked until my father's retirement, and land deeds that required three signatures just to mortgage. But this money was different. It was the inheritance my mother had carved out through a series of offshore private placements. It was liquid. It was untraceable. 

It was my escape hatch.

If I ever truly wanted to walk away from the Taechamongkalapiwat name, to disappear into a life where I wasn't a variable or an heir, that was the money that would have bought my silence and my freedom. It was enough to live three lifetimes in total obscurity.

By spending it on the Leica, I was effectively burning my own bridge back to the mainland. I was emptying the only vault my father didn't have the key to. To get that camera, I was trading my future independence for a century-old ghost. I was chaining myself to the Group's ledgers for the next decade just to buy Lena a way to see her own soul again.

There was a dark, poetic symmetry to it that I knew Lingling recognized. I wasn't just risking a scandal; I was choosing to be the one who stayed behind in the burning building so that Lena might have the chance to be free.

The delivery happened forty-eight hours later. Not to the office, but to a private hanger at Don Mueang. I drove myself, leaving the security detail behind for the first time in months. I needed to be alone for this.

The transit from Vienna was a nightmare of silent notifications. Every hour the package was in the air was an hour I couldn't breathe. I had to coordinate with a private customs broker in Singapore, a shadowy figure Elias vouched for, to mislabel the manifest as Precision Optical Testing Equipment for the Siriluck merger. It was a thin veneer, easily seen through by anyone with a shred of curiosity.

One slip-up, one curious inspector, one random audit, and the notification would go straight to my father's head of security. The implications of a multi-million dollar optical testing equipment being personally acquired and diverted would be devastating. I spent three excruciating hours in my office pretending to read the Siriluck quarterly reports, my eyes glued to a tracking map, watching a tiny icon inch its way across the Indian Ocean. 

My hands were so cold that my touch ID stopped recognizing my thumbprint. My stomach churned with acid. The possibility of failure felt like a physical presence in the room.

The house wasn't just a home anymore; it was a headquarters. Because the East Wing foundation launch was synchronized with Lena's birthday, my father had insisted the Kwongs move into the west guest wing for the forty-eight hours leading up to the event. Total alignment, he had called it. In reality, it was a way to ensure that every photo op, every breakfast meeting, and every candid moment between the heirs was controlled.

Lingling wasn't just a guest; she was a permanent fixture in the performance. We shared a wing, our suites separated only by a sitting room that felt more like a stage than a place to rest.

When the lid clicked open, the scent hit me first. Old oil. Cold metal. A century of preserved air.

It was primitive. There was no viewfinder, just a folding sight. No light meter. No automation. It was a black rectangular box that looked like it had been forged in the heart of an industrial revolution. It was the Leica 0-Series No. 105. 

The very one Oskar Barnack had carried in his own pocket.

I picked it up. It was surprisingly heavy, the brass core giving it a density that felt like a heartbeat.

I traced the serial number with my thumb. 105. This wasn't a status symbol. It was a witness. It was the device that taught the world how to stop time before time could be sold. It was the antithesis of everything my father built. He built foundations that would last a hundred years; this camera captured the seconds that wouldn't last at all.

Suddenly, a soft knock at the door made me jump, nearly dropping the thirty-five-million-dollar ghost.

"Miu?"

It was Lingling. Her voice was soft and tired.

I threw my silk robe over the case, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "I'm... I'm just getting ready for bed, Ling."

The door didn't open, but I could feel her presence on the other side. The silence stretched, heavy with the things we didn't say.

"I saw the bank alerts," she said quietly. "Your personal accounts. The liquidity drop was... significant, even for us."

I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the locked door. "Don't ask, Ling. Please."

"I'm not asking," she replied, and I could hear the smile in her voice, the sad, jagged kind. "I'm just reminding you. A fire that expensive... it doesn't just burn the person you give it to. It burns everyone standing nearby."

"I know," I whispered.

"Goodnight, Miu," she said, her footsteps fading down the hall.

I turned back to the desk and pulled the robe away. 

