Every wolf in the Crescent Moon pack knows me and my mate are the unhappiest couple in pack history. They know it because he’s the male I stole. For eight years I called him my mate. For eight years I wore the Luna title and slept in the Beta’s chambers and watched him flinch every time I tried to touch him. We poisoned each other’s food. I hid silver pins under his pillow. He hid wolfsbane in my tea. Every single morning in that pack house started with one of us hissing *I hope you choke* across the breakfast table. I told myself he’d come around. I told myself the bond would settle. Then the rogues ambushed us at the border. He pressed his bullet-proof vest into my hands and shoved me behind a rock. I thought — gods, I actually thought — *he’s finally choosing me.* “Rae, run!” I ran. I ran like a stupid pup. And when I came back with the warriors, I found his body torn open by rogue claws, and Mira’s body curled up next to his. He’d died covering her. His last words floated back to me later from the one warrior who’d survived long enough to hear them. *”I’m coming, Mira. Next life — don’t let her find me first. My heart only has room for you.”* I stood over his corpse and I didn’t cry. I just walked back into rogue territory alone, took out their command post with my own claws, and bled out under their banner. My name went on the pack memorial wall. One line. Nothing else. Then I opened my eyes. I’m staring at the ceiling of my old room in the Crescent Moon pack house. My hands are small again. The mating ceremony with Caden is ten days away. Mira is still alive, still sleeping two doors down, still plotting whatever she plotted that put us all in the ground. I sit up slowly. The moon goddess gave me a second chance. Fine. I know exactly what to do with it. I get dressed. I walk straight to my father’s war room. Alpha Quinn looks up from his maps, and I say it before I can think twice. “Call off the mating ceremony. I’ll take the undercover mission instead of Mira.” He stares at me. “You want to replace your sister on the infiltration team. You. Are giving up Caden Wolfe.” “Yes.” “The whole pack knows you’d die before you let another she-wolf near him.” “Things change.” He keeps staring. He’s waiting for the punchline. Every wolf in this pack thinks I’m a spoiled brat who clawed her way into a mating with the Beta heir — and they’re not exactly wrong. Last life, when the lots fell on Mira and Caden begged my father to spare her, I dragged Caden home by the collar and forced the ceremony forward. This life, I’m done. “You always told me Mira lost her father young,” I say flat. “You always told me I should step back for her. So I’m stepping back.” His face does something complicated. He’s remembering my mother. The former Luna who took a rogue’s claws to the throat so he could live. He’s remembering how, after he married the widow with the small soft pup, he stopped looking at me the same way. He signs the papers. The mating ceremony is off. Mira gets Caden. I get the mission. I walk out of the war room and slam straight into a wall of muscle and rage. Caden. Last life he was already on his knees in front of my father, mud and blood streaked down his uniform, begging on behalf of Mira. Same desperate face. Same wild eyes. I rub my shoulder and try to step around him. He catches my arm. “What did you just do.” His voice is low. His inner wolf is right at the surface — I can see the yellow bleeding into his irises. “Drawing of lots is pack law,” I say. “You know that.” “Give me a week. I’ll find another way. We don’t have to send a she-wolf into that brutal Alpha’s bed —” “We have a week’s worth of warriors dying at the border every day, Caden. How many more do you want?” His jaw locks. “If you don’t go stirring things up in front of the Alpha, there’s still time —” There it is. Not *don’t go, Rae*. Not *I’m sorry*. Just — *don’t make trouble for Mira*. I peel his hand off my arm. “It’s done. The paperwork’s in. You’ll be very happy with how it turns out.” I walk past him. I don’t look back. In the courtyard, I let myself breathe. One breath. Just one. *Caden Wolfe, last life you gave me your vest and went and died next to her. This life I’m giving you back to her. We’re even.*

I spend the whole night with the rogue territory maps spread across my floor. The intel we’re chasing is huge. Last life Mira got caught three months in, tortured into telling them everything, and the whole operation collapsed. Warriors died. The war came back hotter than before. Caden died in the second wave shielding her. I died chasing his ghost. This time I know the layout. I know the schedules. I know which rogue warlord is sleeping with which traitor. I have one shot to walk in there clean and walk out with the names. I haven’t slept when dawn breaks. I throw on a plain jacket and crack my bedroom door open — A gun barrel presses straight into my forehead. “Why,” Caden grits out, “do you keep going after your sister?” I don’t even blink. I bring my arm up to knock the gun away. He’s faster. He twists my wrist, spins me, pins me against my own door frame. Stronger than I remembered. Stronger than a Beta should be at this hour, when his wolf hasn’t fed. “Caden. Let go.” I kick back. He just presses harder. “You’d let your own sister die just so I’d mate you? Is that the kind of she-wolf you are?” His voice is shaking with something ugly. Rage. Disgust. “Tell me, Raelynn. What gives a wolf like you the right to be loved?” For one ugly second I’m right back in that bedroom in the old pack house. Eight years of mating. Same words. Same voice. I snap. I drive my heel into his gut, scoop the gun off the floor, and turn it back on him in one move. The barrel kisses his forehead. “You drew a weapon on me. Inside our own pack territory. Do you have any idea what the Council does to wolves who do that?” He goes very still. His eyes drop to my wrist. It’s bruising already, ugly purple blooming under the skin. The fury drains out of him so fast I almost feel sorry for him. “…I’m sorry.” “Save it.” “I lost my head.” I toss the gun at his feet. “Someone has to take this mission, Caden. Yelling at me won’t change which name’s on the paperwork. Maybe you’ll get the result you want. Go home and prep for your ceremony.” He doesn’t catch the bitterness in my voice. He bends down for the gun like a wolf with a broken back. “You really think every wolf is as cold as you,” he says quietly. “Talking about a ceremony at a time like this —” I breathe in once. I walk past him. My teeth ache from biting down so hard. I don’t look back. If I look back I’ll claw his face off. *Caden. This life I’m going to give you everything you want. Watch.* That evening I come back to find a small box on my desk. Inside it: a stack of blueberry tarts, warm, fresh, the kind they don’t make in our pack kitchens. He’d have to have run them in from the human town to get them here. My favorite. He remembered. He always remembered the small things. That’s what kept me hooked for eight years. I don’t touch them. I know exactly what they are. They’re not love. They’re a thank-you note. My mother took him in when he was a starving pup with no pack. She raised him. She fed him. He owes her, and he’s been paying that debt out in tarts and small kindnesses to her pup for fifteen years. He doesn’t love me. He never did. I wrap the tarts back up and leave them out for the kitchen omegas in the morning.

The mission paperwork comes through fast. The cancellation of my mating to Caden — I told my father to sit on that one. Tell Mira privately. Let her file her own ceremony request. The rest of the pack finds out the day of the ceremony. Cruel? Maybe. Last life he buried me in a single line of carved stone. This life he gets a surprise of his own. All the mission files burn in my fireplace the second I’ve memorized them. Caden’s been useless for days. Anyone can see it. He skips training, skips meals, haunts the Council chambers begging to be let in on the mission planning. They keep turning him away. I cross the courtyard after dinner and there they are, tucked into the garden pavilion — Caden and Mira, his head bent over his hands, hers tipped toward his shoulder like a flower toward the sun. He’s weaving something out of long grass. His fingers know the pattern. My mother taught him that pattern. She used to make me wolves out of grass when I was small, little carved wolf shapes that would last a week before they fell apart. After she died, Caden started making them for me. That’s how he kept me from crying myself sick. Grass wolves. Then Mira showed up, and there was suddenly a second pup in the garden, and the grass wolves started getting handed to *her* too. “Caden, what’re you making? I’ve never seen one of those before.” Lying, soft-eyed bitch. She’s seen a thousand. “Just something stupid,” he mutters, hands still moving. Mira’s gaze slides past him and lands on me. Standing there in the path. Watching. Her eyes light up. “Oh — could you make me a little wolf? Just a small one?” Caden’s hands freeze. He knows. He has to know what she’s just done. The grass wolves are mine. The last one my mother ever made for me — the one she gave me the morning before the rogues hit our compound — that wolf is sitting on the shelf above my bed right this minute. It’s the only thing I have of her left. Caden looks up. His eyes find mine across the garden. I don’t give him anything. I turn around and walk away. Let him weave her one. Let him weave her ten. I’m not going to stand there and watch. That night there’s a small wooden box outside my bedroom door. I open it. A grass wolf, fresh, perfect, exactly the way my mother used to make them. Same little crooked ear. Same loop of stem for the tail. “Childish,” I say out loud, to no one. I put the box down outside the door and close it. In the morning the box is still there. Untouched. He didn’t take it back. I stare at it for a long minute. Then I pick the wolf up and tuck it into my jacket pocket, right against my ribs. I tell myself it’s because my mother made the original. It has nothing to do with the wolf who wove this one. Nothing at all. I walk out into the training yard and don’t think about Caden Wolfe for the rest of the day. I think about a wolf I’ve never met. Damon Ravencroft. Alpha of Ravencroft Pack. The wolf I’m going to crawl into bed with in nine days’ time. The reports say he hasn’t taken a mate. Hasn’t taken a Luna. Buries himself in war planning. Cold-blooded, brilliant, half a head taller than any wolf in his pack, and the rogues he’s been doing deals with say even *they* are scared of him. Good. I’d rather be scared of my target than soft on him.

The Council throws Mira a small send-off in the pack hall. I come out of the training yard sweaty and bruised, and there she is, sitting in the middle of the long table like a saint about to be martyred. Wolves crowded around her, hands on her shoulders, eyes wet. “To think the lots picked *you*, Mira. Raelynn’s Alpha Quinn’s only bloodline heir — *she* should be the one stepping up for the pack. Instead she’s busy bullying our Beta heir into mating her. Poor Mira.” “Right? And Raelynn doesn’t even have the decency to come see her sister off. Heartless bitch.” Mira lowers her lashes. There’s a single tear ready on the edge of one of them. But just behind that tear, I catch the flick of something else — satisfaction. Then she sees me. The tear forgets to fall. She wasn’t expecting me. Why would she? Last life I was tearing the pack house apart trying to drag Caden back to the mating altar by his collar. Showing up to her send-off would have been the last thing on my list. I smile. I walk over. I find an empty chair right at her side, drop into it, cross my legs. The wolves around her stare. The one closest to me actually pulls her chair back a couple inches. “What’s *she* doing here? Coming to gloat?” “Don’t waste your breath. Mira’s just *better* than her. Mira’s got the heart of a real Luna. Raelynn watches her sister get sent into rogue territory and doesn’t even blink — Alpha Quinn must be ashamed every time he looks at her.” I don’t argue. These wolves were my packmates once. Last life most of them died at the border within a year. The one talking the loudest right now actually took a silver round for me on a raid I don’t remember being grateful for. If they want to gossip into their drinks while they’re still breathing — gods, let them. It’s almost nice. After a while it gets boring. I push back from the table and head for the door. “Rae.” Mira catches up to me in the corridor, slips her arm through mine like we’re best friends. “Father told me. About you giving up the mating. That was so generous of you — Caden was always going to be mine anyway, right? You’re not going to call it stealing, are you?” She tilts her head up at me, sweet as poison. “The lots picked me, but I’m letting *you* have the glory of the mission. We can call it even. So just — be nice to my friends, okay? They’re worried about me.” I laugh in her face. “Glory.” “What?” “You think if it had been you out there, you’d have come back with glory? With *anything*?” Her smile freezes. “Mira. You can’t run a training drill without crying. You’ve never bled for this pack in your life. You really thought you were going to walk into Damon Ravencroft’s pack house and out-Alpha *him*?” I lean in. “If Father hadn’t covered for you, you wouldn’t even be a recognized member of this pack. You’d be a stray that wandered in behind your mother.” “I’m taking your mission because somebody has to clean up after you. Don’t mistake that for charity.” Her face goes white. Then ugly red. Then her eyes do this thing — that quick flicker I should have remembered from last life — and her hand snaps up, locks around my wrist, and yanks. She slaps herself across the face with my own hand. “Rae — *why* —” I open my mouth to call her a clumsy little — A shape blurs in from my left. A hand slams into my shoulder. I go backward, hard, and the small of my back cracks against the stone edge of the rockery. The pain whites out my vision for a second. When I can focus again, Caden is in front of Mira. Body angled to shield her. Eyes blazing yellow at me like *I’m* the rogue. “Raelynn! Since when do you raise a hand on your own sister?!” “She’s leaving on an undercover mission in three days. If she gets hurt now, are *you* going to step in for her?!”

