"How did it go?"

I am leaning on the outside wall of the Midtown office as the members of the Calloway family walk out of the lobby, exiting the silver, gleaming rotating doors one by one, their faces solemn and grim at the revelation of who will be entitled to the Calloway empire. With Jeremy's sanity crumbled to near dissolution and Elijah dead, the only male heir left to inherit the elephantine Calloway empire was Orson. And from the looks of it, no one looks quite happy with it. Especially the women, who have expected at least a slice of a controlling stake.

"What are you doing here?" Carmen says as soon as she notices my trademarked Upper East Side look: off-white, kitten-heeled Schutz boots teamed with bike shorts, an oversized school shirt, a Fendi bag, and a Cartier pin, which exudes the kind of high-low attainability she can never pull off.

Carmen lives by the three Bs: Barneys, Bergdorf's, and Bendel's. While that's very Upper-Class debutante with a hint of the aristocrat, I prefer to be more Page Six princess. At the end of the day, I dress to the character I fashioned myself: the SoCal native, hailing from the mansions of Beverly Hills with that easy-breezy relaxed attitude of a Californian cool girl.

"I'm just seeing my boyfriend, Carmen," I smile, amused as if we're friends. As if I'm surprised by this irrational hostility from her. I peck Orson sweetly on the kiss and loop my arm around his. The three other Calloway women look at me with restrained rage, as if I've chosen to appear at the worst possible time.

From the minute Delia explained to me the nature of the Calloway family and his ancestors, I've planned every strategy to lead me here. As explained by Delia to me, Orson's ancestors stipulated that the ownership of the family's trust, the shipping company, the trading firm, and all the Calloway various business interests around the world, would only be owned by a male heir. When I realize very quickly my parents' car crash has been a result of Elijah and Delia's secret plot to get rid of Orson five years ago, just the same way they've taken out his mother, I make a few swift adjustments to my original plan to ensure vengeance is served.

To serve Elijah's punishment alive would've gone over his head. Elijah Calloway is not only terribly entitled and narcissistic but cruel and self-absorbed. I can't imagine what being the only son of Delia and Jeremy Calloway hasve done to his ego. He spent his whole life being doted on by Delia, trained and geared by Jeremy to take over the empire. When information about the affair between Jeremy and one of Delia's handmaidens broke out, Delia poisoned her son against his father, his mistress, and their bastard son. She pitted the two brothers against each other out of spite for her husband's infidelity and ruthlessly schemed her way to dispose of the mistress and inherit everything she wasn't supposed to have while her husband remained shackled to old age and dementia.

But I come in and ruin all her best-laid plans.

My gaze momentarily meets her ablaze eyes, which glimmer a cold blue at me. I raise my head and let a whisper of a smirk tease through my glossy pink-tinged Dior lips, before arranging my features to be appropriately serious and concerned.

"Aren't you two just so cute," Carmen's barely disguised snarl scratches my eardrums. 

"Carmen," Orson says with a warning in his tone. "Don't start."

Before Carmen could open her mouth and retort, her phone starts to ring. She grabs it out from her Prada nylon bag and her screen lights up as she presses the side buttons. Parker's name flashes across the screen.

I freeze in place as I see her decline the call. The hair on my arms raises and the blood in my veins starts gushing in anticipation. Why is Parker calling Carmen after six months of radio silence? Parker and Carmen's friendship has rotted over the last year due to my meddling and I know that Parker would never contact Carmen unless it was something bigger than their fallout.

Shit.

-

Looking impossibly glamorous in knee-high black boots and shorts, Parker Holtz's 110-pound, five-foot-seven-inch frame appears ethereal as ever with her hair wavy, glowing a golden tinge, falling just below her shoulders.

"What is she doing?" I whisper into the mic. Orson is peacefully napping in my bedroom. I'm looking at his snoring frame as I listen to Devon spying on Parker and Carmen meeting up for the first time since their fallout.

Gramercy Tavern is the location of choice. From their hacked phones, I could see Parker had asked Carmen to meet her in person in the restaurant located at 42 East 20th Street, tucked neatly between Broadway and Park Avenue. Nothing gets as classically New York as the Gramercy Tavern, often nicknamed the Tavern by locals and natives.

As with most Manhattan-based restaurants, the Tavern had an insane waiting list of reservations that was almost filled back to back for the next month. However, the minute Carmen Calloway and Parker Holtz arrived on the scene, the maitre'd was sure to bump the unfortunate tourists who pre-booked their reservation almost six months in advance down the list for the two girls. After all, these weren't just anyone. They were Parker Holtz and Carmen Calloway, two of New York's youngest socialites.