The camera sat there, dark and silent, glinting faintly in the moonlight.

Thirty-five million dollars.

A century-old witness.

A confession I hadn't yet spoken aloud.

I reached out but didn't touch it.

Some things, I had learned, were already dangerous just to look at.

****

The Obsidian Room was located on the sixty-eighth floor of the Group's flagship tower. It was a space designed to intimidate: walls of polished black volcanic stone, floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the sprawling neon veins of Bangkok, and a table of smoked oak that looked long enough to host a peace treaty.

Tonight, it was a birthday party disguised as a corporate merger.

The air was thick with the scent of expensive lilies and the low, hummed conversations of the city's power players. I stood beside Lingling, my hand tucked into the crook of her arm. We were the Golden Couple again, dressed in the colors of our respective empires. I could feel the weight of the Leica, hidden in a small, discreetly padded velvet bag tucked inside my larger evening clutch. It felt like a live wire against my hip.

"You're shaking," Lingling murmured, her voice barely audible over the live string quartet. She didn't look at me; she was smiling at a senator from the Ministry of Transport. "Breathe, Miu. You're going to give yourself away before the first course is even served."

"I'm fine," I lied, my throat tight.

Across the room, Lena appeared.

If I was a shadow in emerald, she was a ghost in white. She wore a structured silk gown that looked like armor, her hair pulled back so tightly it emphasized the sharp, elegant bones of her face. She looked magnificent. She looked miserable.

Mak was at her side, his hand never leaving her waist, his chest puffed out as he accepted congratulations on his successful year.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mak's voice boomed, cutting through the music. He raised a crystal flute of vintage Krug. "Tonight we celebrate more than just the birth of a remarkable woman. We celebrate the foundation of our future. To Lena, the love of my life and the heart of the Taechamongkalapiwat Group."

The room erupted in polite applause. Mak didn't wait for her to speak. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Patek Philippe box.

"A small token of my love," he said, loud enough for the investors to hear. "To remind you that every second of your time is precious."

He snapped the watch onto her wrist. The diamonds flared under the spotlights. Lena looked down at the watch, at the Heart of the Foundation engraving, and for a second, her mask slipped. It wasn't a look of joy. It was the look of a prisoner being fitted with a more expensive set of shackles.

"Thank you, Mak," she whispered, her voice like dry leaves.

The dinner was an agony of courses. I couldn't eat. I watched Lena play the part, nodding at investors, discussing steel-grade averages and zoning laws, all while that $150,000 watch ticked away on her wrist like a countdown.

I waited for the moment when the room dissolved into post-dinner drinks and the Golden Couples were allowed to mingle. I waited until Mak was cornered by my father and the Minister of Finance.

"Go," Lingling whispered, stepping away from me to intercept a nosy socialite who was heading our way. She gave me a single, sharp look, a mixture of pity and defiance. "Go do it. But don't expect me to be the one who catches you when the floor falls out."

I didn't wait. I moved through the shadows of the Obsidian Room, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I found Lena on the private balcony, the heavy glass door muffling the sound of the party.

She was leaning against the stone railing, staring out at the city. The wind caught her white silk, making her look like a sail lost at sea.

"Lena."

She didn't jump. She just closed her eyes for a second before turning. "Miu. You should be inside. The Siriluck representatives were asking for your opinion on the retail sector."

"Let them ask," I said, stepping closer until I could smell the library-and-rain scent of her. "I didn't come here to talk about retail."

I reached into my clutch and pulled out the velvet bag. The weight of it felt like a confession.

"Mak gave you a watch to measure the time you give to the Group," I said, my voice trembling. "He gave you something to match a lobby. I wanted to give you something else."

I held out the bag. Lena hesitated, her eyes flickering to the diamonds on her wrist before she reached out. Her fingers brushed mine, and the contact felt like a spark in a dark room.

She pulled the No. 105 out of the velvet.