“You hit me? Did you even *see* what just happened?! She grabbed my —” “Enough!” Caden’s voice drops into Beta tone — the heavy pressure of it slamming out toward me on instinct. It glances right off. My Alpha bloodline doesn’t bend for a Beta. But the part of me that loved him for fifteen years still cracks straight down the middle. His face is gray. His eyes are colder than I’ve ever seen them. “Your whole life you’ve been like this. Throwing your weight around because you’re Alpha Quinn’s only bloodline heir. I told myself you’d grow out of it. I told myself you weren’t really cruel.” “Now you can’t even leave your own sister alone.” “You and Mira were raised in the same pack, by the same parents — she gives everything she has for this pack, and you? You’re rotten with envy.” “I don’t know who poisoned you into this. I think your mother died from the shame of having a pup like —” A crack splits the corridor. I don’t remember moving. I don’t remember lifting my hand. My palm just goes off across his face like a bullet. He turns his head with the force of it. Slow. He doesn’t even raise a hand to his cheek. A thin line of blood splits his lower lip and runs down to his chin. Behind him Mira is making a thin pitchy noise — *Caden, Caden, your face* — like she’s been shot. I’m panting. My eyes are burning. The grass wolf in my jacket pocket is digging into my ribs. Eight years of mating, last life. Eight years of him screaming things at me across that dinner table. He called me selfish. He called me jealous. He called me a curse. But not *that*. Not my mother. He never crossed that line. This life he crossed it in three days. “The wolf in this corridor with the least right to say a single word about my mother,” I say, and my voice is shaking so hard I can barely shape the words, “is *you*.” I turn around. The small of my back is already swelling — I can feel it pulsing under my shirt — and I have to grip the wall to walk straight. I get maybe four steps. Then I hear him move. Fast. The kind of fast wolves move when they finally feel something. He scoops me up off the floor before I can swing at him. “Put me down.” He doesn’t. “Caden — *put me down* —” Behind him I hear Mira’s small wet voice. “Caden, I — I never meant for —” He doesn’t even turn his head for her. He just walks. Long strides, jaw locked, carrying me down the corridor toward the healer’s wing like a wolf carrying his own dying mate. For one second — one stupid, stupid second — my chest cracks open with old hope. Then I remember. Last life he carried me like this exactly twice. Once after a rogue raid where I almost lost a leg. Once after a training accident at the academy. Both times I told myself *see, he loves me, he just doesn’t know it yet.* Both times he set me down on a healer’s cot and left without a word and went to find Mira. I close my eyes. The healer’s wing smells like crushed wolfsbane and bandages. He lays me down on the cot, steps back, and stands at the doorway like a sentry while the healer works on my back. The healer asks who did it. “I fell,” I say. The healer looks at Caden. Caden’s hands are fists at his sides. After she leaves, he stays at the door. “I didn’t mean —” “Get out.” “Rae, what I said about your mother —” “Get out, Caden.” I roll over to face the wall and pull the blanket up to my ears. He doesn’t move for a long time. Then I hear the door click softly behind him. Half a minute later, from out in the corridor, I hear the *crack* of a palm on a face. He just slapped himself. Hard. Last life he did that too. Once. After he’d called me a worthless she-wolf in front of half the pack. He stood outside our bedroom and slapped his own face raw and then knelt at our door for two hours. I didn’t open it then either. I close my eyes. *Caden Wolfe, you ran out of chances eight years before I was born.*

Two nights before I leave for Ravencroft territory, I go to pack my mother’s grass wolf. The shelf above my bed is empty. For a second the floor tilts. I check under the bed. I check the dresser. I check every drawer, every shelf, every coat pocket I own. It’s gone. There’s exactly one other wolf in this pack house who knows where I kept it. I find her in the small parlor next to the kitchens. She has the grass wolf in her lap. She’s pulling it apart. Strand by strand. Slow. Methodical. Like she’s deveining a fish. “*Mira.*” Her hand jerks. The whole wolf comes apart in her fingers — ear, tail, body, all of it, fifteen years of careful weaving falling into her skirt as dry brown grass. She looks up at me with huge wet eyes and the cheekbone I “slapped” yesterday already purpling for the show. “Sister — I’m sorry — I was going to surprise Caden, I was going to weave him a little charm to wear at my ceremony, I just wanted to study how my mother — *your* mother — used to —” I draw the knife. Not a real blade. A training knife. No silver edge, no proper point — they don’t let us carry live silver inside the pack house. But I’m three days off training and my hand is steady and the look in her eyes when she sees the blade is so satisfying I could weep. I take one step toward her. Her foot moves. She steps forward — *toward* the knife, not away — and crushes the loose grass into the floor with the toe of her shoe. Grinds it in like she’s putting out a cigarette. What’s left of the grass wolf is a smear of green and brown on the stone. I stop breathing. I take another step. The training blade is at her throat. A wrist clamps around mine from behind. “Rae — *what are you doing* —” Caden. He twists my arm down and out. The training blade clatters somewhere I can’t see. Mira sags backward into a chair, all tears now, the act so practiced it would be funny if I wasn’t shaking. I turn my head to look at him. “Did you give it to her?” He doesn’t answer. “That charm was kept on the shelf above my bed. Nobody knows that except you, Caden. So I’ll ask again. *Did you give it to her?*” His silence is the answer. I laugh. It comes out wrong. “Tell me something. Is anything I own worth as much to you as her *mood*?” He flinches. He actually flinches. Then his eyes land on Mira, on her tear-soaked face, on the bruise that I didn’t put there, and his jaw locks again. “Because of you,” he says, low, “she might die in three days. And you’re going to put a blade through her over a *fistful of grass?*” “A fistful of grass.” I say it back to him slow. So he can hear it. “Caden. You *know* what my mother left me. You *know*.” He goes very still. For one second I see it crack open behind his eyes — the pup in the corridor of my mother’s house, twelve years old, watching her weave that wolf for me at the kitchen table. The pup who’d cried into her apron when he got his first shift wrong. The Beta heir who’d taught me how to pin a wolf twice my size on the training field. Then he looks at Mira again, and the door behind his eyes slams shut. “I’ll weave you a better one.” I stare at him. “I don’t want anything from you.” I drive my shoulder into his ribs and break for Mira. He’s faster — gods, he’s always been faster — and this time he draws his sidearm. Real one. From his hip. Points the barrel at my chest. “You’re acting against pack order. As Beta heir I have the authority to bring you in right now.” I freeze for half a second. Then I laugh, because I have nothing else. I draw my training blade out of my belt — useless, blunt, no edge — and I point it back at him. We stand there in the parlor like the eight years that never happened. “Stop it, Raelynn —” I take a step forward. Caden’s eyes go wide. His arm jerks — instinct, training, he’s trying to swing the barrel away from me — and his finger slips. *Crack.* The shot grazes across the top of my shoulder. Cloth shreds. Heat blooms. Blood runs hot down my arm in a thin clean line. The whole room stops. Mira screams. Caden’s gun hits the floor. He’s looking at me like he doesn’t understand what just happened. Then his eyes drop to the training blade in my hand. The dull edge. The blunted tip. “You — you weren’t going to —” His voice cracks. “You weren’t even going to *cut* her. Why didn’t you draw your real weapon? Why didn’t you —” He stops. Something opens inside his face. Something he didn’t know was there. *Why was I so sure you’d reach for a real blade. Why was I so sure you’d kill her. Why have I been treating you like a rabid wolf for fifteen years.* I sway on my feet. The pain is catching up. The grass under Mira’s shoe is catching up. My mother’s last gift in fifteen years catching up. Caden moves. He’s across the room and pulling me against his chest before I can swat him off. His hand is at my shoulder, shaking, pressing down on the wound. I don’t fight him. I’m too tired. The tears I’ve been swallowing for two lives finally roll down my face and land on the back of his hand. He makes a small broken sound against the top of my head. I let my eyes close.

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The first rule of marrying a mob boss: never go through his pockets. The second rule: if you do, don’t let him see your hands shake. Mine don’t. I’m hanging up Garrett’s tuxedo jacket — the one he wore to the Bonanno christening last night — when my fingers close around something stiff in the inside pocket. A receipt. The Plaza. Two glasses of Dom Pérignon. One filet, rare. One lobster, butter on the side. A chocolate soufflé, for two. He sees me holding it. Doesn’t even blink. “Sit-down with the Sicilians. Vivian sang at the after-party. I left before dessert.” “Sure.” I drop the receipt into the trash. There are a hundred women orbiting the Cole family — showgirls, capos’ daughters, the redhead who runs the casino floor in Atlantic City. But there’s only one Garrett would sit through a three-hour dinner for. Only one who could make the Reaper of New York behave like a goddamn altar boy. Vivian Marsh. I used to fight him over her. Screamed. Threw a crystal tumbler at his head and split his eyebrow open. Almost walked out — twice. Then I took a bullet meant for him in a parking garage off Mulberry Street, crawled across the concrete with my own blood pooling under me, and dragged him into the back of his Lincoln before the second shooter could finish the job. He broke after that. Knelt by my hospital bed with his forehead pressed to my hand and swore on his father’s grave he’d never see her again unless it was family business. That was eighteen months ago. I walk out the back door to the woodpile. We have staff for this. I don’t care. I like the weight of the axe. I like the sound steel makes splitting something clean down the middle. I bring it down. Crack. Garrett follows. Stops a few feet behind me. “Scarlett.” His voice is too careful. “You’re not going to say anything?” Crack. “You’re not even going to yell at me?” I almost died for this man. And here he is — smelling like another woman’s perfume, asking why I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m not, because somewhere between the ICU and tonight, I stopped loving him. I just hadn’t said it out loud yet. I split one more log. Stack them neat against the wall. Brush the bark off my palms and walk past him into the house. He follows. Of course he follows. “What the hell is going on with you, Scar?” I run cold water over my hands at the kitchen sink. There’s blood under one of my nails — not mine, from a soldier I sewed up in the safe-house basement two nights ago. It won’t come out. He hates my hands. He’s never said it, but I know. He told me once Vivian’s hands looked like they’d never touched anything ugly in her life. Mine have touched nothing else. I dry them on a dish towel and pick up the leather notebook on the counter. Three months of work. Every contact in the underground medical network from Boston to Miami. Every off-books surgeon, every safe-house pharmacist, every gunshot protocol I rewrote from scratch. My handwriting, every page. Last week, old Doc Warren came to see me. He’s the Family Doctor of Record — the one official, licensed physician the Cole family puts on retainer. Clean medical license. Townhouse on Park Avenue. A private practice that quietly doubles as a laundering front. Six-figure annual stipend signed off by the Don himself. Only one such seat in the whole organization. Warren’s stepping down at the end of the year. He told me, eyes wet, that I was his pick. Twelve years of basement surgery — and finally, a way out into the daylight. A real license. A real life. Clean hands. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I push the notebook across the island. “It’s done.” He flips through it. Doesn’t really look. “I’ll pass it up the chain when I get a minute.” He sets it down at the edge of the counter like it’s a takeout menu. I don’t say anything. I start the water for pasta. We eat in silence. Then he sets his fork down. “There’s only one Doctor seat, Scarlett.” My hand stops on the wine bottle. “I know.” “Baby. You’re the best off-books surgeon on the East Coast. With or without the seat, you’re set for life.” I look up. “But Vivian’s different. Her lungs are shot from singing six nights a week. The seat is her only way out.” I set the bottle down. “And?” He won’t meet my eyes. “I put her name in with yours. She tests better. Sacred Heart pre-med. Gold Star daughter. Big-city polish. Her file’s stronger than yours, sweetheart.” The blood drops out of my face. “Garrett. Doc Warren told me the seat was mine. A month ago.” His jaw tightens. “Nobody promises anything in this life. Best candidate gets it.” “Don’t —” “Don’t be petty, Scarlett. You’ll never want for anything. But Vivian goes back to that club, she’s dead in a year. You really want that on you?” I don’t answer. I can’t eat another bite. Upstairs, I lie on my side of the bed and stare at the ceiling. He comes in. Slides a hand around my waist. Lower. I push him off. He goes still. “What now?” “I’m tired.” “Christ, Scarlett. You’re impossible to live with these days.” He turns his face to the wall. I lie there in the dark with my eyes wide open. For the first time in five years of marriage to a man the rest of the world is terrified of — I’m not afraid of him at all anymore. I’m just done.

