Chapter 10

CAMILLE'S POINT OF VIEW

The black car moved through morning fog, tires humming against wet roads. I stared out the window,watching trees blur into gray mist. Victoria sat beside me, her face a mask of calm, but her fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on her leather bag.

"Where are we going?" | asked, breaking the silence that had stretched between us since we left the mansion thirty minutes ago. The papers making me officially Camille Kane had been signed at dawn, the ink barely dry.

Victoria's eyes stayed fixed on the passing landscape."To meet someone important."

The car turned onto a narrow road lined with tall iron gates and stone walls. A cemetery. My stomach tightened.

"Sophia?"| whispered.

Victoria nodded once, sharp and quick, like admitting pain. "Today marks ten years since I lost her."

The cemetery was empty of visitors, kept private by security guards who nodded respectfully as our car passed. Ancient trees created a natural cathedral over graves that dated back centuries. This was no ordinary resting place, but one reserved for families with names that appeared in history books.

Our driver stopped at the end of a curving path. "We walk from here," Victoria said, gathering her bag and stepping out without waiting for help.

I followed her along a stone path that wound uphill toward a secluded corner overlooking the city. The grass here was greener, the flowers fresher. Clearly tended with special care.

We stopped before a white marble headstone,simple yet elegant. Quality that whispered rather than shouted.

SOPHIA ELIZABETH KANE

BELOVED DAUGHTER

TAKEN TOO SOON

1990-2013

Below those words, a single line of poetry: "Some souls are too bright for this world."

Victoria placed white lilies by the stone, her movements practiced yet tender. I hung back, feeling like an intruder on this private grief.

"Come," she said, not looking at me. "She would want to meet you."

I stepped forward, uneasy. What do you say to a grave of someone you never knew? Someone whose death made your new life possible?

Victoria knelt despite her expensive suit, uncaring about grass stains or dirt. "Hello, my darling," she said, touching the carved letters of Sophia's name.

"I've brought someone to meet you."

The wind picked up, sending fallen leaves dancing around us. I zipped my jacket higher, shivering from more than just cold.

"Tell me about her," I said. "The real story, not the public version."

Victoria was quiet so long I thought she wouldn't answer. When she spoke, her voice had lost its usual sharp edge.

"Sophia was brilliant. Graduated MIT at twenty. Could solve equations that baffled men twice her age. But she was also kind, which I failed to teach her." A bitter smile crossed her lips. "That she learned despite me."

I waited as Victoria gathered her thoughts, watching her fingers trace her daughter's name over and over.

"She fell in love with Oliver Preston. Old money, old connections.Handsome, charming, seemed perfect.His family owned shipping companies that competed with our tech enterprises."

Victoria's face hardened. "They never thought her good enough. The Kanes were new money, self-made. I came from nothing. Built everything. They came from generations of wealth, of 'proper breeding.' They thought Sophia beneath them."

The familiar sting of rejection echoed in my chest.Always being measured and found wanting.

"What happened?" I asked, though part of me already knew.

"They were engaged six months when she died. Car crash on a mountain road. Brake lines cut." Victoria's voice turned to ice. "Police called it an accident.I knew better."

She stood, brushing dirt from her knees. "The Prestons celebrated quietly. Their son free to marry someone from the 'right' background. They underestimated how far a mother would go for justice."

The look in her eyes made me shiver again. This wasn't grief anymore, but something harder. Colder.

"One by one, their companies failed. Stock prices crashed. Ships lost at sea. Mysterious audits.Computer systems failing. Nothing that could be traced back to me, of course."

Victoria's smile was terrible to behold. "Oliver married the girl they chose. Three months later,he jumped from his penthouse. Left a note confessing he'd known about the brake lines. Couldn't live with the guilt."

I swallowed hard. "And the rest of the family?"

"Bankrupt within two years. Their homes sold. Their treasures auctioned. The Preston name forgotten by society that once bowed to them."

Victoria looked at me fully now. "That's the lesson,Camille. Revenge isn't about violence or threats.It's about patience. About being smarter. About taking what matters most to those who hurt you."

She opened her bag, removing a small wooden chest. Beautifully carved, with silver hinges and lock.About the size of a jewelry box.

"This brings us to why we're here today."

She held out the box to me. I took it, feeling its surprising weight.

"What is it?"

"Your funeral." Victoria's eyes were steady on mine."For Camille Lewis."

Understanding dawned slowly."You want me to..."

"Put everything inside. Every memory, attachment,and weakness of your old life. Everything that was Camille Lewis must go in that box."

I stared at the chest in my hands, suddenly unsteady on my feet.

"You can't become who you need to be while clinging to who you were," Victoria continued. "The woman they hurt, they used, they discarded, she must die here today."

My fingers traced the carved wood. "And if I'm not ready?"

"Then this ends now. You go back to being Camille Lewis, and I help y/ou start somewhere new, with a comfortable but ordinary life." Her voice softened slightly. "There's no shame in that choice. But there's no revenge in it either."

The weight of the moment pressed down on me.Step forward or back. Choose power or peace.Become the hunter or remain the hunted.

