[Prologue]

All that's happened—just the opening act.

*

"Let me be blunt. I'm sick. Mentally ill."

In the VIP lounge, Holly Griffin slumped in the chair like she hadn’t slept for days. Those slim spaghetti straps dangling off her bony shoulders, paired with the blush-pink dress, made her look like one of those enchantresses from old legends—the kind that could wreck kingdoms without lifting a finger.

"Huh?"

The man sitting across from her clearly wasn't ready for the visual or the confession.

Holly frowned. "What do you mean, 'huh'?"

Looking awkward, the man wiped the sweat beading on his forehead. "Mrs. Griffin, please don't take this the wrong way. Could you explain a bit more... what makes you say that?"

Holly said plainly, "I keep having hallucinations. There's this... thing in my head that talks to me all the time. I googled it. Sounds exactly like schizophrenia."

He opened the medical file, scribbled briefly, then set his pen aside. "Well, people can experience hallucinations under a lot of different circumstances. From what I see, you seem overstressed. Maybe what you need most is just some proper rest."

Holly glanced up at him with a cold look in her eyes. "That's your final opinion?"

"...” The man paused, mentally editing his words. He definitely couldn’t afford to cross her.

After a brief silence, he picked the pen back up, all business now. "My apologies, Mrs. Griffin. That was careless of me. Could you walk me through these hallucinations you mentioned?"

She didn’t take it personally and quickly adjusted her tone. "There's a voice in my head. Super annoying. It keeps pushing me to do terrible things. If I don’t listen, it just... takes over."

Classic crazy-person script.

He scribbled a few more notes. "Does this... 'it' have any specific form?"

"Nope~ Sometimes it's a ball of green light, sometimes it turns into a book."

"A book?" He jotted that down. "And you said it can control your body? Can you explain how?"

She looked up, eyes like twin pools of emotion—those famous fox-eyes that always seemed a little too sincere.

"I don’t know. Most of it’s blurry. But something did happen recently."

"Please, go on."

She paused, thinking. "A few days ago, Aria Whitmore came around again to harass me. She was nasty with her words and even wanted to hit me. I had Velvet Grant kick her out. But then 'it' started whispering, telling me to kill her... Look, I don't like that idiot, but I never wanted her dead. Yet next thing I knew, she was lying there in a pool of blood, totally out."

The man’s pen froze mid-word. His head snapped up.

Unless he was mistaking this for some bad drama plot, the 'idiot' she was talking about had to be Aria Whitmore—the precious niece of the Carter family's third branch.

Carter family—one of the top elite clans in the country. When Aria landed in the ER that day, every bigwig at Whalebay's hospital was on high alert. Neurologists from across the globe were flown in overnight.

Back then, everyone was buzzing with the same question—who would dare mess with someone from the Carter family?

Well. Turns out it was none other than Mrs. Griffin. No wonder.

His thoughts knotted into a tight loop, but he made sure none of it showed. Carefully, he tried to dig deeper. "So you're saying... you believe you were being 'controlled'?"

"I'm not 'guessing.' I *was* controlled."

“…” He didn’t know how to respond.

If he were being honest, Mrs. Griffin here wasn’t giving off schizophrenia vibes so much as she was laying out a get-out-of-jail-free card. Like she thought this was some TV drama where slapping a ‘crazy’ label on yourself gets you off the hook.Holly Griffin clocked his thoughts in one glance. She leaned forward slightly, chin raised. "You're a doctor, not a cop. Do I really need to remind you what being a top-tier psychiatrist means?"

The man saw the indifference in her eyes and shook his head quickly. "N-no need."

She’d had it. This whole visit had been a joke, and the guy's reaction just confirmed it. Still, after finally mustering the guts to step out of the house today, leaving empty-handed felt like a waste.

She got up and bossed him from above. "Give me the prescription."

"Huh?" He blinked at her.

She spoke like it didn’t matter. "Risperidone, Fluoxetine—whatever works. If it won't shut the thing up, maybe it'll shut me down."

"Smack!"

His pen hit the floor from the shock of her words.

With her arms crossed and eyes narrowed, she looked him over like she was grading his credentials. "If you keep acting this shaky, I’m seriously gonna doubt your qualifications."

Snapping out of it, the man crouched down to get his pen. In the blink of an eye, he caught sight of a pair of pale, almost glowing legs—looked away just as fast. Pretty’s nice and all, but staying alive’s nicer.

This Mrs. Griffin? Total wildcard. They said she started off as a foster kid in the Carter family, and now she was married to the head of the house. Word was, she was drop-dead gorgeous but had a venomous streak—people who crossed her rarely landed on their feet.

Forcing a grin, he said, “Right away, Mrs. Griffin. There's a VIP room you can wait in, and the nurse will bring your meds in a bit.”

“Fine. Just don’t take forever. I hate waiting.” Holly shot back before strutting out of the room. But just around the bend, she remembered she still needed a note from him. Spinning on her heel, she headed back.

The door wasn’t fully shut, and as she approached, she heard him on the phone.

"Yeah, that’s right! Mr. Nolan, the missus just left."

"No major issues. I think it’s just sleep. I’ll switch her meds to something for rest. Yep! I’ll email over her file in a second."

"Yes, sure thing. Not a problem at all. Thank you, Mr. Nolan. Bye now." The man bowed deeper to his phone than he ever did to her.

Seriously? That had to be Matthias Nolan—Nathaniel Carter’s most loyal lapdog.

Holly’s lips curled into a cold smirk. She pulled out a sparkly designer pair of shades from her rhinestone-covered purse and slipped them on. Three years of marriage and not one single call from Nathaniel—until now. And of course, the first sign of interest came through his watchdog.

Wow. Really made a girl feel special.