The next morning, I walk past the back garden of the Velvet Room. There she is — Vivian Marsh, draped across a wicker chaise with three cocktail girls in silk robes around her, sipping mimosas at eleven in the morning. She sees me. Her voice climbs three octaves on purpose. “Ugh, you know Gar. He’s just too good to me.” “I told him a girl like me has no business on Park Avenue. He wouldn’t hear it. Said my daddy bled for this family — and he stayed up half the night filling out my paperwork himself.” One of the girls coos. “You and the boss, Viv — it’s like a movie.” Vivian giggles into her mimosa. Eyes flick at me over the rim. “Stop. You’ll embarrass Dr. Reed.” She lowers her voice. Just loud enough. “You know how she is. South Boston girl. Bit of a temper on her.” I tighten my grip on my medical bag and walk straight past them. I go to Linda’s. Linda Hayes is the closest thing this family has to a queen mother — Don Hayes’ wife, the only woman in the inner circle who ever looked at me like a daughter instead of an outsider. She pulls me through the door before I’ve even knocked. “Scarlett, honey. You and Garrett fighting again?” I shake my head. “Linda. I need to know about the Doctor seat.” She sighs. “Oh, sweetheart. Garrett’s gone and made a mess of this one.” “That seat was yours. Doc Warren went straight to the Don and said so himself.” “Then Garrett went around him. Put Vivian’s name in over yours. Pulled every string his father left in this city.” She shakes her head. “The Commission doesn’t know what to do with him.” My stomach drops. So he didn’t just file her application. He fought for it. Against me. I walk out of Linda’s house and the sky over Long Island is dirty and gray. The wind off the Sound cuts straight through my coat. Dylan jogs up the path from the carriage house. My baby brother. Twenty years old and built like a brick wall. “Scar. You okay?” I can’t answer. “It’s that bitch, isn’t it. Vivian.” His face goes red. “I’m going down to the club.” “Dylan. Don’t.” I grab his sleeve. “It’s the family. You don’t —” “You took a bullet for that man, Scar. A bullet. You almost died on a concrete floor in Little Italy.” “And now he’s handing your seat to a lounge singer?” “He’s a piece of shit, Scar. He’s an ungrateful piece of shit.” I clap a hand over his mouth. “Stop.” That night in the parking garage is the one thing Garrett and I don’t talk about. He hates it when I bring it up. He told me once a real man doesn’t owe his life to anyone — and a real man’s wife doesn’t remind him she’s the one he owes it to. Dylan rips my hand off and storms down the gravel drive. My heart kicks. I run after him. By the time I get to the Velvet Room, it’s too late. Dylan is on his knees on the back patio. Two of Garrett’s enforcers pinning his arms. His lip is split. Vivian is crying — beautifully — clinging to Garrett’s chest. “Garrett, I swear — I just wanted to talk to her —” “Her brother — he grabbed me — he grabbed me —” Dylan thrashes. “I didn’t touch her!” “She’s lying!” Garrett doesn’t even look at him. Drives his boot into Dylan’s ribs. “You don’t put hands on a woman under this roof. Ever.” I throw myself between them. “Garrett — stop! He didn’t do it!” His eyes are ice. “This is the brother you brought into my house? You keep defending him, I’ll put you in the basement with him.” He turns his shoulder against me. Slides an arm around Vivian. Voice softer than he’s ever used on me. “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.” Vivian buries her face in his shirt. I stand in the wet grass and feel something behind my ribs go quiet. Like a light switching off. They take Dylan to the basement. Lock him in. Garrett tells the family the boy will take the fall publicly. A formal strike. By Christmas he’s out of the organization. No protection. No name. No welcome anywhere in the five boroughs. I go to his study that night to beg. He’s at his desk. Polishing his father’s old service revolver. Doesn’t look up. “It’s family law, Scarlett.” “He didn’t do it.” “Vivian said he did. Two of the girls said the same. Whose word — yours or theirs?” “Garrett. He’s my brother.” He finally lifts his head. His eyes are full of disgust. “I told you to keep him in line.” “Now there’s a mess. And you want me to bend the rules for your feelings?” He shakes his head. “You disappoint me, Scar.” He snaps the cylinder shut. Lays the revolver in its case. “The seat’s decided. Vivian. The Commission announces Monday.” A pause. “I’ll keep your brother out of the books. No paper. No whispers. But the basement stays. The strike stays. That’s the most I’m giving you.” Like he’s tossing me a coin. I walk out of his study. The whole world goes black.

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Five years of marriage, and Chloe finally agreed to spend Christmas with my family. Then her phone rang. One call, and she slammed the brakes—right there on the highway. “Check the trunk. Something’s rattling back there.” I set up the warning triangle and checked everything. Nothing wrong. When I came back, the car doors were locked from the inside. I’d left my jacket in the car to save time. The December wind cut right through me, and I couldn’t stop shaking. “Babe, come on. Let me in.” “Mr. Sterling just moved up the meeting. I need to drop off this proposal. You wait here—I’ll be back.” Her eyes met mine through the window. Cold. Calculating. “Besides, going to your parents’ place is a waste of time anyway, Gabriel. I’m doing this so you won’t cause a scene. Try to understand.” She floored it. The car disappeared down the highway. I pulled out my phone and called my executive assistant. “Close the next exit. Then come get me.” “And tail my wife’s car.” “I want to know exactly who the hell thinks they can use my name to meet my wife on Christmas Eve.” Three minutes later, my assistant pulled up beside me. “Mr. Sterling, you must be freezing. Get in.” “I thought you were going home for the holidays. What happened? Did you and the Mrs. have another fight?” I climbed into the back seat, my frozen legs barely cooperating. “Not a fight.” He relaxed a little. “Good. Your father just calmed down. We can’t have any problems now, not when—” “An affair.” His face went white. He shrank back in his seat, didn’t dare ask another question. He just hit the gas and stayed on Chloe’s tail. The highway reopened. Chloe was flying—heels and all, she had the pedal to the floor. I watched the direction. My brow furrowed. The Sterlings don’t do business deals by the ocean. I called her again. Her voice dripped with irritation. “Gabriel, are you seriously not done yet? Just because you don’t have a job doesn’t mean you get to interrupt people who do, okay?” My son’s voice chimed in next, parroting her tone. “Dad, you’ve got it easy, sure, but don’t forget—Mom’s the one bringing home the money.” “She’s carrying the weight for this whole family. How can you be so shameless, bothering her at a time like this?” They hung up. I watched them jump out of the car and climb aboard a yacht docked in the shallows—slick, rehearsed, like they’d done it a hundred times. Funny thing: that yacht was my parents’ eighteenth birthday gift to me. I followed them, stone-faced. A server blocked my path. “The Sterling heir’s private family event. No outsiders allowed.” My assistant lost it. He grabbed the guy by the collar. “There’s only one Sterling heir, and he’s standing right in front of you! Gabriel Sterling!” The server’s jaw dropped. “But—but the manager said—” My assistant rolled his eyes and called the beach property manager. Two minutes later, the manager came sprinting over, bowing so low I thought he’d snap in half. “Mr. Sterling, this is a misunderstanding—a complete misunderstanding.” “We were told Mr. Sterling was hosting a family event on the yacht. We didn’t dare ask questions!” “We’ll stop everything right now and investigate everyone on board!” I glanced at the sweat pouring down his face and frowned slightly. “Don’t make a scene. And don’t tell anyone who I am. I want to see exactly who’s got the balls to pull this.” The yacht turned around. The gangway lowered. I stepped aboard. Everyone in the main cabin turned to stare. The moment they saw me, their faces twisted with rage. “Gabriel, this isn’t where you belong!” “Who do you think you are, showing up on Mr. Sterling’s yacht? Apologize to Mr. Sterling and get the hell out!” I looked at the man they were all fawning over—the so-called “Mr. Sterling.” He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him. The two people yelling at me, though? I knew them very well. My in-laws. Chloe’s own parents. I laughed—bitter, sharp. “It’s Christmas Eve. My wife doesn’t come home with me. Instead, she shows up at a stranger’s family event.” “Mom, Dad… care to explain?”

“Explain?” My father-in-law sneered and shoved me. “You broke nobody—what makes you think you can demand explanations on our turf?” My mother-in-law clutched the Hermès shawl I’d given her tighter around her shoulders, smirking. “Exactly. Who the hell are you? What gives you the right to ask us anything?” “Get out. Now. Or we’ll throw you into the ocean ourselves.” I could see it was pointless talking to these two. “Where’s Chloe? I want to see Chloe.” I started shouting her name, heading for the stairs. My father-in-law grabbed me and punched me square in the nose. “What are you yelling for? Why are you looking for our daughter?” “Shout one more time and we’re calling the cops!” My assistant’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. “You are the Sterling heir, and these are the in-laws you gave up everything to help?” The two immediately started cursing. “Stop lying! He’s not worthy of being called the Sterling heir. There’s only one Sterling heir in this world—Felix Sterling!” The man leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching like this was all some show, finally stepped forward. He grabbed me by the collar, a cold smirk on his face. “They’re right. What the hell are you? You think you’re good enough to set foot on my yacht?” Looking closer, I was certain—I’d seen this guy before. But I couldn’t remember where. I grabbed his hand and twisted. He yelped and let go. My assistant handed me my marriage certificate. I opened it right in front of Felix’s face. “I’m Chloe’s husband. I’m here to see my wife. Got a problem with that?” I thought that would end this circus. Instead, my mother-in-law pulled something out of her purse. “What are you so smug about? You’re just her Ex-husband.” I looked down at the document in her hand. My breath caught. “Divorce papers?” “That’s impossible. Chloe and I—we’re fine. We never got divorced—” I snatched the certificate and stared at it. It was real. My brain raced. A few weeks ago, Chloe had been so excited, telling me she’d met some big-time CEO. Then she said she wanted to help me switch jobs and asked me to sign a blank sheet of paper. I’d signed without a second thought. I trusted her completely. Turns out she’d divorced me—unilaterally, behind my back—a long time ago. Betrayal flooded through me like poison. I tore the certificate to shreds and hurled it to the floor, my eyes scanning the room for Chloe. “Chloe! Get out here and explain this!” Felix saw me losing it. He lunged at me from behind. I turned. His fist came flying. My assistant blocked it and swung back—hard. Felix hit the deck, blood streaming from his nose, screaming. “You dare hit me on my yacht? You’re dead! Get them!” A wave of security guards rushed us. We couldn’t fight them all. My assistant threw himself in front of a metal pole aimed at my head—and got flung overboard. My eyes went wide. I dove after him, grabbed his hand, but my own body slammed against the railing and hung there, dangling. The wind whipped around us. Cold sweat poured down my face. I shouted down at him. “Hold on to me! The current’s brutal here—if you fall, you’re dead!” He grabbed my other hand with a death grip, nodding through gritted teeth. I gasped for air and shouted toward the deck. “Someone help me up!” My in-laws looked at me dangling there—and took a step back. Everyone else just stood there, watching like it was a betting pool. How long could I hold on? Out of a dozen people, only one moved. Henry. My son. My chest warmed. Even if the rest of the family were monsters, at least my boy had a good heart. Then he lifted his leg—wearing the latest Air Jordans I’d bought him—and stomped on my hand. “Loser. We told you not to come. You just had to show up and ruin everything.” “If you mess with my new dad again, I’ll throw you off this boat myself.”

In that moment, my entire body went cold. I couldn’t breathe. I knew Chloe thought I was worthless. I knew her parents hated that I had no connections, no background. But my son—I’d raised him with my own hands. I’d never missed a single moment of his life from the day he was born. We shared blood. How could he do this to me? My throat tightened. Tears stung my eyes. Below me, my assistant was shaking with rage. “Mr. Sterling, forget about me—get up there and destroy them!” His shout snapped me back. He’d been with me since we were kids. We only got separated because I’d fought with my family over Chloe, cut all ties, and walked away. No matter what, I couldn’t let him disappear into the ocean. I tightened my grip on both hands, veins bulging on my forehead. The imposter—Felix—laughed. “Well, since our guest of honor is here, I’ve decided to move up the engagement party. Today. Right now.” He bent down and patted my face, mocking. “Chloe’s ex-husband… today, you’re gonna hang right here and watch your wife call me her man. How’s that sound?” Rage burned in my eyes. But all I could do was hold on. Then, from the staircase, Chloe appeared. She saw me hanging off the side of the boat and gasped, covering her mouth. “Gabriel—what are you doing here?” “And what’s going on? What are you all doing?” Felix laughed and strutted over, draping his arm over her shoulder—right in front of me. “I’m in a great mood today. Decided we’re getting engaged. Right here, right now.” “But there’s trash cluttering up my yacht. Chloe, if you can get rid of the trash, I’ll be very happy.” Chloe’s face went pale. But she did what he asked. “Gabriel… I’m sorry. Since you already know, just… help me one last time, okay?” “This opportunity means everything to me. I have to take it. You understand, don’t you?” Her voice was soft, gentle. Her hands were breaking my fingers. I screamed. The air punched out of my lungs. I almost lost my grip. Felix roared with laughter. “See that, buddy? People with money can do whatever the hell they want.” Below me, my assistant was screaming. “You bitch, stop! Felix is a FAKE—Gabriel Sterling is the real heir!” “He gave up everything for you! This year was the first time his parents agreed to accept you, and you’re listening to this fraud? Pull us up!” Chloe didn’t believe a word of it. “I know exactly who Gabriel is.” “So that’s why Felix wants you dead—you came onto his yacht to fake being someone you’re not. No wonder. You deserve this!” I stared at her—this woman I loved more than anything—and couldn’t find a shred of mercy in her eyes. She stopped pretending. Met my gaze head-on. And slowly, deliberately, one by one, she bent my fingers backward. I’d been holding a grown man off the side of a boat. My body was numb. I felt nothing but searing pain. Only my thumb and index finger were left gripping the railing. Then Felix spoke. “All right, pull them up.”

