The cooking contest stopped being entertainment the moment Eve realised people weren’t watching for food anymore.
They were watching to see who would crack.
The studio lights came on like an interrogation lamp, hot, white, merciless, and the room changed. The audience still clapped when the MC told them to clap, still laughed when he made his rehearsed jokes, still held up their phones when the cameras panned across the crowd.
But underneath all of it, there was a new hunger.
Not for flavour.
For failure.
Eve sat straight-backed at the executive table beside Ryan and the Roderigos, her hands folded lightly in front of her, her face calm in the way she had trained herself to be calm, because years of being forced to endure had taught her that the moment you looked shaken, people began
