Lana didn't remember much of the drive home.
The silence inside the Bentley was deafening. Her father kept his eyes on the road, knuckles white on the steering wheel, and every time she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. The girl who always had the perfect clapback, the sharpest tongue in every room, now sat frozen, her heart pounding in her ears.
They pulled into the circular driveway of the Kingsley estate just as the sun dipped behind the hills. For the first time, the mansion felt like a ghost house. Lights off. No staff waiting. No music playing from the open patio doors. No one at all.
"Where is everyone?" Lana asked.
"Gone," her father muttered. "Let go this morning. House staff. Drivers. Security. All of them."
"You... fired everyone?"
"We had no choice."
Lana stepped out of the car as the front gate buzzed loudly behind them-locking shut. It was the first time she ever noticed how quiet a rich neighborhood could be when you're no longer rich.
Inside the mansion, everything looked the same-except for the moving boxes in the foyer.
"No," she said immediately. "This isn't happening. You're not seriously packing."
"We don't own the house, Lana." Her mother's voice floated in from the living room, weary and sharp around the edges. Celeste Kingsley stood by the window, her posture still perfect, though her eyes looked older.
"We've been leasing it under the company's name," she said. "And now that everything is frozen-"
"-we have thirty days to vacate," Charles finished.
Lana felt her knees go weak and reached out to the staircase railing to steady herself.
"But what about my trust fund?" she whispered.
Her mother gave a tight smile. "Frozen."
"My cars?"
"Repossessed."
"My clothes?"
"Pack what you can. The rest is likely evidence now."
Lana couldn't breathe. This was a dream. A nightmare. The kind where you fall and fall and wake up sweating. Except she wasn't waking up.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced down and saw dozens of notifications lighting up her screen. Headlines. Tweets. Posts.
#KingsleyCollapse
"Charles Kingsley under federal investigation."
"Kingsley heiress Lana's birthday disaster."
"From trust fund to criminal scandal?"
Margo had posted a selfie from the empty rooftop.
"So... no party? This is giving peasant vibes."
A slow, searing heat burned through Lana's chest. Betrayal. Humiliation. Panic.
Then her boyfriend, Hunter, texted.
"Sorry babe, I think we should take a break. My dad says it's bad for my image rn. Hope u understand 💔"
Lana dropped the phone.
This wasn't a crash.
This was a freefall.
Later that night, she lay in her now half-empty bedroom, staring at the ceiling. All around her were boxes and silence. Her custom walk-in closet had been stripped. Her favorite Chanel heels were gone-confiscated. Even Valentino, her little dog, had been sent to stay with her aunt in Palm Springs.
No birthday cake. No friends. No money. No future.
Everything she thought made her who she was... had vanished.
And for the first time in her life, Lana Kingsley had no idea who she was without it.
She closed her eyes and let the tears fall, silently.
The crash wasn't over.
It had just begun.