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Every April Fool’s Day, Ethan and his childhood sweetheart, Chloe, would play the same old “I dare you” game they’d played when they were kids. “Remember eighth grade?” Ethan leaned back in his chair with a grin. “I dared you to skip class, and you dragged me into the bathroom looking for a thrill. Then you showed me your 20-centimeter dick.” He laughed louder. “That’s nothing. In college, I dared you to date the hottest guy on campus, and you ended up stealing Sarah’s boyfriend instead. You even showed me the sex tape afterward.” I stood at the doorway, clutching the pregnancy test report between my fingers. After five years of marriage and countless hospital visits, today I finally got a positive result. Chloe glanced over and noticed me. She lifted her chin and said to Ethan, word by word, “Let’s make this year’s game even more exciting. Ethan, I bet you don’t have the guts to announce our engagement tonight, right here in front of everyone.” The room erupted into whistles and cheers. Ethan turned to look at me and laughed. “Why not? Wait for me.” He stood up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the hallway. “Sarah, everyone’s watching. Don’t ruin the mood.” His tone was relaxed, as though this were already some trivial little arrangement. “It’s just an April Fool’s joke. Please sign this divorce agreement tonight. I’ll tear it up tomorrow morning. I can’t back down in front of Chloe.” I stared at the man before me. For five years, I had constantly compromised and tolerated all those “little games” between him and his childhood sweetheart. This time, I hid the report behind my back and gripped it tightly： “But I’m pregnant.” “Sarah, you’re unbelievable!” Ethan blinked, then burst out laughing. “You actually made up a pregnancy just to stop me from winning? Fine, you win. That’s impressive.” Chloe dragged out her words mockingly: “Sis, it’s only a game. If you can’t handle losing, just say so. Using a child as an excuse is kind of low, don’t you think?” “Exactly.” Ethan grabbed my wrist tightly： “Come on. The party downstairs is about to start. If we’re late, the media won’t have time to report the news.” Without hesitation, he dragged me toward the exit. Five years. Using the novels I wrote at home, he had built his publishing company from nothing into a publicly listed corporation. And every year, I endured the humiliations he staged on April Fool’s Day, all for Chloe. The ballroom downstairs was packed with people. Ethan took a pre-drafted divorce agreement from his lawyer and shoved it into my hands. “Sign it. Before I propose to Chloe, the media needs something to photograph.” I picked up the pen and looked at the signature line he had already prepared. “Fine. I’ll give you what you want.” I signed it without hesitation. Our five-year marriage ended like the punchline of a terrible joke. The moment the ink dried, Ethan took off his jacket and changed into a tuxedo. Chloe pinned a white lace veil into her hair. They had even hired a professional makeup team on standby. I sat in the shadows, watching the two of them under the ring lights as makeup brushes swept across their excited faces. Five years ago, on the day Ethan and I got married, he wore a T-shirt and ripped jeans. When I asked him to change, he said true love needed no decoration, that sincerity was everything. Now, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, he wrapped an arm tightly around Chloe’s waist and smiled brightly at the camera. The photographer pressed the shutter, perfectly capturing their smiling faces. A few minutes later, Ethan walked toward me, holding two diamond rings. “Baby, see that? I won again. Tomorrow morning we’ll get ‘remarried.’ Don’t be mad. It’s just for the drama.” My morning sickness was so severe that I could barely stand. “Take me home,” I said, forcing down the acid rising in my throat. “I need to pack my things.” I reached for the passenger-side door. Before I could get in, Chloe squeezed past me. “Sarah, just cooperate a little. Tonight, Ethan and I are the ‘engaged couple,’ so this seat belongs to me.” She yanked the door open and slid into the seat. With one sweep of her arm, she knocked my cushion and stuffed toy onto the floor mat. Standing by the hood of the car, Ethan shrugged apologetically. I turned around and walked toward the roadside to hail a cab. Ethan jogged after me, opened the back door, and pushed me inside. “Stop sulking. It’s hard to get a taxi here. Just sit down.” A cheesy wedding pop song played through the speakers. Chloe hummed along, and when the chorus came on, she grabbed Ethan’s sleeve and swayed gently. “I’m marrying you today…” Ethan sang the next line. They looked at each other and laughed. She unscrewed a bottle of water, took a sip, then held it to his lips. Like a newlywed husband, he drank from the bottle in her hand. “Your collar’s crooked.” Chloe leaned closer to straighten his tie, her fingers brushing lightly across his throat. Half her body pressed against him. Ethan didn’t pull away. One hand stayed on the steering wheel while the other wrapped around her back. “Stop messing around. I’m driving.” His words said one thing, but his tone said the complete opposite. I leaned against the back window. The nausea surged again. I closed my eyes and placed a hand over my stomach.

The moment we walked through the front door, Ethan’s mother, Victoria, rushed straight to Chloe. She affectionately held Chloe’s hand, opened a jewelry box, and placed the family heirloom bracelet onto her wrist. It was something I had never received in five years of marriage. I had always assumed it was because I was too young and careless to wear it. Now I realized they had simply never accepted me. “Ethan already told me everything. This is absolutely ridiculous,” Victoria said in a tone full of indulgent affection. “Chloe, darling, I always knew you two were made for each other. If it weren’t for what happened back then—” As I bent down to take off my shoes, our eyes met, and she immediately changed the subject. “You’ve always been his destined partner.” Ethan stepped between them. “Mom, it’s a prank. An April Fool’s joke.” His mother gently patted Chloe’s hand： “Well, personally, I wish this performance could last forever.” Without saying a word, I walked straight to the bedroom and pulled out my suitcase. I had barely packed two outfits before Ethan followed me in. “Sarah, everyone’s here. Don’t throw a tantrum now.” He lowered his voice： “Stay for dinner tonight. Think of it as a warm-up celebration.” I shook off his hand and continued packing. “Tomorrow is the release day for the final book of your Nightwalker trilogy. The whole team will be here. If you disappear tonight, tomorrow’s promotional launch will be a disaster.” I paused. That trilogy had consumed three years of my life—countless sleepless nights rewriting drafts and starting over from scratch. Before the copyright transfer was fully settled, a fallout now would destroy everything I had worked for. I closed the suitcase. “Fine. I’ll stay for one meal.” Ethan immediately brightened and walked into the living room to make phone calls. I told myself this would simply be a farewell dinner with the team. Not long afterward, Chloe appeared at the kitchen doorway, leaning elegantly against the frame while swirling a glass of red wine. “Sis, since you already signed the divorce papers, shouldn’t you at least fulfill your duties as the hostess one last time before leaving? ” “Ethan works himself to death running the company. You spend all day at home scribbling away. The least you can do is help entertain the guests.” Ethan sat on the couch, drinking tea without saying a word. More than half of Apex Global Media’s core assets, including the screenplay concepts major film studios fought to acquire, had been written word by word by me in this apartment. And now, in her mouth, I had become a dead weight who merely “scribbled away” at home? Victoria chimed in as well. “The housekeeper has the day off. Darling, help out a little. The guests will arrive soon.” I didn’t want the team’s final memory of me to be an argument, so I rolled up my sleeves and walked into the kitchen. My stomach was still churning, and a dull ache twisted through my lower abdomen. I prepared the ingredients and carefully controlled the temperature before pouring oil into the frying pan. Chloe hovered nearby the entire time like a supervisor. “Don’t use too much wine. Ethan can’t handle strong tannins. Use baby carrots for the side dish. Don’t make it look like some country housewife’s stew.” The editors gradually began arriving. Jamie, one of the junior editors, finally couldn’t stand it anymore. He rolled up his sleeves and started helping wash vegetables. Chloe stopped him with a polite but sharp smile. “Sorry, Jamie. Touching things at someone else’s private dinner party isn’t exactly professional editor etiquette. Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the guests?” Flushed red with embarrassment, Jamie retreated back to the living room. I placed the final dessert delicately at the center of the long dining table. The doorbell rang just as I untied my apron. Chloe ran to the entrance while several deliverymen carried in huge insulated containers. “I figured Sarah’s homemade dishes might not be refined enough for everyone’s picky tastes,” Chloe said as she directed the delivery men to unpack everything. “So I went ahead and used Ethan’s card to order Michelin-star foie gras with black truffle and caviar tarts.” The table quickly filled with extravagant dishes. Without changing expression, Chloe picked up the beef noodles I had just made and dumped them into the trash to make room for her luxurious Michelin cuisine. Ethan didn’t even look up. He simply handed her a wet wipe to clean her hands. “You’re always so thoughtful.” I took a step forward, but someone grabbed my sleeve. Jamie shoved his phone into my hand, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sarah… look at this.” It was a book cover proof sent to Jamie for review. Above my name, “Sarah Quinn,” another name had been added: “Chloe Hart.”

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On Valentine’s Day, my husband’s student sent him roses, and I sent him to prison. My husband Julian Vane was promoted to professor. We didn’t even have a wedding reception. Just signed the papers at the courthouse and called it done. But for this, he threw a party at our place to celebrate. Halfway through the evening, he pulled out a bouquet of roses his female grad student had given him and reached for the vase on the mantel. Without warning, I knocked the flowers from his hands, sent the vase crashing to the floor, and spoke into the stunned silence. “I want a divorce.” Julian froze. Then fury flooded his face. “Seraphina, have you lost your mind? I’m putting flowers in a vase. Flowers from a student. What the hell is wrong with you?” His mother stepped forward immediately. “Julian just made professor. It’s Valentine’s Day. A student brought him flowers. So what? Are you really that insecure?” I looked at the scattered petals on the floor and said, word by word, “Yes. Because of these flowers. I want a divorce.”

The room went dead silent. His father’s face darkened. His mother’s wine glass stopped halfway to her lips. My parents stared at me, completely lost. My mother recovered first and grabbed my wrist. “Sera, that’s enough. This is Julian’s night.” Julian’s expression shifted from shock to white-hot rage. His eyes burned with a fury that could incinerate me on the spot. “Say that again.” I repeated it. Not loud, but clear enough to reach every person in the room. “I said I want a divorce.” His mother slammed her glass on the side table and jabbed a finger in my face. “Have you completely lost it? Do you have any idea what tonight is supposed to be?” “Julian made professor. We’re here to celebrate. And you’re standing here making a scene. What the hell is your problem?” “My son works around the clock on his research. He can’t even accept a bouquet of flowers?” I didn’t look at her. My eyes stayed locked on Julian. His handsome face was twisted with outrage. “Over flowers? Seriously?” “Seraphina, are you really this insecure? I’m putting my student’s flowers in a vase. That’s all this is.” My father cut in, his voice cold and hard. “Watch how you talk to my daughter.” Julian shot him a look, took a breath, and forced his expression into something wounded and apologetic. He touched his mother’s arm, then turned and faced my parents. “I’m sorry. I really am.” “Seraphina’s been under so much pressure at work. She’s overwhelmed. Please don’t hold this against her.” “I’ll talk to her.” He reached for my arm. I stepped back. Julian’s face softened into regret, his voice gentle now. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ve been so wrapped up in my promotion that I’ve been neglecting you. That’s on me.” “But they’re just roses. You’re reading too much into this. She’s just a student.” His older brother Dominic cut in, trying to smooth things over. “Sera, come on. This has to be a misunderstanding. Julian didn’t mean anything by it. The girl gave him flowers. What was he supposed to do, throw them in the trash in front of her?” Dominic’s wife Isabella nodded. “Seriously, Sera. I’ve met Sienna. Sweet girl. Very polite. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. Just let it go. Apologize to Julian and we can all move on.” I looked around the room. My father and Julian’s father stood with their arms crossed, frowning, silent. My mother’s confusion had shifted into something else. She looked at me now with reproach. Classic Julian. A few careful sentences and suddenly I was the hysterical wife making a scene. I ignored his performance and pointed at the roses scattered across the floor. The scent was getting stronger. “You said these are just ordinary flowers. Right?” I stared into his eyes. “Then close every window and door in this room.” “And stay here with me. Just you and me and these flowers. For one hour.”

