Glittering chandeliers with silver-domed dishes being set on crisp white tablecloths by waiters in black tuxedo jackets are a regular affair for the patrons of the Grand Dome Country Club. Located on Staten Island, the country club is a traditional Victorian structure stretching across vast green fields. Individuals can enjoy the sights of the gorgeously manicured golfing lawns as they indulge in decadent meals and swap gossip with their Book Club members. An exclusive VIP list is always expected at the Grand Dome but when Orson Calloway and I make our entrance at the Grand Dome's formal dining room, the room ripples with the usual hushed excitement.

Private school teen girls of the Upper East Side covertly scrutinize me from hair to heels and wannabe Alpha males of the upper echelon gaze at Orson with a mixture of envy and disdain. I've gone down a near virginal route with my outfit choices- a simple long black satin Oscar de la Renta, diamond studs and a narrow white pearl necklace that had once belonged to my mother.

"What's with the pearls?" Orson had joked when his hands found their way to the small of my back. We have just finished a quick session- a session that leaves my cheeks flushed and my breaths laboured.

"We're having dinner with my family," I replied, heart-pounding but not because of the sex. It was because of my nerves, tightly coiled at how precarious everything was- the truth about Orson, his mother's death, the nature of my parent's death, his father-turned-brother, Delia fucking Calloway.

I thought I had everything figured out.

No, you didn't, a voice screamed in my head. And now everything was too far. Did Georgina die for nothing? Did Luciana get chased out of New York because of a mistake I made? Was everything in the trash because I didn't look at the truth hard enough? Was it my fault?

No, it's not your fault, a voice told me after I popped a Xanax to calm myself down. Your parents still die at their hands. Your parents still die at the hands of a Calloway, just not Orson. Remember what Orson did to Atticus? Remember, remember.

Now my list has expanded. Delia and Elijah will pay for their sins.

"What's wrong, babe?" Orson asks, realizing my frown. I shake it off and make myself smile, hoping it reaches my eyes. I'm too tense. Maybe I need another Xanax.

"Nothing," I tell him and kiss him sweetly on the cheek, "I'm just worried about Parker."

"What happened?"

I quietly fill him in on Bailey and Melissa's return to New York as we are led to a long banquet table by the trophy wall where members of Nguyen family- Veronica, Hadley, Hadley's older, cool brother Jackson Nguyen and his Scandinavian model girlfriend Ingrid (much to Veronica's dislike) and Tessa, Hadley's little twelve-year-old sister- and their honoured guests, the Olsen family, are already seated.

My stomach twists at seeing all my cousins on the table with Orson Calloway around my arm. Especially since the last time they saw me is when I was a brunette.

"Amory, holy shit, you're so blonde now!" Jackson Nguyen boasts, gasping at the sight of me. Jackson is six years older than Veronica and me- so we were never super close as cousins because of the age gap. The last time he has seen me is the year before I started at Kensington when I was back in LA, brown-haired and just changed my first name from Bronte to Amory. I was also dressing differently back then- all scruffy jeans, plaid jackets and dirty Timberlands. Now I'm tanned, waxed and glammed-up, even if I'm pretty lowkey with my outfit choices at the moment for Elite standards.

I self-consciously touch my bleached blonde hair and smile tightly, "Thanks, Jackson."

"I didn't know you dyed your hair," Orson remarks, looking at my face. The coil inside my stomach twists even more.

"Yeah, I love the blonde way too much," I say lightly, flipping my hair back, and quickly changing the subject, I avert my attention away from the subject, "Jackson, I didn't know you were back! How was Europe?"

"It was great! Ingrid and I are thinking about settling in London, full-time..."

The conversation steers away from how much I've changed my appearance to these catch-up moments.

"Oh Amory, why have you been hiding this catch of a man for so long?" Veronica effuses with long red manicured claws gesturing us to sit by the head of the table, centrefold.

Before I could respond, Hadley cuts in. She sees the panic on my face and saves me: "Amory, introduce your new boyfriend to everyone! We love to get to know him."

