Claimed By The Coldhearted Sterling Heir

The convoy tore down the interstate, the world outside blurring into streaks of green and gray. Inside, the silence was heavy enough to crush bone.

Faith pressed herself against the door, trying to take up as little space as possible. She was acutely aware of the mud on her feet staining the pristine floor mats. She tucked her legs up, hugging her knees.

Julian sat on the other side of the wide backseat. He had opened a laptop and was typing furiously. The blue light from the screen illuminated the sharp angles of his jaw, making him look more like a statue than a man.

Her stomach growled. It was a loud, guttural sound that seemed to echo in the quiet cabin.

Julian didn't look up. He didn't stop typing.

The assistant in the front seat, a man Julian had called Liam, reached back with a bottle of Evian water and a protein bar.

Faith took them, her hands shaking. She stared at the water bottle. It was glass. She had never seen water in a glass bottle before.

"Faith is a weak name," Julian said suddenly.

Faith jumped. She lowered the protein bar. "Excuse me?"

He stopped typing and closed the laptop with a soft click. He turned his head, pinning her with those cold eyes. "Faith. It implies blind trust. It implies waiting for a miracle. In Boston, that kind of thinking gets you eaten alive."

"It was my mother's name for me," Faith said, a spark of defensiveness igniting in her chest.

"Your mother left you in a tin can with a drunk," Julian said. His voice wasn't cruel; it was factual, which made it hurt worse.

Faith flinched as if he'd slapped her. She gripped the water bottle until her knuckles turned white.

Julian reached into the pocket of the seat in front of him and pulled out a document. He slid it across the leather seat toward her.

"Read it."

Faith looked down. The header read: Petition for Change of Name.

"Elara," Liam said from the front seat, his voice soft as he glanced in the rearview mirror. "Mr. Sterling selected it. It's one of Jupiter's moons. It's distant, hard to find, but possesses a significant gravitational pull. It fits the narrative we are constructing."

Julian remained silent, watching her reaction.

Faith stared at the paper. The letters swam before her eyes. "I don't want to change my name."

Julian pulled a Montblanc pen from his jacket pocket and held it out. "You can sign the paper, or I can have the driver pull over on the shoulder and you can walk back to West Virginia. It's about three hundred miles."

Faith looked out the window. The trees were whipping by at eighty miles an hour. There was no going back. The bridge hadn't just been burned; it had been nuked.

She took the pen. The metal was warm from his body heat.

She hovered the tip over the signature line. Faith Vance. That was who she was.

"No," Julian said sharply. "Sign Elara Vance."

Faith looked at him. His expression was unyielding. He was erasing her. He was killing Faith so that something else could be born.

She squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath that rattled in her chest, and signed. Elara Vance.

Julian took the paper and the pen back immediately. He handed the document to Liam. "File it the second we land."

"Yes, sir."

Julian turned back to her. He held out his hand, palm up. "Phone."

Faith hesitated. She pulled her cracked Samsung from her pocket. The screen was spiderwebbed, held together by tape. It had the only photos of her sister she possessed.

"I need the numbers," she said. "My sister's number."

"Give it to me."

She placed the phone in his hand. His fingers brushed hers-his skin was dry and cool.

Julian didn't look at the phone. He pressed the button to roll down his window. The wind roared into the cabin, chaotic and loud.

"This device is a digital footprint," Julian said, his voice raised over the wind. "It connects you to Ray, to dealers, to every mistake of your past life. If you want to be safe, you cannot be found."

Without a glance, he tossed the phone out the window.

Faith gasped, lunging forward. "No!"

She watched it tumble through the air, hitting the asphalt and shattering into a thousand invisible pieces behind them.

"Why would you do that?" she screamed, tears finally spilling over. "That was my sister!"

The window rolled up, cutting off the noise of the wind. Silence returned, absolute and suffocating.

Liam reached back again, this time with a sleek white box. He handed it to Faith.

"New iPhone," Liam said softly. "It has military-grade encryption. The numbers you need will be retrieved from the cloud archives once we scrub them for safety."

Faith opened the box. The phone was brand new, perfect. She turned it on.

The background wallpaper was a generic, high-contrast image of the Boston skyline.

"Caleb is a drug dealer," Julian said, his voice cutting through her grief. "If you keep contact with him, or your stepfather, they will use you to bleed this family dry. I cut the rot out before it spreads."

Faith stared at the screen. She wasn't a guest. She was a possession.