The color drained from Julian’s face. He stepped back. His left thumb started rubbing his index finger and his whole body went rigid. That was his tell. He always did that when he was hiding something. His voice came out unsteady. His eyes wouldn’t stay still. “What are you… what’s the point of that?” I smiled, bent down, picked up a single petal, and held it out to him. “You said these were just ordinary roses. Didn’t you?” Julian turned his face away and pressed his lips into a tight line. He didn’t answer. His mother saw his reaction and jumped up from the couch. She grabbed a dustpan and brush from the hallway and marched toward the mess. “For God’s sake! She’s ruined everything! I’ll clean this up myself since some people can’t handle seeing their husband get a little attention.” My mother was shaking with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I squeezed her shoulder and snapped at Beatrice. “Don’t touch them.” She flinched and froze. I grabbed the dustpan from her and tossed it aside. Then I stepped forward and backed Julian against the wall, trapping him between me and the wreckage. “Nervous?” “You said there’s nothing wrong with these flowers. So what are you scared of?” My questions made his eyes dart away. He couldn’t look at me. His father set down his drink, his face cycling through shades of gray. He slapped the arm of his chair. “That’s enough! All of you! What the hell is this? We’re supposed to be celebrating!” “Everyone calm down. Anyone who can’t keep it together can leave!” Then he shot me a look heavy with meaning. I knew. That last part was meant for me. Just then, the doorbell rang. Julian practically lunged for the door, moving so fast he nearly tripped. The door flew open. Standing in the doorway was the student he’d called sweet and innocent. Sienna Brooke. She wore a white sundress and carried a gift bag with a bottle of wine and some fancy chocolates. Clearly meant for his parents. When she saw the scene inside, her face went pale. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice trembled. “Professor… Mrs. Vane… what happened?” “Is this… is this because of the flowers I brought? Did I upset you?” “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought roses. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. The florist said they were popular so I just…” “I’m so sorry to intrude. I should go.” She walked into the living room, set down the gift bag, and turned to leave. A three-second task stretched into three minutes. “Hold on.” Beatrice rushed over and threw Julian a reproachful look. She took Sienna’s hand and guided her to the couch, then shot me a venomous glare. “Sweetheart, this has nothing to do with you. Some people are just petty and can’t stand seeing anyone else get a little attention.” In that moment of fussing and positioning, I caught the look Sienna threw me. Challenge. Triumph. I didn’t acknowledge her. I simply said, “Get out.” Julian stared at me in disbelief. His fists clenched. Veins stood out on his hands. “Seraphina! What exactly has she done wrong?” “She apologized for the roses! She’s twenty years old. She’s sweet and innocent. The florist recommended them. Why the hell are you taking this out on her?” “I’m warning you. Stop projecting your sick paranoia onto this girl.” Beatrice stepped in front of Sienna like a shield. “I’d like to see you try. No one is kicking her out.” She turned on me with full force. “Seraphina, you’ve been married to my son for five years. You haven’t given us a single grandchild. And now you’re treating a guest in this house like this.” “All you do is lock yourself in that lab of yours, walking around like you’ve forgotten you’re even a woman. You can’t even do the one thing women are supposed to do. Marrying you was the biggest mistake this family ever made.” “I always said there’s something wrong with women who can’t have children. Bitter to the core. Can’t stand seeing anyone younger or prettier getting a little attention.”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” My father snapped. He stepped forward and put himself between us, glaring at Beatrice. “Your son Julian got down on his knees and begged me to let him marry my daughter.” “And this is how your family treats her?” Alaric picked up his drink, perfectly composed. “Let’s not get carried away, Arthur. What she said was out of line, but she’s just upset.” “This is between the women. We shouldn’t get in the middle of it.” One sentence. That’s all it took to wave off his wife’s attack as women’s business. My father’s chest heaved. I held him back and turned to Sienna. “You brought these flowers. You’re telling me you don’t know what’s in them?” She blinked those big innocent eyes and played the wounded lamb. “Mrs. Vane, I don’t understand. I bought them at a flower shop.” “If you think something’s wrong with them, I can call the shop right now and ask.” She reached for her phone, making a production of it. I watched her performance with cold eyes. A few careful sentences and she’d wiped her hands clean, shifted the blame to the florist, painted me as paranoid to Julian, and positioned herself as the victim. Textbook manipulation. Sure enough, Julian stopped her and shot me a glare. “You’re being paranoid. She doesn’t have to prove anything to you.” He walked up to me, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me. “Seraphina, are you done? You’ve embarrassed this entire family!” “Embarrassed?” I shoved his hands away. “You spent the whole night at your grad student’s place helping her with her thesis. That wasn’t embarrassing?” “That was work!” Julian roared. While we faced off, my mother slapped me. Her eyes were red with tears and full of disappointment. “Seraphina, is this what I raised you to be? Have you no shame? Apologize to Sienna. Now.” My cheek burned. My whole body went cold. My mother hadn’t even asked why. She’d taken their side and slapped me. Through the blur of tears I saw the smug satisfaction on Julian’s face. He even raised an eyebrow. Behind Beatrice, Sienna’s hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes went wide with practiced innocence. But deep down I saw it. Victory. Mockery. He thought he’d won. In his little script, I was supposed to be isolated, abandoned, defeated. Julian stood in front of me with a sneer. “Ready to admit you were wrong?” He jerked his chin toward Sienna and spoke in a tone that allowed no argument. “Get on your knees and apologize. Tell her you’re unstable and you made false accusations. Do that, and we’ll pretend tonight never happened.” “Who the hell is going to make her kneel?” My father roared and pulled me behind him. But my mother grabbed his arm, sobbing. “Haven’t you made enough of a scene? What’s wrong with her apologizing?” “You want a divorce over something like this? You want the whole family to be a laughingstock?” I looked at my father, his eyes bloodshot from defending me. I looked at Julian and Sienna, basking in their victory. I gently moved my father’s hand aside. Took a breath. Nodded. “Fine.” I paused, then gave them what they wanted to hear. “I’ll kneel. I’ll apologize.” The room went dead silent. Julian’s expression froze. He hadn’t expected me to fold. His voice softened, coaxing. “Sera, let’s stop this. Let’s just go back to the way things were. Okay?”

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A person only has one heart, and my husband wanted mine for his student. At a friends dinner, my husband got down on one knee and told me his student needed my heart. “She needs the transplant as soon as possible.” I went blank for a second. “A person only has one heart.” “I’ll get you the best cardiac surgeon in the city. We’ll put in an LVAD.” “I’m three months from my due date.” “The baby… we can try again. We’d have to let go of this one.” Before I could even respond, a girl’s laugh cut through the room. “April Fools, Professor! I made the whole thing up.” She was grinning behind her hand. “I didn’t actually think you’d go ask your wife.” The room erupted and friends started teasing. “That was brutal, man. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.” “If she’d said she needed my heart, I’d already be on the operating table.” I was the only one not laughing. I sat on the couch and said nothing. I’d already booked the appointment for tomorrow. … Julian had never once been angry at Clara. He’d always treated this frail, sickly student like she was made of glass. But this time he stood up and his face went cold. The room caught on and fell silent. After a long pause someone quietly reminded Clara, “You know that joke landed on his wife, right? That’s the one line you don’t cross with him.” “He’s famous for it at the institute. First year on the job, a colleague cracked one joke about Sienna and ended up in the hospital.” Clara froze and tears gathered on her lashes. She reached out and tugged the edge of Julian’s sleeve. “I’m sorry. It’s April Fools. I wasn’t thinking.” He didn’t answer so she turned to me and sniffled. “Mrs. Thorne, I didn’t mean anything by it. If you’re upset, say whatever you need to. I can take it.” Friends jumped in to smooth things over. “She’s always been like this, says things without thinking. Don’t let it get between you two.” “Come on, Julian. She’s been your student for three years and you even put her in your acknowledgments. You’re not going to let one bad joke ruin that, are you?” Julian’s expression finally softened and he reached over to wipe the corner of her eye. “Don’t make jokes like that again.” Clara nodded over and over. Then he turned to me and his voice softened into something close to an apology. “I’m sorry, Sienna. I came to you before I even knew the facts.” Came to me for help. A heart transplant and he called it help. That was the word he chose. It wasn’t the first time. Anything that touched Clara turned this normally sharp and rational professor into someone emotional and careless with his words. He drove fourteen hundred miles on New Year’s Eve because she texted him about cramps. When I asked he just said, “She’s not well. I was worried.” But I was five months pregnant and alone the whole night. He wasn’t worried. I was in pain with contractions coming in waves and I couldn’t even speak. He wasn’t worried. Morning sickness, edema, clumps of hair on the shower floor every day. He wasn’t worried. With me he was always perfectly rational, like a machine. “Sienna, growing a life is hard. You’ll feel better once the baby’s here.” I became short-tempered and easy to cry and easy to snap, but he chalked it all up to hormones and said a few words and went to his study. Every time, I had to force down the urge to go after him. And yet in the acknowledgments of the paper he’d spent five years writing, the first name listed was hers. Clara, an undergrad who had no real research experience to speak of. By the time I found out it was already in the news. In the interview Julian was relaxed, almost offhand. “In five years of teaching, Clara isn’t the most talented student I’ve had. But she’s the most resilient.” “I’m grateful she came into my life. She gave me the courage to keep going.”

That day I dropped my favorite vase. Julian saw the pieces on the floor and told the housekeeper to clean it up. But that vase was one we’d made together in the Cotswolds, the year we were most in love. He’d said with a straight face that it was going to be a family heirloom. “Let me put it back together.” I crouched down with my hands shaking and tried to match the fragments. He frowned and pulled me up. “It’s just a vase.” My eyes went hot. He glanced at my stomach. “Baby acting up again?” I told myself he was like this with everything, that not caring about keepsakes was just who he was. But that night when I brought fruit to his study I saw a locked display case on the shelf. Inside, under glass, was a ballpoint pen. The kind you get for a few dollars at any campus shop. Clara had given it to him. It was like having cold water dumped over my head. We had our worst fight. I broke the case open and threw the pen in the trash but he picked it up like it was something precious. When he looked at me his eyes were full of impatience. “Look at yourself, Sienna. You sound unhinged.” “You broke the vase yourself. What exactly are you blaming me for?” I told him to swear to me that he hadn’t fallen for her. If he had, I said, neither of them would come to any good. Julian, a man who’d never believed in anything he couldn’t prove, actually hesitated. After a long pause he finally spoke. “You’re right. I did fall for her.” “But we haven’t crossed any lines and we won’t. You don’t need to act like the world is ending.” I couldn’t stop the tears. He sighed and reached over to smooth my hair back. “Sienna, we’ve been together eleven years. There’s nothing left to surprise me.” “To be blunt, kissing you feels like going through the motions.” “Sometimes I even regret it, getting married so young, going abroad right after we turned eighteen. I didn’t know back then that I’d feel this way about someone else ten years later.” The same man who once set off fireworks across the whole city just to make me smile was now standing over me and talking about his feelings for another woman like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Clara’s different. She’s light. She doesn’t carry herself the way you do.” “She likes doing silly things. Watches those cheesy romance movies. Stops to feed stray cats on the street.” “You like all those same things. But when she does them I can’t help it. She gets to me.” When he was done he lit a cigarette and his voice turned gentle and cruel at the same time. “The title of Mrs. Thorne is yours for as long as you want it. But you’re going to have to accept that she’s the only one in my heart.” After that night I fell apart slowly and steadily. I cried until my eyes swelled shut every morning. I tried to go numb. I tried not to notice when he came home late, tried not to care about the missed prenatal appointments, tried not to think about him taking her to Hawaii. But I was only lying to myself. Then today he knelt in front of me in front of everyone and asked me to give Clara my heart. He was even willing to give up our baby at six months to make it happen. I looked at this marriage and realized there was nothing left in it.

“Mrs. Thorne, I know I was wrong. Please forgive me.” Clara’s voice was steadier now and I could see something like satisfaction hiding behind her eyes. Someone backed her up. “She doesn’t mean any harm. She’s always been like this, says whatever comes to mind. She was drunk once and said she wanted to marry Professor Thorne.” The second it came out the guy winced and covered his mouth. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying she doesn’t think before she speaks. Everyone knows you two are solid. No one could come between that.” The room went dead quiet. I smiled and said nothing for a moment. Then I looked at Clara. “It’s fine. I don’t blame you.” Everyone exhaled. Then I kept going. “Julian and I are getting a divorce. Congratulations in advance.” “Sienna.” Julian’s face darkened. “Don’t say things like that in front of everyone.” “You can get down on your knees in front of everyone and ask me to give her my heart, but I can’t mention a divorce?” He frowned. “It was an April Fools prank. Clara already apologized. If you keep pushing this you’re the one making it awkward for everyone.” Friends jumped in. “You’re still pregnant. Don’t stress yourself out over this.” “We all saw how upset Julian got just now. He never talks to Clara like that.” I looked at him and my voice was strangely calm. “You weren’t upset for me. You were upset because she joked about needing a transplant. When you found out it wasn’t real you were relieved.” He blinked and I could see the irritation creeping into his face. “Please. Not here.” “You’re embarrassing yourself. And her.” The exhaustion hit me all at once. I closed my eyes. “Fine. Monday. Let’s get this divorce done.” I stood to leave but Clara dropped to her knees in front of me. “Mrs. Thorne, please don’t take this out on him. He only ever wanted me to be healthy.” I looked at this girl crying her pretty tears and couldn’t help but laugh. “You went to all that trouble to prove how much you matter to him. I hope it felt worth it.” She went white. I stepped around her and walked out. Then behind me I heard his voice, quiet and cold. “Sienna. Don’t forget your mother is at Thorne Medical.” I stopped. I would never have thought Julian would use my mother against me. After a long silence I turned back and pulled Clara off the floor. “I was joking. I don’t blame you for anything.” She sniffled. “I’m glad. I’d hate to cause problems for him.” That was the end of it. Julian drove me home. On the way he said, “I had to say that. I wouldn’t actually do anything to your mother.” “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll come with you to see the baby tomorrow.” “Sienna. We’ve been together over ten years. I’m not without feeling for you. If you can, I hope you’ll try to get along with Clara.” I leaned against the window. “I meant what I said.” “Julian, let’s get divorced. Whatever happens with you two after that has nothing to do with me.”