I knew this through the eyes of Devon, who managed to infiltrate the wait staff of the Tavern to overhear the conversation exchanged between Parker and Carmen.

While Parker is super casual with shorts and a Dior We Should All Be Feminists t-shirt, Carmen is going super glammed in a fantastic Alexander Wang and a Gucci padlock mini embellished leather shoulder bag slung over her body. The weight gain has done some good by Carmen. Usually paper thin due to her ballet demands, the dress would've been wasted on her old body. It was one thing to be thin, but the pancake butt looked good on no one. Now at least fifteen pounds heavier, the dress hugs her newfound curves in all the right places- especially when paired with the sky-high suede Louboutins.

"Hi, I'm Jason, I'll be your waiter today. Have we decided on what we will be having?" Devon introduced himself to Parker and Carmen, who was seated opposite of each other. Putting Devon so out and open was bold of me but I knew it was the right move. It was the only way to make sure I could listen in on as much information as possible while remaining undetected. The Elites of New York tend to see service people as gum beneath their shoes, invisible servants that catered to every whim and need.

I am strangely reminded of the first night of this whole vendetta. When Hadley and I pose as waiters to drug Luciana at one of the Elites' favorite restaurants.

"Not yet," Parker swallowed, eyes flickering over to Carmen. "You?"

Carmen tapped her fingers on the menu, her stacks of golden rings hitting the leatherbound book hard. "I'll have a red snapper. And a glass of your best Bordeaux."

I've never seen Carmen drink really. So this is a surprise to me. She always says alcohol is just empty calories. Carmen prefers drugs because at least drugs don't make you fat.

This also surprises Parker, whose eyebrows raise along with mine from across the screen. "I need to gain two more pounds by the end of next week if I want to stay out of the clinic," Carmen informs Parker, who'd nod wordlessly.

"Stick the mic under the table," I whisper into Devon's ear. He smiles at the two girls in that customer-service politeness way while inconspicuously taking out the spare mic I've provided him with. He brushes his right hand under the table as he collects the menus. The girls hardly notice. He flashes them one more wide smile which, like the typical upper-crust princesses they are, ignore. It is not their sins or their wrongdoings that are the cause of their ruination but it is their arrogance and their lack of care for people out of their circle. They are so engrossed in themselves they fail to ever see you coming.

"So what's so urgent that we have to have dinner for it?" Carmen asks, snark rippling through her tone. The ultra-sensitive mic taped underneath the table picks up everything- from Parker grabbing her glass of water to Carmen tapping her freshly manicured nails on the table.

"Well, I'm not sure how up to speed you are on everything since you've been backed in New York-"

"My dad just died," Carmen interrupted flatly.

"Right." A few awkward shuffles from Parker, "I'm so sorry about that."

"It's fine," I can hear Carmen take a deep breath, "it's not like he's my real dad."

But he pretty much is, the silence between them indicated. Carmen's real father figure has been a mystery for as long as anyone can remember. Maral and Elijah's marriage took place three months right after Orson's mother's death and by then, Maral had a hint of a baby bump peeking from her embroidered tulle Vera Wang dress while walking down the aisle. Carmen was the dotted-on stepdaughter of Elijah Calloway and everyone knew that. Carmen cemented her role as the ringleader of her grade back in first grade on the first day of school when some girls tried to bully her about her mother's Eastern European accent and she complained to Elijah, which led to him persuading the school principal from unenrolling the kids from Kensington's primary school. Those girls were never allowed to attend any of the private schools in New York, their names forever doomed to be on waiting lists and turned away no matter how much their parents pledge to donate.

Carmen might've been a young schoolgirl but behind every young girl lies a powerful father.

"So...I mean besides the whole funeral thing, how have you been?" asked Parker hastily.

"Well, if there was one thing my father getting murdered did, was get me out of rehab early," Carmen laughed dryly, but there was no humor to it. She sounded genuinely upset. "But I still have to go back next week for a weigh-in and see a therapist. Still, I've been enjoying being back out...even if it's for a fucking funeral."

Parker hums in agreement. "You look really good."

"I look fat," Carmen responds sharply, "But thanks."

