But I never imagined those words concealed something so filthy underneath.

Before I could speak, the front door swung open and Sandra walked in.

"Fighting again? Tristram, what did you do to upset Angie this time? Let me straighten you out!"

Her villa was right next to ours. The slightest noise carried between them.

She grabbed Tristram by the ear and hauled him toward the couch.

"Cut it out." He reached up to resist, caught her wrist, and pinned her down against the cushions.

The same two words. From the same mouth. But the tone was nothing like the one he used with me.

"Oh, so you're rough with the ladies now? Let me show you rough!"

The instant Tristram's body pressed against Sandra's, he went rigid.

His cheeks flushed a deep red. He shoved himself up and bolted for the bathroom.

"Angie, I'm so sorry. I had no idea he'd react like that. You know how men are, they just can't control it. Nothing anyone can do." Sandra turned to me, her eyes brimming with a provocation she didn't even bother to hide.

"Sure there is," I said. My face was blank. "Cut it off."

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Tristram emerged moments later.

"Angelica, seriously? Can't even take a joke?"

A joke?

A cold laugh scraped out of my throat. "Let's break up. Right now. Then you're free to find someone who can take your jokes."

"Angelica, say 'break up' to me one more time. I dare you." His lip curled. "You're used goods. A cheap little tramp no man would touch. Who else would have you besides me?"

The words left his mouth like a blade dragged across my sternum, splitting me open while I was still breathing.

A beat of silence passed. Only then did Tristram seem to register what he'd said.

"That's not what I meant. Stop making a scene. Your sister's right here. At least give me some face."

He reached for me. I stepped back. Then again. Out of his reach.

Sandra drifted toward me, one slow step at a time. "Angie, don't be like this. Getting so worked up out of nowhere, throwing a tantrum at Tristram. Did you happen to see something you shouldn't have?"

She said it on purpose.

"Come on, stop sulking. Come with me." She extended her hand to take mine.

"Don't touch me!"

The shout tore out of me before I could stop it. I swung my hand up to knock hers away.

But the moment my hand came down, she leaned her face into its path.

I'd barely used any force. Yet the slap rang out, sharp and crisp, and Sandra crumpled to the floor.

The next second, her fiancé Rodney burst through the door and backhanded me across the face.

The blow sent me tumbling down the staircase.

Rodney seized Tristram by the collar like a man possessed and drove his fist into his jaw. "This is how you protect Sandy? You think you can steal her from me? You're not even worthy!"

He didn't hesitate. Not for a single second. He dragged their affair right out into the open.

Tristram dropped the act just as fast. He swung back, and the two of them locked together in a brawl.

"If Angelica had an ounce of sense, would I have to work this hard? Playing the loving fiancé every single day. You think I'm not exhausted?"

One sentence. That was all it took to nail me to a pillar of shame, as though every bit of this was my fault.

Sandra lay on the floor and shot me a taunting smile. Then she let out a single cough.

Both men froze. They released each other instantly and rushed to her side.

"Sandy, where does it hurt? I'm taking you to the hospital right now!"

Rodney ran outside to pull the car around. Tristram scooped her into his arms and charged out the door without so much as a backward glance.

A bitter laugh slipped from my lips. Only then did I notice the taste of iron flooding my mouth.

That backhand had been vicious. I was spitting blood.

But it wasn't just the blood. The edge of the stair had been razor-sharp, and it had carved a deep gash into my thigh.

In the end, it was an ambulance that took me to the hospital. The person who called it was Sandra.

Once we arrived, they put us in the same room.

I needed to remove my pants so the nurses could bandage the wounds across my legs. Tristram and Rodney both stepped out.

"I'm the one who called that ambulance for you. Aren't you going to thank your big sister?" Sandra's voice dripped with mockery.

The doctor was still wrapping my injuries, gentle with every motion, pausing to ask if it hurt.

I shook my head. The pain in my chest was a hundred times worse than anything on my skin.

When I didn't speak, Sandra smiled. "Oh, little sister. Don't blame me and Tristram too much. After all, he went through quite the effort to keep you tied to him. He even staged that whole kidnapping, start to finish."

I froze. My head snapped toward her. "What did you just say?"

"I understand you, really. Any woman who found out her husband was cheating would want to leave. But if you're not exactly pure yourself, what right do you have to demand purity from him?"

"That little accident five years ago took your big sister quite a lot of work to arrange."

She leaned on the word accident like she was savoring it.

"That was you...?"

My mind went black. Every thread of reason snapped at once.

I shot up from the hospital bed, grabbed the vase on the nightstand, and swung it at her.

"Help! Somebody help me!"

She screamed. Before the vase could connect, Tristram burst through the door and drove his fist straight into my lower abdomen.