Flushed and feeling out of it, I push the urge to vomit and suck in a breath. "Orson, this is everybody. They are Jackson, Hadley and Tessa, my cousins. Ingrid is Jackson's girlfriend. And you've met Veronica, my aunt. The other guests are Hayes Olson, his wife Valerie, and their kids Thomas and Felicia; they're family friends of ours from Boston."

There's a flurry of shaking hands, murmurs of hey, how are you, and general introductions. The Olsens are a new money generation of tech giants from Silicon Valley. They're Veronica's friends, who have supported her in the divorce from Hadley's father, and they're more impressed with the fact that a Calloway is sitting down with them for dinner than anything else.

"I'm a big fan of your father's developments in Dubai and Shanghai, he has really done well on himself to expand the Calloway empire," Hayes Olson gushes at Orson's feet, all of the sudden beaming at the idea of having dinner with Veronica and all her kids. I know he wasn't too thrilled about the journey all the way from San Francisco to New York to meet with Veronica on her investment portfolio into tech and crypto but now he's on the table with the ever-powerful Orson Calloway, he looks a little bit brighter to be on the table. 

Orson seems a little annoyed at the mention of his father (half-brother, I correct in my head) but he holds my hand as he entertains the Olsens out of respect for my family. "Oh thank you, my grandparents weren't too happy when he decided to make New York his home but he decided it was the best place to expand his property development business."

"Amory, I love your dress," Larissa Olsen comments, rushing over to greet me with a hug. I stiffen up, taken back by how friendly Hayes Olsen's twenty-one-year-old daughter is being. The last time I met her at one of these family friend dinners, she barely spared me a single glance. She scrutinizes me from head to toe.

"Thank you, you look lovely in red," I respond.

"Valentino, of course," Larissa replies, pausing to wait for me to reveal the designer of my outfit. But I do not reciprocate. Without missing a beat, Larissa turns to Orson and beams at him with a flirty flip of her hair back, "I didn't know the illustrious Orson Calloway would be making an appearance at this dinner."

Orson smiles tightly at her and tightens his grip around my waist. I bathe momentarily at his loyalty- because my claws have sunken so deep into Orson, he's unmovable. His hands relax me but not by much. "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing."

We all settle down in our seats, which are upholstered in buttery hand-stitched Poltrona Frau leather, and open the leather-bound books. The month's culinary theme is "Taste of the Amalfi" and all of the dishes are printed in Italian. My Manolo Blahniks tap nervously on the marble floor and I wonder how long this whole fucking dinner will take. We were eating European style so that means four courses and in places like these, each course equates to an hour.

Fucking hell, I think to myself. All I want is to be back in my bed, alone, trying to figure out my next move. I have Delia Calloway on my fucking back while sitting on a nuclear bomb of secrets and gossip.

"I'm so bored," I whisper to Orson, making my voice all sexy.

Orson's smirk is pronounced at my words, "Of course you are."

"Care to make this more interesting?"

"How?"

My eyes trail over to Larissa. "I think she wants you."

"I can see that." His eyes glint at Larissa side-eyeing him from her salad course but his hand remains steady on my thigh, emanating warmth.

"Why don't we play with her a little?"

I look at him intently and lick my lips. He comes even closer and hovers above my ear. "What do you suggest we do?"

I paint a naughty expression while my stomach twists and hopes this move can buy me time and distract him from asking further questions about my life with members of my family. "I'm going to excuse myself to the bathroom and you're gonna slip her your number."

"But?"

"It's not going to be your number."

"Oh?" His grin widens, "And whose number will it be?"

"Mine. I'm thinking of a little game of Stood The Fuck Up."

"Why her?" his lips quirks. He knows I'm not random with my victims. Larissa Olsen is after all somebody.

"She's perfect, come on," I persuade softly, "Look at her, she's downright virginal. I wonder how bad she'll get if Orson Calloway is in her DMs, making her wet."

His gaze flickers from Larissa to me. Larissa's Valentino cardigan is tucked under a knee-length silk skirt, Burberry I bet. With her headband and cross on her neck, she reminds me of Georgina but with long red hair and if possible even more uptight.