I opened the box.

Its interior was lined with dark blue velvet. Empty,waiting. Like the future stretching before me, a blank page | could fill however | chose.

With trembling hands, I reached for my purse. Inside was all I had left of my old life. The few things I'd grabbed before leaving the house that day, plus what Victoria's people had collected from my hotel room before staging my "drowning."

First, my wedding ring. Three carats, princess cut."Not your style, dear, but it's what a Rodriguez wife should wear." I stared at it, remembering the day Stefan had slid it onto my finger, Rose watching with that secret smile I'd been too blind to understand.

"Your marriage," Victoria observed. "Your first major loss."

I dropped the ring into the box. The sound it made hitting the bottom was strangely final.

Next, the charm bracelet my parents had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Each charm representing some achievement of mine they'd actually noticed.So few compared to Rose's overflowing trophy shelf.

"Your family," Victoria said. "Your deepest wound."

The bracelet joined the ring.

A small stack of photos came next. Me as a child,before Rose came. The last pictures of when I was enough all by myself. Me at my wedding, smiling so hopefully. A family Christmas, all of us posed perfectly for a card no one would remember receiving.

"Your illusions," Victoria noted. "The stories you told yourself to survive."

The photos fluttered into the box like fallen leaves.

Last was my wallet. Inside, my driver's license, credit cards, social security card. The official records of Camille Lewis.

"Your identity," Victoria whispered. "Who they told you to be."

These too went intothe chest. I stood empty-handed now, strange lightness spreading through me.

Victoria produced a- small silver key. "Are you certain? Once locked, this chest will be buried here,beside Sophia. Camille Lewis will rest here forever."

Was I certain? The question echoed in my mind. To lock away not just mementos, but the person l'd been for twenty-five years. The good sister. The loyal daughter. The loving wife. The woman who always forgave, always understood, always gave second chances.

But what had that earned me? Betrayal. Heartbreak.A sister who orchestrated my humiliation. A husband who discarded me on our anniversary. Parents who always loved their chosen daughter more.

"Yes," I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice. "I'm certain."

Victoria inserted the key, turning it with a soft click.Then she knelt, placing the chest in a small hole already dug beside Sophia's headstone.

"Andrew," she called.

A man in a dark suit stepped forward from the tree line where he'd been waiting. I hadn't even noticed him. He carried a shovel and began covering the box with earth, each thud of dirt making the separation more final.

"In burying Camille Lewis beside my daughter,"

Victoria said, watching the box disappear, "we honor both lives cut short by betrayal. Sophia by her fiancé's family. You by those who should have treasured you."

When the last of the dirt was patted smooth and leaves scattered over it to hide the freshly turned earth, Victoria stood tall beside me. Together, we looked down at where pieces of my past now lay buried.

"Now Camille Lewis can truly rest," Victoria said,"and Camille Kane can rise without anything holding her back."

I expected to feel grief, or fear, or perhaps regret.Instead, strange calm washed over me.

"When do we begin?" | asked, turning from the grave to face my new reality.

Victoria's smile held approval. "We already have.Your education starts today. Finance, business strategy,social dynamics. Every weapon you'll need."

She handed me her phone, open to a news article.The headline read: "Lewis Family Holds Memorial Service for Daughter Believed Drowned."

There was a photo, Rose in tasteful black, eyes dramatically red, clutching Stefan's arm. My parents looking appropriately devastated. All positioned perfectly for the cameras.

"The first lesson," Victoria said, watching my reaction closely, "is learning to recognize performance.See how she tilts her head to catch the light? How her hand grips his arm, not for support, but possession?How even in grief, she's aware of the camera angles?"

I studied the photo with new eyes, seeing beyond my initial reaction. "She's enjoying it," I realized. "The attention. The sympathy. She's the star now."

"Precisely. And your parents? Notice their posture,the distance between them. Your father's hand not quite touching your mother's back. What does that tell you?"

I looked closer. "They're distant. Going through motions. Maybe... blaming each other?"

Victoria nodded, pleased. "Grief fractures weak foundations. Their perfect family image is cracking already. By the time we're finished, it will be dust."

She took back her phone, sliding it into her pocket."Come. We have a meeting with your teachers at noon. Your first public appearance as my daughter."

As we walked back toward the car, I glanced once more at the twin graves, one marked, one secret.Sophia Elizabeth Kane and Camille Elizabeth Lewis.Both women destroyed by people who should have protected them.

But from those ashes, something new was being formed. Something that wouldn't break so easily.

I straightened my shoulders, feeling strength I hadn't known I possessed.

"Happy birthday, Camille Kane," Victoria said as the driver opened our car door. "The world awaits."

I smiled, feeling the expression settle strangely on my face. Not the smile of the woman I'd been,eager to please, desperate for approval. But something sharper.More dangerous.

"It won't know what hit it," I promised, sliding into the cool leather interior.

As we drove away, I didn't look back at the graves.The past was buried now. Dead and gone.

All that remained was the future. And the reckoning it would bring.