Cheers
Dinner had been simple. No centerpiece. No silver domes or curated menus, just enough to fill the silence between them.
Jayce, ever the gallant fool, insisted on doing the dishes.
“Brilliant minds should be banned from touching anything breakable,” he’d declared, moments before nearly shattering a plate.
Caitlyn had laughed. Actually laughed. The sound startled her.
But then the door shut behind him, and the quiet returned, slipping in like fog beneath a cracked window.
She moved through the kitchen on instinct, scrubbing plates, wiping counters. Then came the shower. Clean clothes. A slow drift through rooms too curated to feel lived in. The condo was beautiful. And utterly hollow.
Eventually, her feet led her, like they always did to the office.
She never had a reason. Maybe it was the old wall clock, ticking steady and slow. Maybe the city skyline outside the glass, buzzing in gold and neon, whispering of something long gone. Or maybe it was because this room, more than any other, expected nothing from her.
No cameras.
No invitations.
No ghosts she hadn’t invited herself.
She curled into the window seat, blanket over her shoulders, not for warmth, just routine. Below, Piltover gleamed like it always had: polished, proud, pretending it wasn’t rotting from the inside out.
In her hand, a wine glass. The liquid inside was clear, lemon water, but the ritual still mattered. She swirled it slowly, letting the citrus sting stand in for a burn she no longer chased.
“Cheers,” she murmured, raising the glass to no one. Her voice barely echoed in the stillness.
Drinking lemon water from a wine glass.
A performance for her own brain.
Ridiculous.
But it helped. A little.
Outside, the city pulsed. A distant hum beneath the hush of high-rise glass. Inside, time softened its grip.
Eventually, her head found the cold pane. Her fingers loosened around the stem.
Eyes slipped shut.
-----
BZZZT.
BZZZT.
BZZZT.
Caitlyn snapped awake, heart pounding. Her neck screamed in protest from where it had been angled against the glass. She sat up, bones cracking, breath uneven. The buzzing didn’t stop.
She snatched her phone off the sill, squinting at the screen before answering.
“…Hello?” Her voice rasped, thick with sleep and something heavier.
“Caitlyn, tell me you didn’t just wake up.”
Her mother’s voice, elegant, amused, and honed like a scalpel, cut through the line. Caitlyn straightened on instinct, posture falling into place before she could think. Years of Kiramman etiquette didn't fade. They calcified.
“I did,” she admitted, voice low.
“It’s past one.” Cassandra’s tone was calm, but every word landed with intention. “Tell me you didn’t fall asleep with a glass of Merlot again.”
Caitlyn glanced at the wine glass still on the sill. The lemon water caught the light. A tired smile ghosted her lips.
“No wine. No whiskey,” she said softly. “Just lemon water.”
A pause.
“Mhm.”
“But…” Caitlyn leaned back, voice dry. “I did drink it out of a wine glass.”
Cassandra’s laugh came easy, for once. “Darling, as long as it’s not the real thing, you could drink it out of a decanter and I’d call it progress.”
For a moment, it was light.
Because Cassandra Kiramman never called without purpose.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, the question casual, too casual.
Caitlyn narrowed her eyes. “Not yet. You?”
“Not yet either,” Cassandra replied, too smoothly. “Your father and I are near the firm. There’s a place we like. Join us.”
And there it was. Polite phrasing. Velvet-gloved expectation. An ambush disguised as lunch.
Caitlyn nearly rolled her eyes. Almost. But the silence around her was heavier than usual.
“…Alright,” she said. “Sounds nice.”
“Good. We’ll see you in an hour.”
The line cut.
Caitlyn stared at the phone for a moment longer, then turned back to the city. It offered no excuses.
-----
Exactly one hour later, she stepped out of the cab and into the lion’s den.
The restaurant loomed. Marble columns, gold trim, glass polished to a fault. Piltover’s elite fed here. Councilors, heirs, boardroom kings in thousand-stitch suits. Of course Cassandra had chosen this one.
Caitlyn adjusted her bag, smoothed the front of her ivory blouse, and tugged the cuffs of her tailored pants. Every detail precise. Not a family crest in sight, but she didn’t need one.
Heads turned.
Admiration.
Envy.
Then, the whispers.
“White silk and she still took a cab?”
“Frozen accounts. Labels must be borrowed.”
“Didn’t Maddie blacklist her from Taryn & Sova?”
“Pathetic. Like watching a ghost play dress-up.”
She heard them all. Every hushed jab.
But she didn’t blink.
Didn’t slow.
They wanted collapse. Ruin.
Caitlyn Kiramman brought to heel. But she walked like she'd never left.
Past the rows of foreign cars. Past the designer desperation. Through the glass doors and into the viper pit.
The hostess blinked. Her eyes scanned Caitlyn’s ensemble with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Ma’am, do you have a reservation?”
“No.”
Simple. Cold. Final.
“Not on the list.”
“Three-month wait.”
“Embarrassing.”
The smile on the hostess’s face tightened. “I’m sorry, we don’t seat walk-ins. You’re holding up the line.”
Caitlyn tilted her head. Just slightly. Her silence did more than words ever could.
Because in Piltover, when a Kiramman doesn’t answer, it isn’t surrender.
It’s a warning.
Then the room shifted.
A man strode through the crowd, crimson suit sharp enough to cut, presence heavier than steel. The line parted. Conversations died.
Councilor Torman Hoskel.
His gaze swept the room like a blade, until it landed on her.
“Let her through,” he said. His voice didn’t raise.
The hostess went pale. “Councilor, I—”
“You rarely do,” he interrupted.
Caitlyn’s lips curled into something wry. “It’s been a while, Councilor Hoskel.”
His brow lifted. “Whose fault is that?”
There was warmth there. He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, guiding her forward like a general walking beside an equal.
The silence behind them cracked.
The Unforgiving Councilor, was walking Caitlyn Kiramman into the restaurant like nothing had changed.
And she walked like it hadn’t.
The stares didn’t bother her. The gasps meant nothing. Let them watch. Let them choke on their whispers.
To them, she was a fallen name. A scandal with legs.
To Torman Hoskel?
She was legacy. Still Kiramman.
What they didn’t know, what they’d never guess, was this: Long before the boardrooms and ballot boxes, the Kirammans had saved Torman Hoskel’s life.
And in Piltover, some debts aren’t written in ink.
They’re carved in blood.
And they’re never forgotten.