"You're evil."

I kiss him sweetly on the cheek and whisper, "You like it," before standing up promptly, grabbing my clutch and marching away. My heart is thumping; I know he's watching me leave, admiring the line of my back that peeks through my dress as I slip away into the bathroom.

While he chases the trail I dribble down for him, I use the time to phone somebody. I need a favour.

-

"Are you sure you want me to do this?" Devon Greene asks me, two days later. I've secretly emailed all the information Jack and I have compiled on the manner of Deidre's death. Once I've got the date and the printout, finding out information about everything else has been surprisingly easy.

Gambino Industries is one of the many subsidiaries of the Gambino Cartel, an Italian mafia that used to run the undergrounds of the New York criminal world in the 1970s. Their prominence had tapered off due to law enforcement throwing most of their important leaders in jail but rumour has it the Gambino Cartel never really went away.

They just move quieter, silently in the shadows, operating under a haze of anonymity. Acts of darkness work better when no one knows about them.

I came to find that the hitman hired was a man named Alessandro Gotti. According to an FBI file amassed on him (which I've retrieved through a long and steady hack), Gotti was linked to various strings of assassinations across the whole New York area as part of his job with the Gambino crime family. He was like a mercenary for them, wiping away anyone they didn't like. Eventually, he migrated from doing their dirty work to doing their hired killings- one of them being Deidre Hollows, Orson's mother. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2002. But then doesn't matter, because I'm about to craft an identity straight from thin air.

"Don't forget your profile. You're Rosario Gotti-"

"Alessandro's brother," he finishes for me. "I got it, Amory. But are you sure the right move is for him to know about his mother? Like it's not going to change anything."

I remain silent. I've kept Jack and Devon in the loop about the progress I've made and the information I found out but not everything. This is what I let them know: they're aware that the deaths of my parents have been partly orchestrated by the Calloways- just not in the way we originally think. At first, it looks like reckless rich people being callous and getting away with it. I thought that for the longest time.

Now it turns out that we were living in someone else's game. We were all living in Elijah and Delia Calloway's games this whole time and we never even knew.

What they don't know is that Delia Calloway knows the truth about me. They don't know my safety, my identity, and my cover is compromised. But with this move, I might be able to buy some time, gain some protection and cover my ground.

I hope.

Besides, I think part of the reason I'm adamant about Orson knowing the truth about his mother's death is that in a way, after everything I have done, I feel bad for not discerning the reality of the situation enough. Yes, Atticus was still bullied and there's still some anger left inside of me about that. But I also now know that when it comes to my parents, it wasn't his fault. And yet, I chip at his crystal castle from behind, stabbing my knife into his back while whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

I guess this is my confession of telling you I feel bad.

I'm concerned ever so slightly about this development of emotions. 

Giving Orson the truth about his mother's death is my swan song to him. And he deserves to know.

"He deserves to know," I admit softly. I grab my cup of chamomile and sip. I enjoy the tranquillity of this moment, even if I'm dying under these layers of disguises- the heavy thick red wig and the 12 pounds of makeup.

It is a Sunday and I'm in the Hamptons with Devon, enjoying brunch and discussing the details of our next step. I, for one, am thoroughly appreciating the moment where for once I get to relax, even though we are talking about something as anxiety-inducing as dropping a truth bomb on Orson. I think I'm relaxed because the whole of Friday and Saturday was particularly tense- Orson spent the weekend at my place, eager to get to know my family and more about my background. I had my stomach heavily knotted the last two days, worried Veronica or someone is going to accidentally give the truth about my past.

Luckily, no one did- Friday night was at that country club with the Olsens, boozing and schmoozing with those pretentious new money pricks. Saturday was a day of shopping in Manhattan where I purposely isolated Orson and me away from members of my family by dodging them in shops and taking a long time in dressing rooms.

But how many more times can I distract Orson before he's eventually gonna ask Veronica about my parents or worse, my childhood. I need to set the record straight and end this now.

Before it's too late. 

-

it's so intense from here on out, good luck on making it!

thank you for all your support!