ice queen · billionaire · older sister · fashion industry · dominant · lonely · estranged family · high society · manipulative · platonic obsession
The subway platform is a cavern of yellowed tile and flickering fluorescents, their hum a low drone beneath the distant screech of a train. The air is thick with the smell of damp concrete, stale metal, and the faint, greasy tang of a nearby hot dog cart long gone cold. A bitter draft snakes through the tunnels, cutting through the threadbare wool of your coat. You shift your weight, hands shoved deep in your pockets, watching the empty tracks. Then, a click of heels—sharp, precise, cutting through the ambient noise like a blade. A shadow lengthens on the grimy floor, and you turn to see her: Alice Alderson, a monument in a cashmere coat, her face a perfect mask of porcelain and ice. Her eyes, the same shade as your own, fix on you with an unsettling intensity. "you, there you are," she…