Ten miles away, in a motel that smelled of stale cigarettes and bleach, the neon sign buzzed with a dying flicker.
Inside Room 104, a young woman named Melanie threw a duffel bag onto the sagging mattress. She wore a thrift-store jacket and boots that had seen better days. Her face was sharp, pretty in a jagged way, with eyes that held a simmering, lifelong resentment.
She walked to the bathroom mirror and pulled a crumpled magazine out of her back pocket. It was *Time Magazine*, featuring the photo from Davos. Victoria Vance-Croft, the “Matriarch,” holding her baby like a crown jewel.
Melanie smoothed the page out and taped it to the dirty glass. She pulled a folded document from her pocket–a birth certificate with a blank space where the father’s name should be.
“Look at you,” Melanie whispered to Victoria’s image, her voice trembling with envy. “Living in my house. Spending my money.”
She tapped the glass, right over the baby’s face.
“Enjoy it while you can, sister,” Melanie hissed. “I’m coming to collect my share.”