Chapter 3-The Reed family wants a queen... but just for show.

Thirty minutes after the public disaster—which was already trending nationally, internationally, and surely interplanetarily, if Twitter existed on Mars—Camila received an "urgent call" from Reed Group headquarters.

When she arrived, the atmosphere was dense and heavy.

Her father slammed his fist on the table so hard that the echo vibrated off the windows.

"Camila! How could you humiliate the family like this?" he shouted. "It was a multimillion-dollar deal!"

Her mother, sitting next to him, had tears in her eyes, not from sadness for her daughter but from social embarrassment.

"Honey," she said in her soft, manipulative voice, "you just had to hold out a little longer. You could have given in. Dani is more manageable for the company."

Camila slumped in her chair and crossed her arms.

"Are you saying that it's best for the Reed Group if I let myself be manipulated?" she asked.

There was a tense silence.

Uncle Gerard, who always sniffed out other people's opportunities like a trained vulture, intervened.

"Camila, the shareholders are concerned. Blake Corp. is demanding one condition for continuing with the contracts: that you officially leave the company for a while."

For a while.”

A more elegant way of saying:

"We want you to disappear."

Next to her, Dani covered her mouth with her hands in a theatrical and "innocent" manner.

"Cami... I... I don't want your place," she whispered. "But the board says I can calm the situation down."

Camila looked at her as if she were an empty, useless cup.

"Dani, how convenient that you're always there to take what I leave behind."

Her cousin paled.

Her father slammed his hand on the table again.

"Camila, for the sake of the family, step down temporarily. Sign the papers and let Dani keep the Reed name.”

Camila then let out a laugh.

Softly.

"Perfect," she said, standing up. "If you want me to leave so badly..."

She opened her bag with surgical calm and took out a folder.

She dropped it on the table with a sharp thud.

"Here it is:

My resignation.

My share of corporate responsibility,

My duties on the board.

Everything."

The room fell completely silent.

The Reeds, so accustomed to being in control, did not expect her to be the one to let go.

"Camila..." her mother whispered, her voice breaking. "What are you going to do without the Reed Group?"

Camila slowly put on her coat, without looking back or trembling.

"The same thing I've always done, Mom."

The woman swallowed hard.

"And what is that?"

Camila opened the door and, without turning around, said,

"Survive.

This time, I'm going to live without obeying anyone."

She left without looking back.

For the first time in her life, she was free.

Even if the corporate world wanted to bury her, they were forgetting something essential.

Fires don't destroy women like Camila.

They forge them.