There's a note of warmth in the last bit. For a moment, the frosty tension between the two girls seems to melt. Months of snide side comments, intense rivalry, and cold looks deteriorate and what's left is a snow globe of memories- their days of seventh-grade sleepovers at Parker's country lake house in Upstate New York, afternoons spent linked arm-in-arm in the street; head bent over a magazine, friendship bracelets falling, frayed, off a wrist, head bitches in charge at cocktail parties, prancing around in the rumpled sexiness of their school uniforms against the gothic romance of stone-mansioned New York. Teen queens of the New York club scene, they were trauma bonded in their blood right of the waning aristocracy- dripped in jewels, mired in scandal with the stubborn tenacity of a dying breed that once ruled the world.

After Devon returns with Carmen's glass of deep red Bordeaux, I zoom in at the scene I'm watching through the cameras of the restaurant. Carmen flutters her fresh $400 Christian Zamora eyelash extensions at Parker condescendingly, the same way she does when an underclassman approaches her with a question. "Well?"

"Right," Parker clears her throat. "So...we need to talk about Amory."

Carmen snorts, "This is why we're getting dinner for? That social climber who's nailing my brother?"

Parker inhales sharply, "That social climber is dangerous."

"The only danger she poses is a danger to her hair," Carmen says, acidic, "Her hair looks fried."

"Carmen, you don't get it. She's not who she says she is. She had all of us fooled." Parker's tone is so grievous the playful expression on Carmen's face melts when she realizes Parker's concern and worry. "You weren't here for the last six months. Georgina died, Luciana was poisoned....and Phineas is now facing charges for attempted murder."

"What?"

"And you got sent to rehab and all of this crazy shit started happening when she showed up," Parker carry on as if Carmen didn't interrupt.

"She got me kicked out of Yale before I even attended," Parker finishes.

Carmen stares at Parker. "Shit," she says solemnly, "Sorry. I know you've been dreaming of Yale forever. Do your parents know?"

"Yeah," Parker admits numbly. Carmen winces. She knows of the Holtzes' intense expectations when it comes to academics. As the daughter of two PHD-holders, the news of Parker getting into Yale only to be kicked out due to rumors of plagiarising was not only humiliating but a stain on their credibility. "I'm being sent off to spend the summer with Grandma Third Reich."

"Shit."

Grandma Third Reich was the nickname coined for Parker's aunt who lived in the rural German countryside. She was a harsh woman who was a cottage-core conspiracy theorist that believed technology equated to the death of brain cells. She lived simply by surviving on food she grew or butter she churned, waking at the crack of dawn to feed chickens and cows and spending the day knitting or reading. No phones, no internet, not even a landline was visible within the radius of three hundred miles of her cottage. It was only accessible by car.

"But...yes, that's what I realized. All this crazy shit started happening when she arrived."

"Oh come on Parker," Carmen's eyes coolly flicker across the room, surveying the crowd before returning to her object of conversation, "Crazy shit has always happened to us, remember? It's part of the package deal."

The silence fills between them. Unsaid memories of Carlotta being carried out and buried deep in the woods, the car crash they were all involved in, and years of the backlog implied between them. They've crisscrossed and bonded through trauma and privilege.

"Yeah, but more so than usual. I'm used to it happening only once a year, like the Super Bowl or the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Besides, I found this in your ballet locker room." Parker reaches for her beige Hermes messenger bag and pulls out a bunched-up tulle ballerina skirt.

Carmen scrunches her eyebrows together. "That's my ballet skirt?" Her tone has the inflection of confusion.

"Look at the band."

Carmen looks closer at the band, not sure what she's inspecting until Parker points out my little handy work eight months ago. "The original threads have been undone," Parker explains, "And restitched to make it smaller."

"But...how-"

"Someone manipulated you into rehab," Parker establishes, "Three guesses to who."

Carmen looks flabbergasted. The expression is strange on her elegant, exotic features, which is typically arranged in a condescending smirk or a scornful sneer. "So...she made me think I was..." She gargles on her words, befuddled.

"Yes," Parker rehashes, "She saw an insecurity-"

"I'm not insecure," snaps Carmen.

"Whatever it is," Parker continues, ignoring Carmen, "you need to watch your back. And Orson's, especially Orson's."

"I'm trying to but she got him wrapped around her little finger," mutters Carmen. "I knew it. I knew she was shady, from the moment Luciana brought her to us..."

Silence settles before them, like a heavy drape.

"Well, whatever you think is necessary," Parker averts her gaze, "I'll be by your side." 

-

hiya! we're back :D two chapters left until blood on the leaves end! 

good news, currently on the verge of finalising my manuscript and sending it off to a couple publishers! feel free to help support :)