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It was my eighteenth wedding with Julian Sterling, and once again all the guests left with my adopted sister. My parents called, impatient and barely hiding it. “Seraphina’s stomach is acting up again. We’re taking her to the hospital. Cancel the wedding, you should be familiar with what to do.” My maid of honor, my best friend since childhood, clicked her tongue at me over the phone. “You really think your wedding is more important than Seraphina’s health? She nearly passed out from the pain and you didn’t want us looking after her. When did you become this cruel?” And my fiancé didn’t even bother to call. He just texted: Wedding’s off. Discuss it next time. I rolled those words around in my head. He’d used that same line to brush me off eighteen times. A cold laugh slipped out before I could stop it, and I realized I felt nothing at all. Eighteen times. Enough. I was done begging for scraps from people who’d already made their choice. Whatever came next, I’d figure it out on my own. I picked up the microphone and walked onto the wedding stage, every inch of it draped in amethyst violets, Seraphina’s favorite flowers, not mine. “I’m sorry, everyone. Today’s wedding is canceled.” The guests traded glances. Not a single person looked surprised. “Called it. Not one of these weddings has ever gone through. If I were Celeste, I wouldn’t have shown my face.” “The whole family’s obsessed with the little sister. If I were Celeste I’d just let her have him and walk away. Save yourself the embarrassment and at least come out looking classy.” “You don’t know the half of it. She’s like that girl from Just My Luck. Everything she touches turns to gold, everyone around her hits the jackpot. Every time Julian tries to call it off with her, Sterling Global’s stock tanks the next day. He’s tested it a few times and lost billions. That’s the only reason he’s still with her.” I walked off the stage under their stares. I heard every word. My lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. This time, a stock dip was going to be the least of their problems. I changed out of the gown and drove back to the Vane estate to grab my things and leave. But the second I reached the door, a whole parade came pouring in. Seraphina at the center, everyone laughing and fussing over her like she’d just survived something heroic. The moment they saw me, every smile dropped. Julian’s eyes went dark. “Celeste, you canceled and didn’t even bother to give people a reason? Now they’re all going to think it’s because of Seraphina again. That’s on you.” My father scoffed and didn’t bother looking at me. “You really dropped the ball this time, Celeste. Every other time you handled the PR yourself and we didn’t have to think about it. Go put out a statement. Tell them you were the one being unreasonable.” Jade was already pulling out her phone. “I’ll get my agent to call the press. If Celeste puts out a statement now we can still fix this. Get some trolls to go after her online and nobody will be talking about Seraphina.” I didn’t respond to any of them. I just stood there. Okay. Fine. I’d had enough. Three days. I was giving myself three days to cut every last tie and walk away from this life for good. “Celeste, are you even listening? I’m telling you, if you don’t clean this up, I can’t promise when the next wedding will be.” Julian stopped right in front of me, voice sharp and impatient. And then Seraphina finally opened her mouth, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s all my fault. I ruined things between Julian and Celeste. I’m the one to blame.” “This month still has a few good dates. Please don’t push the wedding back any further.” She didn’t even finish before she started coughing. Julian rushed to her side and rubbed her back. “It’s not your fault. Don’t overthink it. Your sister can’t live without me, so it doesn’t matter when we get married.” “Then you’re the one overthinking it.” Those were my first words since I’d walked in. Everyone froze. I lifted the bag in my hand. “I’m leaving.” The words barely left my mouth. The next second, a sharp crack split the air. The slap echoed through the entire living room.

I tilted my head and let out a bitter laugh. My mother’s hand was still shaking from the slap. “Are you done? After everything we’ve given you, this is what you turn into? A spoiled, ungrateful brat?” “You want to walk out? And go where? So the whole city can talk about how we’re the bad guys, how we don’t love you enough? When are you going to stop embarrassing this family, Celeste? God, I wish I’d never had you. Seraphina would never pull this shit.” The taste of blood filled my mouth. I ran my tongue along the corner of my lip. Yes, every other time, I would have made a scene. Because I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why when Seraphina broke my father’s antique, they said I was the one who smashed it. I didn’t understand why there was security footage and they still refused to believe I hadn’t pushed Seraphina down the stairs. I didn’t understand how buying flowers that happened to trigger Seraphina’s allergies made me a bully. This wasn’t the first time my mother had hit me. The last time was two days ago. Because Seraphina wanted to wear my wedding dress and I said no. Then she fainted on the spot. My mother shoved me and cut up the custom gown I’d waited six months for with a pair of scissors. Over Seraphina, my mother and I had become almost enemies. So yes, I used to fight back. I used to scream and demand that someone, anyone, tell me I wasn’t crazy. But this time, I wasn’t going to make a scene. I’d always been the lucky one in this family. The day after I was born, the Vane Empire landed a deal that pulled it back from the edge of bankruptcy and made my father the richest man in Oceana. His stage-two liver cancer went into full remission around the same time, and the doctors never could explain it. My best friend Jade was a plain, forgettable girl before she met me. After we became inseparable in grade school, she grew into the kind of beautiful that made people stare. She landed every audition, won Best Actress, and became the most bankable star in the country. And Julian. He used to be nobody. A guy hawking knockoffs at a flea market, chased off by cops and beaten up by competitors. Until the night he found me lost at a street fair and walked me home. I fell for him on the spot. After that, everything he touched turned to gold. He built his own brand, never lost a deal, and took Sterling Global public before he turned thirty. They adored me for over twenty years. Julian treated me like I was the center of his universe. And they got everything they ever wanted. Then Seraphina was brought into the Vane family. And everyone changed. My father’s voice went cold. “Take all her things. Everything here belongs to this family. She doesn’t walk out with a damn thing.” “You want to go, Celeste? Go. But nobody’s chasing after you this time. We’ll hold a press conference and cut you off for good. You won’t be a Vane anymore.” They didn’t even let me grab a change of clothes before they pushed me out the front door. Julian sighed and quietly slipped me a key. “Here. It’s an apartment. You can stay there. Celeste, we’re done. None of us have the energy for this anymore.” “I wish I’d saved Seraphina that night instead of you.” I scoffed. “Then marry her.” Julian let out a long, exhausted breath. “Don’t start. I said I’d marry you and I will. That’s not going to change.” “Seraphina is a good person. A genuinely good person. I’m not going to let you talk about her like she’s something you can throw away. Don’t say that again.” He turned and walked back up the steps. I dropped the key on the ground and turned to leave. Seraphina rushed over and grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t leave, Celeste. I’m the one who overstepped. I wanted things that were never mine to want. I don’t deserve any of it.” “You stay. I’ll go. I’ll leave the house right now.” I knew exactly what she was doing. So I just stood there and let her cling to me and fake-cry. But when she realized I wasn’t going to shove her away like I always did, she gasped for air and collapsed at my feet. “Seraphina!” “Call the doctor! Seraphina, my baby girl!” Everyone came running and swarmed around her. Julian’s hand closed around my throat and his eyes were murderous. “You touched her? You really think I won’t hit you?” Turns out when you’re past the point of anger, all that’s left is a laugh. I didn’t even touch her. And somehow I was still the one who did. “Julian, I hope none of you ever regret this.” My father’s voice cracked like a whip. “Someone get her out of my sight. Lock her in the basement. I’ll deal with her myself.”

The basement was damp and dark. This was the second time I’d been locked down here. The first time was still fresh in my mind. I’d caught Seraphina sneaking into Julian’s bedroom in the middle of the night. I found her in his bed. She cried and said it was sleepwalking brought on by childhood trauma. She didn’t know why her feet had carried her to Julian’s room. She just felt safe there. She didn’t mean it. My parents and Julian believed every word. Julian even told her, gently, that she could come to him whenever she was scared. Back then I was at the peak of my obsession with him. I wouldn’t tolerate a female assistant anywhere near his office. Apart from junior staff, no woman was allowed on the executive floor. So I slapped Seraphina across the face. And my parents locked me in this basement. Seven days. One bowl of plain rice porridge a day. They didn’t let me out until the hunger broke me and I agreed to apologize. This time, they clearly had no intention of stopping at starvation. My father walked in with a cane and Julian followed behind him. “Thirty would have been fair. But Seraphina begged me to go easy on you, so I’m using the switch instead of the belt. That means fifty.” Crack. The first blow raised an instant welt across my skin. He hit me a dozen times. The welts split open one by one. Every strike after that came with a numb, searing burn. I remembered them saying Seraphina had begged for the switch. It had been soaked in something. Pepper water, from the feel of it. “Apologize to your sister!” “Are you going to apologize or not?!” He never got the answer he wanted, so he just kept hitting harder. After fifty strikes, my entire back and arms were covered in open wounds. The skin had peeled back in raw strips and blood ran down my spine and dripped onto the floor. I was numb from the pain. I curled up in the corner and gasped for air. My father threw the cane on the ground and left. His last words on the way out were, “Stubborn to the bone.” Julian crouched in front of me. “Seraphina sent medicine and clean clothes for you. She’s never been anything but good to you, Celeste. You’re her older sister. I’m about to be her brother-in-law. We should be taking care of her. Why do you always have to make her into the villain?” “Just apologize and get it over with. Stop putting everyone through this.” He unfolded the clothes Seraphina had prepared for me and laid them over my back. The fabric touched my open wounds and my entire body seized like I’d been dropped into a vat of salt. I doubled over and curled into a ball. “Drama queen. Seraphina turns white every time she’s in pain and you don’t see her making a show of it.” Julian stood up with a look of disgust and walked out. I finally managed to catch my breath. Two more days. I just had to hold on for two more days.

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My mate killed my pup to protect an Omega; now he’s begging for a single glance from the Luna he rejected. I came home to find the packhouse locked. Kaelen wasn’t back yet, so I waited outside in the snow. Two hours later his black SUV finally rolled up the drive. He climbed out looking apologetic and unlocked the front door. “One of the pack members was sick. I drove her to the healers’ ward first.” “Sure. Health comes first.” I stepped past his hand and walked inside. There were plenty of shewolves in Kaelen’s pack, but only one could make him drop everything and come running. Cynthia. A soft-spoken Omega with doe eyes and a gift for making every Alpha in the room feel like her personal protector. I’d fought with him about her before. Screamed at him. Let Ember, my Wolf, claw to the surface. Nearly got thrown in the dungeon for it. Then came the fight that killed our pup. I’d gone to find him at the pack hall, pregnant and happy, and walked in on Cynthia sobbing into his shoulder. Ember surged forward. My vision went gold. I shoved Cynthia away from him. One push and she went flying. Kaelen’s eyes went pitch black. Kruger, his Wolf, exploded out of him. Before I could even flinch, he lunged at me in half-shift and sent me crashing sideways. My belly hit the corner of the stone table. The pup was gone before I hit the ground. After that he seemed to wake up. He knelt at my bedside and swore on the Moon Goddess he’d keep Cynthia away, move her to a room on the far end of the compound with the other Omegas. No more contact. Now he watched me brush snow off my coat. His brows pulled together. “Elena, you’re not going to ask which pack member?” I looked at the red creeping into the corners of his eyes. And smiled. “Doesn’t matter who.” Because I didn’t care anymore. … Kaelen stood frozen in the doorway, rubbing his nose. “Cynthia’s place doesn’t have heat. She came down with a fever, a bad one. Nobody would help her.” He sighed. “You know how it is. After you made that scene, the whole pack turned on her. They call her a mate-betrayer behind her back. Even the other Omegas won’t sit with her.” “Helping her out was me cleaning up your mess.” The memory scraped at the old wound in my chest. The aftermath of that fight had been loud. Within days the entire pack knew what happened. Most of them sided with me. Behind closed doors they called Cynthia what she was. The shewolves in her circle froze her out, moved her to the worst room in the compound. I nodded and kept walking toward the bedroom. Kaelen’s voice sharpened. “Cynthia’s already forgiven you. Can’t you just move forward?” My feet stopped. My hand pressed flat against my stomach. “Sure.” I looked him dead in the eye. “When the pup comes back.” Kaelen went rigid. The light drained from his face. I didn’t wait. I walked to the bedroom. Since losing the pup we hadn’t shared a room in months. But the moment I pushed open the door, I froze. Dresses tossed across the bed. A bundle of belongings on the floor, piled halfway to my hip. Kaelen caught up and draped his arm across my shoulders, trying to play it casual. “Cynthia’s fever is bad. She shouldn’t be alone. I told her she could stay here a few days.” I stared at the bundle. A few days. And she packed half her life for it. “Besides, we’re mates. Sleeping in separate rooms isn’t right.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You still want a pup, don’t you? We can try again. Tonight.” I’d already been gutted by this man in every way that mattered. But hearing him dangle a pup like bait to keep his Luna in line still turned my stomach. “Kaelen, how about this. I move into your room, and you pick a different bed each night. Me or her. Whoever you’re in the mood for. Sound fair?” His face flushed. “What the hell are you saying?” “Luna, please don’t fight with Alpha Kaelen because of me. I’ll leave right now.” I turned around. Cynthia stood in the doorway, doe-eyed and trembling. Scarf on. Gloves on. Not a snowflake on her. Not a trace of the blizzard outside. It hit me all at once. While I’d been standing in the snow for two hours with my legs going numb, the two of them had been sitting in that heated SUV working out how to handle me. I was done talking. I shouldered past Kaelen, yanked open the closet, and shoved my few worn clothes into a bag. He was at my side in two steps, his hand locked around my wrist. “What are you doing now?” “It’s the middle of winter. You have a perfectly good house and you want to leave? The rest of the pack will talk.” “Do you have to make everything worse?” I shook his hand off and zipped the bag. “A house?” I said. “I don’t have a house. This one is yours and hers.” I grabbed the bag and shoved past him toward the front door. Behind me, Cynthia’s voice drifted out, soft and shaking, perfectly pitched. “Alpha Kaelen, she’s just jealous. I should go. It’s only a fever, I can take care of myself.” “Let her go. She gets more impossible every day.” “You stay right here. I’ll make you some soup later.” The wind hit my face. The tears that slipped out froze before they reached my jaw. The night I lost the pup, he’d made me soup too. So in his mind, a dead pup and a fever weighed exactly the same.

