The serpent has found her snake. In the shadowy corners of Salem, two women bound by rage and ruin have forged a pact soaked in blood. Kristen DiMera, the queen of chaos, has sunk her claws into Sophia — a girl already teetering on the edge of madness — and together, they’re sharpening blades aimed straight at the heart of the DiMera family.

EJ DiMera. Johnny DiMera. Both marked for destruction.

But here’s the twist that will send chills down your spine: Kristen isn’t looking for a partner. She’s looking for a patsy. A disposable weapon. And once the trigger is pulled and Johnny’s blood is on Sophia’s hands, the plan calls for Sophia herself to vanish — permanently.

Think about it. Once Johnny is gone, Sophia becomes a liability too dangerous to leave breathing. If EJ ever gets his hands on her — and he will — he’ll shake the truth out of her like dust from a rug. One conversation, one crack in her armor, and she’ll confess everything. Every whispered plot. Every order from Kristen. The whole ugly truth would come crashing down.

So Kristen has engineered the perfect exit strategy: stage a fake suicide. Make it look like Sophia, consumed by guilt and despair, took her own life. A suicide note has already surfaced — Amy Choy showed it to Brady Black this week, claiming Sophia wrote it. As Brady and Gabi tear through Salem searching for the missing girl, that note hangs in the air like a ghost. Are they trying to stop her from hurting herself? Or are their suspicions running deeper, circling back to the whole supplement-swap disaster that poisoned Holly and dragged Rachel into hell?

Let me be clear: Sophia Choi is not a danger to herself. She’s a danger to everyone else.

And Johnny? He’s the perfect target. Sophia already despises him with a burning, corrosive hatred. She blames him for unraveling her life over the past year. Remember the adoption? Sophia stormed into court with Melinda Trask at her side, desperate to stop Johnny and Chanel from adopting little Trey. She thought she had a case. She thought she could tear that baby away from them.

Then EJ stepped in.

He laid it all bare for the judge — Sophia’s atrocities, her manipulations, her cruelty. He revealed that Aaron Green, Trey’s biological father, had willingly signed away his rights and given Johnny and Chanel his full blessing. The judge shut Sophia down cold. The adoption went through. And Sophia? She exploded into a rampage that hasn’t stopped since.

At the same time, she was poisoning Holly’s life with the supplement swap scheme — a vile maneuver that drugged both Holly and Tate, while dragging an innocent Rachel Black into the wreckage. When Tate and Holly discovered the truth, their fury was volcanic. And rightly so.

This is what makes Kristen’s alliance with Sophia so sickening. Kristen isn’t just plotting to murder her own nephew — she’s teaming up with the very girl who corrupted her daughter. Sophia manipulated Rachel from the moment they met at Bayview. She turned Rachel into a liar, a thief, an accomplice. She had Rachel sneaking and stealing and covering tracks while Sophia snuck out of the mental hospital to run her dirty errands.

And now Rachel is back in Bayview because of Sophia. Because of Kristen. They share that guilt.

Sophia was stunned when Kristen offered her a partnership instead of punishment. It made no sense — unless you understand Kristen’s twisted logic. She needs a tool, not an enemy. Revenge on EJ has consumed her entirely. EJ dared to speak the truth to Kristen — that her own catastrophic parenting is what destroyed Rachel. For that, Kristen slapped him across the face. He warned her not to try it again.

But she didn’t listen. She never listens.

Instead, she went straight to Sophia, handed her a gun, and gave her marching orders. Sophia ambushed Johnny in his own apartment. She sprayed him with mace. She held him at gunpoint. Things look very, very bad for Johnny DiMera.

Sophia hesitated. Doubt flickered in her eyes. But Kristen pushed harder, painting a picture of a glorious new life waiting for Sophia far from Salem. A fresh start, she called it.

Don’t believe it, Sophia. Not for a second.

Because right now, there’s nothing left for her in Salem anyway. Tate despises her. Holly despises her. Ari despises her. Thanks to the social media firestorm Sophia herself ignited, the entire campus sees her as exactly what she is: a psycho. She has no friends. No future here. No reason to stay.

And that’s