After my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart, Madison, heard I was allergic to peanuts, she mixed peanut extract into the sauce on every single party appetizer. The second I accidentally ate one, my airway began to clamp shut. Angry red welts spread across my pale skin. With shaking hands, I reached into my Chanel clutch, pulled out the EpiPen that was supposed to save my life, and yanked off the safety cap. Then I froze in horror. What I had pulled from my bag was not my EpiPen. It was a cheap candy toy pen someone had swapped in. When Madison saw my face covered in hives and heard me fighting for breath, she burst out laughing. "Surprise! I had Drake switch it for you." "Selena, can you stop being such a drama queen? Since when does one bite of peanut kill you?" I stared at my boyfriend and forced the words out through my tightening throat. "Drake... if you don't give me my medicine, I'm going to die." Drake frowned and rolled his eyes. "Selena, do you really think you're some delicate little trust-fund princess? I've never heard of anyone dropping dead from a little peanut." "Madison's right. You always make everything about you." I stopped wasting breath trying to explain. I pressed the hidden side button on my watch, the highest-level SOS alert linked straight to my family's private security team. ... Drake glanced at me without changing expression. "What did you just press? Don't tell me you're calling 911 over a prank." He ripped the watch off my wrist and squinted at it for a long time. When he saw nothing unusual on the display, he sneered, hurled the watch worth several hundred thousand dollars onto the floor, and crushed the face under his leather boot. I reached for it, but my throat had swollen so badly I could no longer pull in air. My vision began to blur. "I'm going into anaphylactic shock... give me the medicine." Madison folded her arms and watched me as if I were the entertainment. "Miss Selena, are you really suffering? Or are you just trying to steal Drake's spotlight at his own birthday party?" "It's bad enough you use that black card of yours to buy his attention every other day. Could you at least not ruin tonight?" It felt as if invisible hands were locked around my neck. I collapsed weakly onto the leather couch. Drake and Madison had grown up on the same block in Brooklyn. Afraid I would get the wrong idea, Drake had once sworn to me, "She's like a little sister to me. If there were anything between us, we would've gone to City Hall years ago, right?" Madison had also hooked her arm through mine and played innocent. "Selena, Drake is a clueless idiot when it comes to romance. Honestly, only a sweet Manhattan girl like you could put up with him." I had actually believed their nonsense. But little by little, I noticed something was off. Every time we went out to dinner, she deliberately cut into my conversations with Drake and brought up old high school stories only the two of them understood, shutting me out completely. If I went quiet, she would take a sip of her cocktail and add in that fake-sweet voice, "Selena, you're not jealous because Drake and I are having fun talking, are you?" "Honey, we grew up together. Please don't be so insecure." Now the malice she had always hidden was written all over her face. "You don't even have a crown, but you still act like a queen. Does your rich-girl skin crawl the second Drake isn't orbiting you?" "And now you're pretending to die so you can emotionally blackmail him?" In the VIP room, Drake's fraternity buddies broke into sharp, ugly laughter. "I'm really... allergic to peanuts... please, the medicine." I dragged up the last of my strength and rasped it out. The room went quiet for one second, then exploded into even louder laughter. Madison's voice cut through the pounding hip-hop like glass. "Oh my God, she's committing to the bit! Drake, your girlfriend deserves an Oscar." "Drake, don't tell me you feel bad for her." Before Drake could answer, several guys started egging him on. "Come on, feeling sorry for a girl like that is how you ruin your life." "Drake, you're the coolest guy we know. Don't let this drama queen run you." Goaded by his friends, the brief hesitation in Drake's eyes vanished. He lifted his chin and gave a cold laugh. "Who says I feel bad? Honestly, this prank was too tame." He raised his foot and nudged my spasming calf. "Quit faking, Selena. Keep this up and I'll actually get mad." When I did not respond, panic flickered in his eyes. He started to step forward, but Madison grabbed him. "I told you she's a liar. You almost fell for it again. Who turns purple from an allergy? She's obviously holding her breath." I struggled to lift my head and forced a few words through my throat. "Give me... the medicine..." Before I could finish, Drake pressed the back of my head down and slapped me hard across the face twice. My cheeks swelled and burned like tomatoes. "Is this what you want?" He pulled the small bottle of emergency antihistamine tablets from his jeans pocket, poured them into his palm, and tossed them lightly with a nasty grin. My eyes locked on those pills. "Give them... now." Just as my trembling fingers were about to touch them, Drake smirked and stepped back. I fell heavily against the couch and watched him dump every tablet into an ashtray full of cigarette butts, then pour half a glass of whiskey over them. The white pills dissolved in the murky liquor, bubbling in a way that turned my stomach. Nausea rolled through me, and I gagged painfully. "Wow. See? She can still be grossed out. Doesn't look like someone who's dying to me," Drake snapped, spitting the words out. Madison's face darkened with irritation. "Selena, are you done yet? Can you let Drake have one decent birthday?" One of Drake's fraternity friends rolled his eyes too. "We've seen the fake-sick routine before in college. Find a new act." My whole body began to convulse. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. "I'm not... I'm really... allergic..." I prayed someone would call 911, but in that entire VIP room, not one person took out a phone. Madison wrapped her arms around Drake's neck and pulled him toward the center of the room. "Ignore the buzzkill. Let's cut the cake. If nobody gives her attention, she'll get bored and stop." When they cut the cake, whether by accident or design, the red velvet slice in Madison's hand suddenly slipped. A thick smear of sweet frosting landed perfectly across the front of Drake's shirt. Everyone around them immediately started whooping. "Drake! Is this some secret wild birthday show?" "Forget napkins, Madison. Clean him up yourself." "Is Drake's rich girlfriend going to get jealous?" "Please. She's busy pretending to be dead." My vision was already scattering, but I saw Drake glance toward me, then smile as he settled his hands on Madison's waist. Through the whistles and cheers, they pressed together without shame and made out right in front of me. My heart felt as if it had been fed through a grinder. I tried to crawl toward the door, but the moment I moved, all my strength disappeared. Just as my consciousness was about to sink into darkness, I suddenly remembered the hidden pocket inside my jacket. I might still have one backup emergency tablet there. As if grabbing the last rope over a cliff, I shoved my hand inside and searched desperately. The instant my fingers touched the pill, my heart lurched. But the lack of oxygen made my hands shake violently. I lost my grip, and the little white tablet rolled onto the carpet. I had just stretched my hand out when... A sharp stiletto came down hard, crushing the pill and my swollen fingers beneath it. Blinding pain shot through me, but I did not even have enough air to scream. "Why?" My bloodshot eyes fixed on Madison. Madison slowly crouched. Her pretty, fake face had twisted into something monstrous. She lowered her voice so only I could hear. "Why should you get everything just because you were born a Kensington?" "Last month, Drake sweet-talked you into making him the beneficiary of that twenty-million-dollar life insurance policy. If you just happen to drop dead tonight, that money goes straight to him, doesn't it?" "Once he gets the money and marries me, your Manhattan penthouse and all those dollars will belong to us." Rage tore through me. I wanted to rip her apart. So that was what this had been from the beginning: an insurance scam. But this broke woman had miscalculated one thing. Under New York trust law, unless I signed off on the final transfer of assets, he could not touch a single cent during the review period. I glared at her, my eyes nearly splitting with fury. My dying expression only seemed to thrill Madison more. Her red lips curled like a snake's. "Sweetheart, you really are hard to kill. Maybe I should send you to hell myself." Madison's cold fingers clamped around my throat and slowly tightened. Death closed over me. A violent instinct to survive drove me to spend the last of my strength on one desperate scream. "Fuck off!" I braced both hands against the leather couch and somehow, impossibly, half rose to my feet. The commotion caught Drake's attention while he was drinking. He frowned and came over. "What now?" Madison instantly put on the face of an innocent victim. She released me and fell backward with a delicate little cry. Drake shoved me away as if I were trash and pulled Madison into his arms. "You have enough strength to push someone while you're supposedly allergic? This act is getting ridiculous." My forehead slammed into the glass edge of the whiskey table. Blood poured down at once, blinding my left eye. Drake stopped in front of me and looked down, disappointment filling his eyes. "Selena, when are you going to stop? I'm done with your BS." When he finally saw my purple face and the blood on my forehead, panic flashed across his expression. He started to bend down, but Madison yanked him back. "Drake, are you crazy? You're actually falling for this?" "If she's really having an allergic reaction, I'll cut off my head tomorrow and use it as a bowling ball." Drake still hesitated. "But she's bleeding... maybe we should give her the medicine." Madison suddenly burst into exaggerated laughter. "God, she really scared you? We were just messing around." She nudged my shoulder with her heel. "Look at her face, red one second and purple the next. She's working so hard for sympathy. Oh, right, she's had her mouth open this whole time. Maybe she's thirsty from all the acting." Drake's tense shoulders relaxed instantly. He even looked relieved. "So she's just thirsty. You scared me for a second." He turned and picked up a glass of ice water from the table. When the cold rim touched my lips, I shook my head with everything I had. My throat was almost sealed shut. Pouring water into me now would choke me to death. Drake's hand froze in midair, impatience sharpening his face. "See? I told you she's faking." Madison fanned the flames from beside him. "You're too soft, baby. Rich, arrogant girls like her only understand force." Drake gripped my jaw so hard his knuckles nearly crushed it. Ice water and cubes were forced into my mouth. The water rushed into my airway, and I broke into a tearing cough. It poured down my neckline and into my expensive silk dress, making me shudder. Drake only laughed harder. "See? The water perked you right up." Darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision. My nails dug into my palms until blood slicked my skin. Madison nodded with a smile. "Much better. Guess she really was thirsty." They turned to leave, and I used every ounce of strength left to clutch Drake's pant leg. I forced my heavy eyelids open. My voice came out like air scraping through a broken pipe. "Help me... I'm the heir... to Kensington Group..." He looked down at me as if I were a deranged homeless person, then burst into a scoff. "The heir to Kensington Group? Selena, why don't you just say you're the Queen of England?" The laughter around us nearly blew the roof off the room. A guy in a baseball cap slapped the table and shouted, "Drake, your girlfriend has been watching too many Hollywood scripts. Want her to do a Beverly Hills heiress monologue?" Drake laughed until tears came to his eyes. Then he grabbed my sweat-soaked hair and slammed my head toward the corner of the table. "Still pretending to be a billionaire? Fine. You can inherit this table." My forehead struck something hard again, and the pain nearly knocked me unconscious. "Go on! Call your private bodyguards!" He dragged me by the hair and smashed my face into the carpet, which was smeared with frosting and cigarette ash. Madison stood nearby with her arms folded and said lightly, "Careful, Drake. Don't actually get yourself sued." Her tone made it sound as if she were worried about an expensive toy getting broken. The oxygen in my lungs was gone. I stared up at the neon lights flashing across the VIP-room ceiling and felt my soul slowly lifting out of my heavy body. At the exact moment I gave up fighting and prepared to close my eyes, bang. With a violent crash, the thick soundproof door was kicked open from the outside. Blinding hallway light cut into the room like a blade.