The blizzard was brutal. I fell several times on the way, but I finally made it to the old place I’d stayed before Kaelen and I were mated. The door creaked open and the smell of mold hit me in the face. I pulled the light cord a few times. The bulb flickered once and went dead. I sighed, dragged a stool over, and tried to fix the wiring. A flashlight beam swept in through the doorway. Doctor Julian from next door was standing there, eyes wide. “Luna Elena? Is that really you? I heard noise coming from over here.” He took one look at me and seemed to guess I wasn’t in the mood to talk. He didn’t ask questions. He just pushed the flashlight into my hand. “I’ve got a spare bulb. Let me put it in for you.” He grabbed a wooden chair, climbed up, and started screwing it in, chatting to fill the silence. “Hell of a storm tonight. Have you eaten? I’ve got fresh soup at my place.” “You lost the pup not long ago, and now you’ve been out in this cold. A warm bowl would do you good.” My eyes stung. I almost cried right there. A pack doctor I barely knew remembered what my body had been through. My own mate just thought I wasn’t forgiving enough. “No thanks. I already ate.” The bulb clicked on. Julian steadied himself on the chair and climbed down. The old wood groaned under him. I rushed forward to hold the chair steady. Then I heard a gasp behind me. “Luna, you left home in such a hurry and it was for him?” Cynthia stood in the doorway with three of the pack’s biggest gossips behind her. She pressed a hand over her mouth, looking back and forth between me and Julian. “Alone together with the lights out. In the middle of the night.” The three women exchanged looks, muttering just loud enough to hear. “Betraying her Alpha. Right under his nose.” “And I thought she was the decent one. Guess not.” Julian’s face went red. He jumped down from the chair. “Don’t twist this. Luna Elena just got here. I saw the lights were out, so I came over to change a bulb. That’s it.” Cynthia raised her voice even louder. “So the lights were out and you were already in here with her?” “Luna, how could you do this to Alpha Kaelen?” “Bullshit.” I grabbed Cynthia’s wrist and yanked her to the door. “Look. Door’s wide open. Key’s still in the lock. Say one more word and I’ll slap the taste out of your mouth.” Cynthia blinked. Then the tears dropped, right on cue. That two-faced act made Ember snarl inside my skull. I was about to keep going when a massive hand clamped down on my shoulder and wrenched me back. “Elena, so this is why you wanted separate rooms? For this pretty boy?” Julian saw Kaelen and stepped forward immediately. “Alpha Kaelen, it’s not what you think.” Kaelen turned and glared at him. “Shut your mouth. You’re a doctor. You should know better. I haven’t even begun dealing with you.” He swung back to me, disgust clear on his face. “Elena, you’d throw away your honor just to spite me?” “I thought you were just throwing a tantrum.” “But you couldn’t even wait one night before running to another wolf.” “This isn’t just about me. You’ve disgraced the entire pack.” I almost laughed. I stood near another male for two minutes and suddenly I’d betrayed my Alpha and disgraced the pack. But Cynthia could cry on his shoulder for months and that was a misunderstanding. I looked at him, cold and steady, one word at a time. “I have nothing to hide.” “The door is open. My bag is still packed. The flashlight is still on.” “Ask the gate guard what time I got here and you’ll have your answer.” Kaelen paused. His eyes drifted to the bag on the floor. Then he looked around the room. The cobwebs. The dust. The bed frame made of stacked bricks. Something in his expression cracked. He was almost swayed. But Cynthia grabbed his sleeve, sniffling. “Alpha Kaelen, after what Luna did to me last time, people still point at me and call me names.” More tears, right on the edge of falling. Kaelen looked at me. Then at Cynthia. Something hardened in his jaw. “Call the enforcers.” “Lock her in the dungeon. We’ll sort this out in the morning.” Three enforcers rushed in and surrounded me. My head was spinning. “Kaelen, are you insane? You can see there’s nothing between me and Julian.” Kaelen sighed. “Elena, I’m doing this for your own good.” He waved his hand. The enforcers grabbed me by the arms and dragged me into the dungeon. Four concrete walls. Cold enough to see my breath. I curled up in the corner. The old ache in my belly started up again.

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I spent five years working day and night to pay off my boyfriend’s debt. He gave his mistress a million to buy a dress. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the last box of marked-down shrimp. Next to me, a girl dripping in designer labels was picking through the imported seafood. She glanced at me, then dropped a blue lobster straight into my cart. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Treat yourself.” She smiled like it was nothing. “Everything in your cart tonight, I’m paying.” I stared at the five-figure price tag. I waved my hands and tried to refuse. She pulled out a black card without blinking. “Don’t worry about it. My man gives me way too much to spend. He actually gets mad when I don’t use it.” I forced a laugh. “He sounds… really generous.” “That’s an understatement. I can’t spend it fast enough.” She tilted her head. “You know what’s funny though? His girlfriend’s been killing herself for years. Back-breaking temp jobs, double shifts, all to pay off some debt that doesn’t even exist.” “I told him I wanted a home-cooked New Year’s Eve dinner. He ditched her right then and there to come cook for me.” I froze. My boyfriend was in debt too. Before the coincidence could sink in, my phone buzzed. A text from Caleb: “Tessa, the company scheduled me for a holiday shift. Triple pay.” “Buy yourself something nice. Be good and wait for me. I’ll be home tomorrow.”

A sharp ringing filled my ears. Nothing else. The world tilted. Everything blurred. When I didn’t reply, Caleb called. His voice was patient. Gentle. “Tessa, why aren’t you saying anything?” That sweet, doting tone. I opened my mouth. “Can you come home today? Forget the money. We don’t need it.” He paused. Then he let out a low laugh. “Missing me already? Once we pay off the debt, we’ll be together every single day.” Someone on his end told him to get back to work. He hung up in a hurry. I stared at the hundred dollars he’d just transferred. Next to me, the girl let out a dramatic sigh. “He just sent me another million. Told me to buy something sexy to wear tonight.” “But even the most expensive piece wouldn’t cost more than a hundred grand. I’ll use the rest to get you a few outfits.” Before I could say a word, Seraphina grabbed my arm. She paid for everything at the supermarket, then dragged me into a luxury boutique. I looked at the price tags. A string of zeroes. Suddenly, it all felt like a joke. After college, Caleb’s startup had failed. He’d racked up millions in debt. Then came the severe depression. I worked multiple jobs every day. All I wanted was to see a little spark come back to his eyes. Five years. I scraped and saved. I couldn’t count how many meals were just bread and tap water. And now the coat draped over my shoulders cost more than two hundred thousand dollars. The sting hit the back of my nose. I couldn’t breathe. Seraphina chattered on, oblivious. “You know what? He made his girlfriend get three abortions. All for me.” Something exploded in my head. My hand went to my stomach without thinking. I’d lost three babies too. The first time, I was racing to make a delivery on time. I gunned the scooter through a yellow light. A luxury SUV clipped me and sent me skidding across the asphalt. The second time, I needed the seventy dollars from a sign-spinning shift. I stood in a thunderstorm for two hours, holding up an ad board on the side of the highway, soaked to the bone. The third time, Caleb held me and cried. He said we couldn’t afford to raise a child. He took me to some cheap clinic and bought the pills himself. For so many nights after, he’d jolt awake from nightmares. He’d hold me and whisper he was sorry. He said, “Tessa, when I get back on my feet, I’ll give you a real home. I promise.” Seraphina didn’t notice my face going white. She kept talking. “Oh, and when that idiot girlfriend rear-ended the SUV, she was so scared she couldn’t even speak.” “Babe was sitting in the back seat the whole time, video-calling me to watch.” “And that sign-spinning job? It was supposed to pay seven hundred. He pulled strings to cut it down to seventy.” I looked at the pride on her face. I asked her, “Doesn’t it bother you that he has a girlfriend?” Seraphina stared at me like I was the crazy one. “His love, his money, his bed. All mine.” “Sweetie, other than the word ‘girlfriend,’ what does she even have?”

I don’t know how I made it home. Our apartment was barely a hundred square feet. We’d made it cozy and warm, just the two of us. Back then, Caleb swore it would always be that way. Just us. Forever. I lived inside that beautiful lie for years. Happy. So happy I forgot how hard life actually was. Maybe it was fate. I stumbled across Seraphina’s social media account. She was livestreaming. The camera was pointed at a man’s back. I’d know that silhouette anywhere. Caleb pulled off the T-shirt he’d worn so many times it was practically falling apart. He changed into a silk loungewear set. The comments flooded in: “Does a man like this actually exist? Rich, gentle, AND faithful?” “He’s cooking for her! You can tell he adores her.” “You guys don’t know, Seraphina has a sensitive stomach, so he went and learned recipes from a private chef just for her.” Every word cut into me. Five years. I hadn’t had a proper meal in five years, all to help Caleb pay off his debt. Outside the window, the roar of the New Year’s countdown swelled louder and louder. Fireworks cracked open the sky. Cheering swallowed the whole neighborhood. On screen, Caleb set down the knife and walked toward the camera. The screen went black. The sound of kissing, loud and shameless. Seraphina ended the stream. But she didn’t forget to leave her followers a parting gift: “He wanted it. He got it.” The photo underneath showed a man’s hand gripping her, knuckles sharp, possessive. The whole city was celebrating. Every window glowed warm. I scrolled through every single post on Seraphina’s account. Like I was punishing myself. In all her showing off, the details I’d missed came into focus one by one, filling in every gap. The day Caleb gave me a pair of two-dollar crystal hair clips, he’d just bought Seraphina a diamond necklace worth millions. The day he brought home a bubble tea to celebrate paying off half the debt, he’d also wired Seraphina enough to buy herself a Chanel bag. Every time I needed him. Every time I worried about him. He was in the villa he’d bought for Seraphina, tangled up with her, getting off on the thrill of cheating. Even my lucky penny, the one I’d held onto since I was a little girl, the only thing my mother left me, ended up clipped to his mistress’s purse. My hands and feet went cold. I curled up on the wooden plank bed. … Caleb came back three days later. He’d changed back into his ragged clothes. He hugged me the way he always did. Warm. Eager. My stomach flipped. I shoved him off and threw up everywhere. The smile on his face collapsed into panic. His eyes went red. A second later, tears spilled over. “Tessa, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me…” There was nothing in my stomach. By the end I was heaving up bile. He looked at me, full of concern. “Have you been skipping meals again?” “A coworker hooked me up with extra shifts. That’s why I was gone a couple days. How did you let yourself get this bad?” I listened to the lies rolling off his tongue. I almost wanted to laugh. I did laugh. But halfway through, I couldn’t even see his face anymore.

