Chapter 1. The Hidden Identity

“If you don’t take this identity, Clara, your mother will die.”

Andrey’s voice slithered across the café table like silk-wrapped poison. Her manicured fingers slid a brown envelope toward me, its weight pressing against the polished wood like a verdict.

My gaze locked on it. My breath hitched, chest tightening as though the city itself had paused around me.

Outside, New York groaned beneath its usual chaos. Horns blared, shoes slapped against cracked sidewalks, ambition flashed in glass towers, but inside me, everything went silent except for the echo of Andrey’s words. That envelope was not an ordinary file. It was a blade wrapped in paper. A secret, powerful enough to slice my life into two.

At fifteen, my childhood ended the day my mother’s health collapsed. Overnight, I became the sole pillar of survival, dragging her failing body through the merciless world. The fragile utopia she had built for me crumbled into dust. From then on, my world dimmed. My youth dissolved into a grey blur of unpaid bills and midnight tears.

Now, at twenty-five, reality has stripped me of my last illusion. That envelope sat between us like a loaded gun.

“I can’t,” I whispered, though as the words left me, they trembled with hesitation.

Andrey’s gaze sliced into me, sharp and unyielding. “Clara, you can’t afford to miss this. Opportunity doesn’t knock for girls like us. It demands sacrifice and blood.”

Her words dragged me back to Oakland’s broken sidewalks, where we had grown up side by side. Hunger had shadowed us both, but Andrey’s ambition had always pushed her forward. Secrets clung to her like perfume, intoxicating and dangerous. Now she was offering me one - a fake identity.

“It’s only a cleaning job, Clara. It's high-paying. No questions, but they hire through referrals only, and this file will get you this job with the Bishops.” She said convincingly.

The name hit me like a slap, ‘The Bishops’.

Their reputation carried the weight of whispered warnings, their wealth staining every city with untouchable power. They were rumoured to be the most dangerous family in the history of New York. Or are they the rumoured Devil?

My throat tightened. “Andrey, where did you even get this?” My voice cracked.

Her face squeezed in a grunt.

“Don’t ask me, just know this. The Bishops don’t ignore the past, and they don’t forgive lies. If you’re in, you’re in. If you’re caught…” She paused, her silence hanging like a blade slicing through my chest. “You will be eliminated.”

I didn’t need her to finish as I already knew this wasn’t just a job. It was a trap. But my mother’s health was already fading, her body collapsing beneath illness and poverty. Hospitals had slammed their doors in our faces, and bills strangled us daily. Our hopes had become a luxury.

I thought of my mother’s laugh, soft even when her bones ached. I thought of her eyes, still burning with love despite the illness stealing her strength. Hardship had stolen my dreams and ripped apart my youth, and now, it dangled my mother’s life in exchange for a lie.

“Andrey. Are there no questions the Bishop will throw at me concerning this?”

“None, Clara.” Her glare hardened. “You’ll just clean, remain silent and get paid.”

The knot in my stomach pulled tighter as every instinct in me screamed danger. Yet the choice was an illusion; in fact, right now, I had no choice.

“I’ll do it,” I responded, giving in finally as my words rasped against my throat, bitter as ash.

“Better”. Andrey heaved a sigh of relief.

That night, in the dim corner of our cramped apartment. I opened the envelope again.

The forged ID stared back at me. It was written, ‘Elena Cruz’. A stranger’s name mocked me from the glossy surface. I also saw a referral letter and a set of gate codes from ‘The Bishops’ that lay folded neatly beside it. My entry ticket into the Bishops’ world.

Everyone in San Francisco knew the Bishops. The billionaires are draped in secrecy. I’d once scrubbed the marble lobby of their skyscraper, forbidden even to touch their private elevator. Now, I was about to walk through their front door, not as Clara, but as Elena.

---

The next morning, I was at the Bishops' gate. The gates swallowed me whole as black iron twisted into shapes like cages, devoured the nervous air around me.

My fingers trembled as I entered the code. My heart is hammering so hard on my ribs as the gates swing open with a silent menace, welcoming me into their world.

The mansion loomed over the cliff like a flawless beast-stone and glass gleaming in the dawn, roses perfuming the air with a sweetness edged in rot. Cameras blin, and every breath felt stolen from inside.

Everything here felt so different.

I staggered slowly to the entrance door. A maid in a tailored uniform greeted me, “Welcome, Elena.” Her smile looked too practiced, and her eyes were empty.

Inside, the house gleamed with white marble floors, reflecting my image like broken mirrors. The air was sterile, sharp and colder than a morgue.

A woman in grey intercepted me while I was busy, lost in the expensive luxury around the mansion. She stood in front of me, her stride echoing authority.

“You’re the new maid?”

“Yes.” My voice was barely audible.

“Report to Mr. Nathan Bishop now, she commanded, and her heels clicked away, leaving no room for protest in my mind.

The name jolted through me. Nathan Bishop, the reclusive empire-builder. A man who had built his fortune crushing rivals beneath his heel. The ruthless, brilliant and untouchable business mogul. The one everyone rumoured to be a ‘Devil’.

And now, he is going to be my employer?

My pulse thundered as I followed her from behind and she led me down a silent corridor.

At the end, a door stood heavier than the rest, as though carved to hold back secrets. Heat slicked my palms as I smoothed my shirt. Who knows what awaits me from inside?

The moment I stepped inside, I felt something. His presence.

He stood tall, his shadow wrapped in a tailored black suit. His jaw was sharp with stubble. He has golden eyes, smitten and dangerous, like fire trapped from a volcano. His gaze stripped me bare, as it locked on me for the first time, unraveling me with surgical precision.

Is he really the Devil of the Bishops’?

“You’re late,” he said. His words were cool, yet carried the weight of judgment.

My throat closed.

“I…I…didn't,” My words tangled and died on my tongue as I tried to respond but he didn't blink. His stare still pierced me, promising nothing but ruin.

Then, for the very first time, I realized the real danger wasn’t the forged identity in my pocket. It was the man in front of me.

Nathan’s lips curve

d slowly as he finally spoke. “Welcome to my house, Elena. Let’s see how long you will survive.”