CHAPTER ELEVEN
"The Price of Power"
They said good things only go to those who wait. Or if you can't wait, you take it. Monica had never been particularly good at waiting.
She had finally achieved it all. She was no longer in Tao's shadow.
She had stepped into the spotlight and she was soaking up every bit of the attention, letting it fill the spaces inside her that had once been empty.
The Milan fashion show was just around the corner.
She had brands rushing to her for deals.
She wasn't getting Tao's leftovers anymore.
She was getting first calls, direct offers, her name leading rather than following.
Monica's immaculately manicured nails glittered in the sun as she scrolled through her comment section, which had become a battleground between her fans and the trolls who had decided she was suspicious.
Each positive comment validated her. Fame was only peak if you had set your ideology on the applause of the crowd.
But with all the likes and retweets, Monica still felt certain emotions she could not quite put her finger on.
Lonely was too simple a word. It was more specific than that.
Tao had brought out the best and worst in her simultaneously, had occupied so much of her interior life that now, without her, Monica found herself moving through a space that felt too large.
The new friends she had surrounded herself with were fame-thirsty and disloyal and she knew it, but had chosen them anyway because they were available and uncomplicated, and she was beginning to understand the cost of that choice.
She had always had to strategise around Tao. Calculate every move, anticipate every angle. Without that friction, without that specific adversary who was also the only person who had ever genuinely seen her, something in Monica's mind was running idle and she didn't like it.
Her gaze drifted toward the statue the college had erected in Tao's honour.
Bronze and life-sized, it stood in the centre of the east courtyard with the particular quality of likenesses, successfully capturing her greatest features: Tao's chin lifted slightly, her posture exact, her stillness absolute.
"Monica, what do you think of the statue?" a girl asked from nearby, her phone placed strategically to record Monica's reaction.
Monica pasted her smile into place quickly. "Tao's name can never be forgotten. She was a sister and a friend, and this is exactly what she deserves." She moved on before anyone could follow up with a second question.
The public scrutiny had amplified after Tao's death.
Every move she made was read against the backdrop of Tao's absence, every bit of success she achieved was quietly attributed to the foundation Tao had built, every photograph of her face appearing somewhere it had never appeared before prompted the inevitable comment: wasn't she Tao's friend?
Tao's plus one? Tao's discovery? Even in death, Tao was the opening act for Monica's life, and the irony of it was something Monica had to actively manage on a daily basis.
Her heels clicked loudly against the courtyard floor as she walked away from the statue, her nails leaving small crescents in her palm from the tightness of her fist.
?
Tao's family heirloom dangled between Monica's fingers as she sat alone on a bench at the far end of the courtyard.
She turned it over and over in her hand, the gold chain catching the afternoon light.
This was the necklace Tao had worn almost every single day of her adult life.
Monica had taken it that night, not really as a trophy, but as something of a keepsake.
A memento. Proof. A private acknowledgement of what had happened between them.
"You still find ways to upstage me," Monica said under her breath. "Why can't you just stay dead?"
She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she barely heard the soft footsteps approaching.
Lila stood in the pathway, her eyes wide and fixed on the necklace in Monica's hand.
"Monica?" she called, her voice cautious.
Monica's face drained. She turned slowly toward Lila, shoving the necklace behind her back and constructing a smile over the top of the panic as she moved.
"Lila. What are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you that," Lila replied, her eyes moving to Monica's hand and back to her face. "Is that Tao's necklace?"
"Uhm. Yeah." Monica kept her voice steady. "She gave it to me, a while ago. Sentimental thing."
Lila looked unconvinced. The necklace was the single piece of jewellery that had never left Tao's neck, not at events, not at the gym, not at three in the morning when she would randomly pop up on her friends. Everyone who had been close to Tao knew this. Lila had been close enough to know this.
Monica watched the doubt in Lila's eyes, making a quick decision before she spoke.
"Hey," Monica said, her voice softening into warmth, "I was actually hoping I'd run into you. I could use some help with the fittings for the Milan show. Could you come over tonight? Six o'clock?"
Lila's expression shifted. While still suspicious about Monica’s reasoning for having the necklace, she loved fashion and would absolutely never pass up on the opportunity to see behind the scenes. "Six works," she said, smiling.
"Perfect," Monica said, and kissed her on the cheek and walked away, taking measured steps to pass off the appearance of not being in a hurry.
The moment she rounded the corner she moved faster.
?
Monica had thought it wise to let the staff off early that evening.
She needed complete privacy for whatever conversation she was about to have with Lila, and she needed to ensure that nothing would be reported back.
She opened the door to Lila's knock at exactly six, smiling brightly at the blonde in her pretty jean dress, noting the pear-shaped emerald around her neck.
The two sat in her father's abandoned office and went through the Milan fittings, seemingly enjoying each other's company. Lila laughed at Monica's jokes. Monica refilled her drink. If someone were watching from outside it would have looked like an easy evening between people who liked each other.
Both of them were planning something. Both of them were watching for the moment the surface would break.
"Can I use your bathroom?" Lila asked.
"Of course. Down the hall and up the stairs," Monica said pleasantly, her eyes staying on the catalogue in front of her.
Lila nodded and walked out. Monica waited thirty seconds, then followed without making a sound.
Lila moved through the quiet house speedily.
She found Monica's room, noted the familiar scent of pine and jasmine, located the Dior bag on the bed in three seconds.
She was inside the bag in five. Her fingers found the necklace and she pulled her phone from her pocket and took rapid, clear photographs.
"Jackpot," she whispered.
She was replacing the necklace when her phone slipped. It hit the floor with a sound that was enormously loud in the quiet house, and Lila looked up.
Monica was standing in the doorway.
She was leaning against the frame with her arms loosely crossed and a smile on her face that had nothing warm in it. She had been there long enough to see everything.
"Do you need a picture with it on your neck?" Monica said, her voice completely even. "Or would you prefer I just tell you how I killed her?"
Lila froze. Her lips were trembling. "Monica, it isn't what it looks like, I was just—"
"How about I show you?" Monica said, in a tone so quiet it was almost gentle.
Lila ran for the door. She didn't make it. Her head met the wall first, the impact splitting the surface of her forehead, and she screamed and screamed but the house was quiet and al the staff had been sent home, there was no one to hear her.
Monica worked efficiently. Lila fought harder than she had anticipated. Tao had not fought at all. Lila scratched and bit and thrashed on the tiled floor and Monica had to work for it, which she found, in some cold and private part of herself, exhilarating.
When it was over, Monica sat back on her heels and caught her breath.
She looked at what she had made with the same admiration she had that first night in Hyattsville. She reached down and removed the pear-shaped emerald from around Lila's neck and turned it over in her fingers.
Killing might just be more addictive than coke, she thought to herself, and went to clean up.