I got sick. A hundred and two degrees. In and out of consciousness, all I could see was Caleb. From the day we started dating, he’d set his profile picture to a photo of me on every platform, just so I’d feel safe. He quit smoking after ten years because I couldn’t stand the smoke. He remembered everything I liked. He even tracked my period better than I did. This was the man who would always shield me first without thinking. How could he cheat? Why would he cheat? My body burned, then froze, then burned again. I could feel Caleb moving around me, never stopping. A fresh towel on my forehead every thirty minutes. A cotton swab on my lips every fifteen. When I finally opened my eyes, he looked the same as every other time I’d been sick. Red-rimmed eyes. Aching with worry. I lifted my hand and pressed it against his cheek. For the first time, he felt so far away. “Tessa, you’re finally awake. I was so worried.” “I made you some soup. Come on, let me help you sit up.” I opened my mouth. Tears pooled in my eyes. I swallowed it down. Forced a smile. “It’s good.” He smiled when he heard that. His eyes lit up. Just like when he was eighteen. I looked at the band-aids on his fingers. My heart softened again. Five years together. It’s not something you just walk away from. He held me, rambling about how scared he’d been these past three days. For the first time, I didn’t comfort him. I just asked quietly, “How much do we still owe?” Caleb blinked. Then answered like it was nothing. “A lot.” I looked at him. “Caleb, aren’t you tired?” He tucked the blanket around me and smiled. “Tired of what? I’ve been the one resting all these years, taking my meds, not doing any real work.” “It’s you I worry about. You barely get any sleep.” There was a moment, just a flash, where I wanted to ask him the real question. Your family is worth billions. Why are you pretending to be poor? Living in a lie every single day. Doesn’t that exhaust you? But I couldn’t say it. I realized, terrified, that I didn’t have the courage to face the truth either. “Tessa, I’ve been off work for days because of you. My boss isn’t happy.” “Tomorrow I need to go back. Just stay home and rest, okay? I’ll come straight back after my shift.” He said this while his fingers were still hovering over his phone screen. I gripped the edge of the blanket. My voice came out shaking. “Stay a few more days. Please. Just a few more days with me.” He sat there, tilting his head, watching me. Then he said, “Okay.” When everything slowed down, my mind got clearer. All the things I didn’t want to think about came crashing in at once. These past years, I was out the door before sunrise and home long after dark. Caleb had his own endless overtime and night shifts. When I added it up, we’d barely spent any time together at all. Caleb wrapped his arms around me. He kissed behind my ear. Down my neck. But once a heart cracks, nothing fills it back up. All I could think about was that girl. Bright-eyed, sheltered, spoiled by him. Did he hold her like this too? Was he this tender with her? The nausea hit me like a wall. I threw up all over the floor. Caleb didn’t notice anything was wrong. He just held my hair back, full of worry. But if he worried so much about me, why was he being tender with someone else?

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On the ninety-ninth day after my birth parents took me home, they asked me to marry the head of the mafia in my sister’s place. “Vera,” my mother said, “this engagement was always meant for you. Now that you’re back, we wouldn’t dream of taking away what’s rightfully yours.” I laughed. Everyone knew Wolf was a savage. He married three times a year, and not a single one of his wives had ever lived to see Christmas Eve. After I refused, my adopted sister Elaine burst into tears. “I just don’t want people saying I stole what belonged to my sister,” she sobbed. “I’ve already enjoyed so many things that were hers. I won’t take anything else from her. If she says no, I won’t go either.” My mother pulled the weeping Elaine into her arms. “Silly girl,” she murmured. “You will always be our daughter. That will never change.” Then she turned to look at me, her eyes full of reproach. “You’re still not as sensible as Elaine. This isn’t just about your marriage — it’s about our family’s honor. But I can’t blame you. We found you too late.” I had been about to take the whole matter to my adopted parents. Instead, I drank the warm glass of soothing milk they gave me — and blacked out. When I came to, I found myself tied in the back of a filthy cargo truck, wrists and ankles bound. My hands were bound behind my back. The rope had already cut through the first layer of skin. Every time the truck lurched, a fresh wave of pain shot up both arms. The air reeked of motor oil and rotting meat. Twenty years living with my adopted parents — the Sinclairs, a mafia dynasty — had taught me exactly what this was. I’d been kidnapped. And without thinking twice, I was fairly certain it had something to do with the marriage they’d been pushing last night. Half an hour later, the truck stopped. They threw me out into the desert. Scalding sand flooded my nose and mouth. My already raw wrists screamed as the coarse grains ground into the wounds. “Dear sister,” came a sweet voice. “Do you like the little trip I arranged just for you? You’ve been gone for twenty years — why did you have to come back? But since you’re here, and since you seem so determined to claim everything that’s yours, let’s start with Mr. Wolf. He says he’ll show you the most exquisite pleasure a woman can know.” I forced my head up. Elaine stood over me, dressed in a pink MiuMiu suit, her smile radiant. “There was never any real engagement with Wolf, was there,” I said, spitting sand from my mouth. “You just wanted to get rid of me.” She tilted her head, crouching down in front of me, still smiling. “Sister, do you have any idea how much Mom and Dad missed you while you were out wandering all those years? Don’t you think you owe them something? If you make Mr. Wolf happy, he’s promised us three city blocks’ worth of business.” So that was it. They had traded me like cargo. Wolf’s businesses were the filthiest in the city. Even my adopted parents had publicly declared him a disgrace — more than once. “You should let me go right now,” I said. “Or you’ll pay a price you can’t even imagine.” Elaine let out a sharp laugh and kicked me in the stomach. “Who do you think you are? You’re a vagrant. You have no voice in this family.” Then they threw me back into the truck. But at least now I knew exactly what was waiting for me. Wolf — that blood-hungry deviant. He liked to share his women with his men, a way of buying their loyalty, getting them to kill for him. Even strippers refused to endure that kind of degradation. Most of the women were thrown into water dungeons, broken through violence, sometimes controlled with drugs. The best outcome they could hope for was death by their own hand. I thought of the footage Calista — my adopted parents’ daughter, my sister — had once shown me. My breath caught. But anger came faster than fear. The rage of being betrayed by the people who called themselves family. Still — Wolf was nothing but a groveling lackey to the Sinclairs. Once I revealed who I was, he wouldn’t dare touch me. ———

I had miscalculated one thing. I had been delivered to Wolf under the name Vera Draco — the name I’d taken after being reclaimed by my birth family. In his eyes, I was nothing more than a toy to be used and discarded. Which meant before I ever reached Wolf himself, I had to get through his men first. They would make sure I was broken in, properly “trained,” before presenting me to him. The moment they threw me into the water dungeon, I started talking. “I’m Vera Sinclair — the adopted daughter of the Sinclair family. Go verify it. Check my identity—” The lead guard grinned. “Last month some woman said she was the mayor’s niece. You’re a little more creative, I’ll give you that.” I strained to raise my hand, desperate to prove myself. “My right ring finger — there’s a black-and-gold ring. The inner band is engraved with my name and the date I joined the family. Everyone in the Sinclair organization recognizes that ring—” But my words were swallowed by a wave of mocking laughter. I looked down at my hand. The finger was bare. Only a pale ring of skin where it had rested for years. A flash of memory: them dragging me across the ground. I must have lost it when I pushed myself up, trying not to be scraped raw. “No ring, no proof. That’s enough.” Before the words were even finished, a baseball bat connected with my left cheekbone. No warning. No windup. “Rule one: you don’t speak unless spoken to.” My skull rang like a struck bell. The ringing swallowed every other sound. I felt something shift in the wrong direction along my cheekbone, and then the ground came up to meet me. “Rule two,” he said, “no fighting back.” I swung my foot at his wrist. The baton clattered to the floor. I lunged for it — and he tackled me from behind. My face hit the concrete. My mouth filled with the taste of rust. He flipped me over and drove his fist into my stomach. I couldn’t help it. I retched. There was nothing in my stomach — only bile, yellow and bitter, running down my chin. I choked through a few ragged coughs. I could feel my face swelling fast. Then — a flash of light. I squinted toward it. Elaine. She stood in the doorway on her high heels, a perfect porcelain doll, absurdly out of place in this mold-stinking, waterlogged dungeon. She looked down at me the way you’d look at something disgusting on the bottom of your shoe. “Oh my,” she said, hand over her nose, voice bright with barely concealed delight, “Sister, if Mr. Wolf sees you looking like this, don’t you think he might want a refund?” “But it’s fine,” she crouched down, meeting my eyes, her gaze traveling over my face and pausing on my swollen cheekbone. Her smile widened. “He doesn’t want you for your face anyway. He has so many men, and they all need to be entertained, right? Sister, you should thank me. I’ve made sure you won’t be lonely.” “Elaine,” I said. “There’s still time.” “Time for what?” “Time for this to end differently.” She laughed — the polite laugh of someone who’d just heard a joke that wasn’t very funny. She stood up, looking down at me. “Sister, did all those years on the streets scramble your brain? What exactly makes you think you have any leverage here?” “Oh, and your wedding night is almost here. Mr. Wolf is in a good mood today. He’s decided to grace you with his presence early.” She turned and walked out on her heels. “Clean this place up. Miss Calista can’t stand the smell of blood.” At the sound of my sister’s name, something cracked open inside me. Calista. She toured the territories every month without fail. She would find me. She had to find me. ———

The next day, I heard her voice. That word rippled down the corridor like rings on water — “Young Mistress, Young Mistress” — announced by the shifting posture of everyone in her wake. That was what everyone inside Black Crown called Calista. Hearing that title from inside this cell was the closest I had ever come to a miracle. I started making noise. I beat my chains against the wall in a steady rhythm — three strikes, pause, three strikes, pause. I called out until my voice was nothing but gravel. Guards were inside within seconds — more than one. “Shut up!” “Calista is right there in that corridor,” I said. “Bring her in here to see me. Or go tell her someone is calling her name. Either one—” He slammed me down, knee grinding between my shoulder blades, face shoved into the concrete. I inhaled everything this place had ever witnessed — iron, rot, the chemical ghost of something I couldn’t name. “Make another sound,” he said in my ear, “and I’ll cut out your tongue.” “The Young Mistress hates hearing noise from things like you. If she gets angry, you’ll get us all killed.” He pulled out a stun baton and pressed it against my side. The world inverted. I felt my body convulsing against the cold filthy floor like a dead fish, my vision dissolving into white flares and spinning light. When I could see again, they were shoving something into my mouth — a dirty rag soaked in sweat and motor oil and something chemical I couldn’t identify — tied tight behind my head, forcing my mouth wide open. I could still breathe through my nose. But I could smell her. Cedar. The scent she always wore. The scent that had always made me feel safe. I screamed into the rag. What came out was low and animal, a muffled, broken groan that couldn’t get through the iron door. I beat my chains against the wall, but my arms were shaking from the electric burns, and the sound barely carried above the voices in the corridor. “This one?” Calista said, just outside. “Mr. Wolf’s new bride,” came a careful, deferential voice. “She’s unstable, though. Violent. So we’ve had to…” A pause. Calista’s voice came back, edged with displeasure. “Wolf…” “Young Mistress, this was a voluntary arrangement between the Draco family and—” The other voice had begun to tremble. Three seconds later, the cedar scent thickened. Calista. She stood in the doorway dressed in a black trench coat, looking colder than I’d ever seen her. My heartbeat lurched. Sister. She walked in, crouched down, stopped less than half a meter away. Her eyes moved over me with a practiced sweep — and then slowed. Went still. She was looking at my face. “What’s her name?” “Vera Draco.” Something shifted in her brow. Barely a flicker. But I saw it. Vera. Vera and Vera — one letter apart. She had to feel it. She had to— “Young Mistress, this woman is dangerous, please don’t get too close—” Calista ignored him. She reached up and cupped my face in both hands. I nearly broke down completely. Her hands were cool. I knew these hands. When I was seven years old, she had taken my hand just like this and walked me through the gates of Sinclair Manor for the very first time. I wanted to speak — Sister, it’s me, it’s Vera, look at me, really look— But the rag turned everything into a wet, shapeless moan. I couldn’t even form syllables. I poured everything I had into my eyes. It’s me. It’s me. Sister, it’s me— Her expression changed. From intent, to uncertain, to something I had never seen on her face before. Revulsion. Not at me — I knew that. At what was in front of her. This unrecognizable woman. This complete stranger. She let go of my face. She stood up. She wiped her hands. “Get it sorted,” she told the guard, back to business, “Don’t let it end in a death.” She left. The sound of the door closing echoed through the dungeon. The lead guard walked in and crouched down in front of me, something pleased moving through his expression. “You just made the Young Mistress frown.” He stood, tilted his chin at the men behind him. “Wolf doesn’t come until tonight, right? Plenty of time to find a new one.” I stared up at the light overhead. White. Blinding. My eyes could barely stay open. Was this really how it ended? ———

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