Everyone said elite sport was cruel.

Everyone said sometimes bodies simply failed.

I had believed them.

Then another attachment appeared.

TRAINING HALL SECURITY FOOTAGE — ORIGINAL UNEDITED FILE.

Caroline dropped her champagne glass.

It shattered across the marble.

Nobody laughed now.

My phone buzzed.

One final message.

Your sister didn’t just steal your choreography.

Watch what she did to your equipment the night your career ended.

I stopped breathing.

Caroline lunged.

“Give me the phone.”

Madison caught her wrist.

“Why are you scared?”

“Madison, move.”

“No.”

Hundreds of phones rose.

The enormous screen went black.

Then thirty-year-old security footage appeared.

The timestamp read:

NOVEMBER 11, 1996 — 22:41

The empty Prague training hall emerged in shades of gray.

A side door opened.

A young woman entered.

Caroline.

My sister had been twenty-four.

I remembered that coat.

A long wool coat our mother had bought her in Vienna.

On the screen, Caroline crossed the gym.

She stopped beside my equipment bag.

Kneeling, she opened it.

Then she removed something.

My ankle support.

A reinforced brace I had been using after a strain.

Young Caroline looked around.

Then she pulled a small metal object from her pocket.

Scissors.

Someone behind me whispered, “Jesus.”

Caroline hacked through several internal support threads.

Not enough to make the damage obvious.

Enough to weaken it.

She placed the brace back inside my bag.

The recording paused.

A button appeared on my phone.

PLAY FULL RECORDING.

My hand was shaking.

For thirty years, I had wondered why my ankle had given way during a landing I had performed hundreds of times.

Now I knew.

I looked at my sister.

She seemed suddenly very old.

Not the elegant mother of the bride in a silver couture gown.

Not the woman who ran Madison’s management company.

Just my little sister.

The girl who had once slept beside me during thunderstorms.

The girl whose hair I had braided before school.

The girl who had sat beside my hospital bed after surgery and held my hand while I cried.

“You did it,” I whispered.

Caroline shook her head.

“Evelyn—”

“You did it.”

Madison released her mother’s arm as though it had burned her.

Caroline looked desperately around the ballroom.

“There’s context.”

A strange sound escaped me.

“Context?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help me.”

“Not here.”

I gestured toward the screen.

“You chose here thirty years ago.”

Her face crumpled.

Then a man’s voice came from behind us.

“I think everyone should see the rest.”

Madison turned.

Her new husband, Daniel Hart, stood near the edge of the performance floor.

He had changed out of his dinner jacket.

His bow tie hung loose.

His face looked grim.

Caroline stared at him.

“What did you say?”

Daniel stepped forward.

“I said they should see the rest.”