Chapter 15. Burnout Cycle

The days blurred fast after the leak.

Morning meant headlines.

Afternoon meant bruises.

Night meant pretending she wasn’t falling apart.

Lia stopped reading comments after the third day, but the sound of them stayed anyway—buzzing in the background like tinnitus.

“Wildcard Chen.”

“Vale’s girl.”

“Debt fighter.”

“Broken thing made marketable again.”

She shut her phone in a drawer and went to work.

Her day job at the sports bar was all noise and neon—the smell of fryer oil clinging to her hair, the sticky pull of the floor under her shoes.

She’d tried to quit once. Cassian had told her not to. “You need distance from the gym,” he’d said. “A normal life keeps you grounded.”

Normal didn’t feel like this. By the end of her shift, her body warned her again. She ignored it.

A regular at the bar—a man who always ordered the same whiskey—looked her up and down and said, “Aren’t yo