The moonlight hit the brassing, the worn edges, the primitive, beautiful shape of the 1923 prototype. Lena went absolutely still. The silence that followed felt like it was longer than the hundred years the camera had survived.

She didn't speak. She didn't look up. She ran her thumb over the 105 serial number, and I saw her chest hitch....a jagged, suppressed sob that she fought back with everything she had.

"Is this..." her voice broke. "Miu, is this a 0-Series?"

"The one and only No. 105," I whispered. "Barnack's own. He made it because he wanted to see the world without being burdened by it. I wanted you to have something that wasn't a responsibility. Something that was just... a vision."

Lena looked up then, and for the first time in my life, I saw her eyes completely unprotected. There was only the girl who loved the light.

"You spent... Miu, you can't even put a price on this," she whispered, her eyes searching mine. "Why? Why would you do this for me?"

"Because you're the only person in this building who knows what it's for," I said, stepping into her space, ignoring the glass door behind us, ignoring Lingling waiting in the wings. "Because I don't want you to be a statue in the foyer, Lena. I want you to be the person who takes the picture."

Lena's hand tightened around the camera. For a fleeting, terrifying second, she leaned toward me, the space between us narrowing until I could feel the heat of her skin. The Leica sat between us, a thirty-five-million-dollar ghost witnessing our ruin.

Then, the sound of the glass door sliding open cut through the night like a blade.

"There you are," Mak's voice rang out, cheerful and sharp. "I was wondering where the two most important women in my life had disappeared to."

Lena flinched, instinctively pulling the camera into the folds of her white dress, hiding it from view. The mask was back in a heartbeat, but her eyes... her eyes stayed on mine for a fraction of a second longer.

"Just getting some air, Mak," she said, her voice once again the cold, professional rasp.

I stood there, my hands empty and my heart exposed, watching as my brother led her back into the black stone room. I looked down at my palms. They were still vibrating from the weight of the gift.

I had given her the mirror. Now, all I could do was wait to see if it would reflect the truth or shatter the world we were standing in.

I stood alone on the balcony for a long time, the humid Bangkok air clinging to my skin. Through the glass, I could see them, the silhouettes of my family moving through the Obsidian Room like predatory fish in a dark tank.

I saw Mak's hand return to the small of Lena's back. I saw her head tilt in that perfect, professional nod as she spoke to an investor. But I also saw the way she held her left arm, the one not wearing the Patek, pressed tight against her side, guarding the hidden velvet bag in the folds of her dress as if it were a beating heart she had stolen.

She hadn't looked back at me. She didn't have to.

The air between us had....changed. I had reached into the machinery of her life and thrown a $35-million-dollar wrench into the gears. I had given her a piece of herself back, and in our family, that was the most dangerous weapon of all.

"The car is waiting," a voice said behind me.

I turned to see Lingling standing by the door. She looked exhausted, her champagne silk wrinkled, her eyes clouded with the lights on truth she had promised to maintain.

"Did you do it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And?"

"She recognized it," I whispered, the weight of the moment finally crashing down on me. "She knew exactly what it was."

Lingling let out a long, slow breath, looking out at the city lights. "Then the tragedy is officially in motion, Miu. You've given a starving woman a feast and told her she still has to live in a desert. How do you think she's going to handle the hunger now?"

I didn't have an answer.

I walked past her, back into the cold, black stone of the Obsidian Room. As I crossed the floor, my eyes found Lena's one last time across the sea of champagne and diamonds.

She was looking at the watch Mak had given her, but her fingers were twitching, the way they used to when she was counting the light for a shot. She wasn't seeing the diamonds. She was seeing something else. Something from a morning in Chiang Mai that I thought we had both buried.

I had spent a fortune to make her remember.

And as I left the party, the final snick of the shutter echoed in my mind, not as a sound of a photo being taken, but as the sound of a trap snapping shut.

The world was about to break. And I was the one who had handed her the hammer.

*****

I might be busy for the next few days, but I'll give you something to look forward to 😆 next chapter would be Lena's POV......not giving anything, just that, be prepared HAHAHAHA