Caria Donovan

A low, heavy sigh slipped from between her lips, curling like smoke in the stillness of the office. Pale fingers, smooth and lacquered in a nude sheen, pressed gently against the frosted glass of the window that spanned floor to ceiling. Beneath her touch, the pane was a breath away from freezing, and she welcomed the sting, the kind of pain that didn’t ask questions. Caria stood like a statue cast in porcelain and ice, the curve of her silhouette ghosted in the reflection. Beyond the glass, the city pulsed with a cold neon heartbeat, blurred streaks of headlights tracing across the streets below. The wind cut through the upper levels of Donovan Towers with a distant wail, too far away to touch her, yet ever present. Down there was noise, chaos, heat. Up here was control. Silence. Precision. And the ache behind her pale green eyes that refused to be soothed no matter how hard she pressed her fingers to her temple.

Donovan Towers gleamed like a crown against the skyline, a monument of opulence that disguised the rot beneath. It was the gleaming jewel set atop the shadowed empire she helped build, masked beneath the glittering façade of legality. A monument to power, inherited and reshaped. While her sister painted the streets red, Caria handled the bloodstains with ice water and diamonds.

She pushed off the glass with a quiet grace, her movements fluid and calculated. One hand disappeared into the pocket of her crisp white slacks, the other trailing along the edges of her sleek, charcoal desk. Resting at its center was a delivery wrapped in muted elegance, a navy blue box with no insignia. Inside, a tidy collection of envelopes awaited her touch, each one folded with the precision of origami, marked with a single initial in embossed silver.

Her finger hovered over them for a moment, then began to sort—each envelope opened with a flick of her nail, each diamond slipping into her hand like a confession. Cool. Flawless. Measured. Some were destined for their jewelers to be transformed into pieces worth millions, legitimized by artful hands. Others would be sold as-is to buyers who never asked questions. Diamonds, after all, were the perfect lie: beautiful, silent, and easy to move.

The sharp knock at her office door cleaved through the quiet like a blade. Her head snapped toward it, pale green eyes narrowing to slits, voice curling in a whipcrack of disdain.

"What?" she snapped. “I don’t have all day to stand here watching your silent impersonation of a statue. Either speak, or turn to salt.”

There was no warmth in her tone, only the silk-wrapped edge of a scalpel. She didn’t suffer hesitation. In her world, hesitation meant someone was thinking twice. And those who thought twice were usually thinking of betrayal.