My body slammed backward into the wall. The freshly wrapped bandages tore open on impact. Blood soaked through the hospital gown and pooled on the floor beneath me.

A wave of blinding pain swallowed me whole. Everything went dark at the edges.

"She knows everything now..." Sandra's voice crumbled into a pitiful whimper. "It's my fault. I couldn't keep my mouth shut. She asked, and I just... I went soft. She's still my sister, after all. I couldn't bear to hide it from her forever..."

Rodney sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her into his arms. He shot a venomous glare at Tristram. "Handle your own mess. If that bitch lays a finger on Sandy again, you and I are done."

Before the words had even settled, Tristram was already standing over me. "Angelica. I really underestimated you. You've been going after Sandra this whole time because you resent me for never touching you. Is that it?"

"Fine. I'll give you exactly what you've been asking for."

He seized my arm with one hand. He didn't bother closing the door. He didn't care how many people were watching from the hallway. He ripped the clothes off my body in two savage pulls.

The vase slipped from my fingers and shattered across the floor. Glass shards scattered everywhere.

"Don't touch me... Don't touch me!" I stumbled backward, step by step, and every movement drove shards of glass deeper into my skin.

I collapsed on the ground in a broken heap. Tristram towered over me, glaring down with a look of cold fury, as if I were the one who had wronged him.

Sandra and Rodney stood off to the side, watching like it was a show.

This scene was identical to five years ago, in that warehouse, when those men violated me.

Last time, it was because of them. This time, it still was.

I snatched a shard of glass off the floor and pressed it against my own throat. "Come one step closer and I'll end it!"

Only then did Tristram stop. He shut the door.

"Tristram. We're done." I ground the words through clenched teeth, the glass still biting into the skin of my neck.

He let out a cold laugh. "Angelica. You really think holding a piece of glass to your throat gives you leverage over me?"

He crossed the room in two strides, walked to Sandra's bed, and picked up her phone.

Sandra had been recording.

The footage played back on the screen. Me, naked, thrashing, screaming, utterly destroyed. Tristram turned the phone toward me and smiled. "A breakup isn't happening. If we split, what excuse do I have to stay by Sandra's side?"

"If we break up and people find out about me and Sandra, do you have any idea what that would do to her reputation? You hate her that much? Is that what this is?"

Another bucket of filth I couldn't dodge, dumped squarely on my head.

He snatched the shard of glass from my hand and tied me up.

Tristram locked me in the basement of the villa.

"Didn't you want a wedding? Fine. I'll give you one. The ceremony goes ahead the day after tomorrow."

I lay on the damp, cold mattress in the basement and let out a bitter laugh.

Calling off the wedding was because of Sandra. Going through with it was also because of Sandra.

When Tristram had turned on me, I'd wanted to ask him what the last five years meant to him.

Now I understood. There had never been anything between us at all.

Two days later, Tristram had me brought out.

The basement was damp and filthy. The wounds on my body had festered, the skin around them red and swollen with infection.

At the wedding, Sandra wore a designer gown worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wore a hospital gown.

Sandra, Rodney, and the groomsmen stood on the stage. I stood in the corner by the door, like a thief peering in at someone else's happiness.

Tristram had his people watch me closely, yet he never once looked my way.

Not until the photos appeared on the massive screen—the ones from the bridal suite days earlier, showing Tristram on his knees before Sandra.

His gaze, sharp as a blade, cut to me.

"What the hell? Is this real?"

"Tristram James? Isn't that the younger sister's fiancé?"

In the time it took the crowd to exchange a few shocked whispers, Sandra had already crumpled to the floor in tears.

"Angie is the only outsider who knew about this. Who could have done it..."

"It couldn't have been Angie... Even if she resented us, even if she was jealous that Tristram loves me, she couldn't be cruel enough to do something like this..."

Every sentence insisted it couldn't have been me. Every sentence pointed straight at me.

Tristram walked over. In front of every guest in that hall, he slapped me across the face.

I was burning with fever from the infected wounds. The blow knocked me flat to the ground.

The guests, seeing it turn physical, scrambled for excuses to leave, terrified of getting dragged into the mess. The hall that had been buzzing with noise a second ago emptied out in an instant.

Tristram's hand closed around my throat and hauled me off the floor. "Angelica Sullivan. I really underestimated you."

He waved his free hand. "Book every billboard screen in the Capital. Put her photos out there. Every last one."

"Don't, Tristram, please." Sandra's voice trembled with tears, but the triumph and provocation on her face were impossible to hide. "Angie is my sister. Our parents taught me to always give in to her, and I'm used to it by now. Don't make things hard for her."

"As for you—" Tristram's expression darkened to something terrifying.

"It wasn't me... It wasn't—"

I tried to deny it. Each time I opened my mouth, his fingers tightened another fraction around my throat.

Suffocation swallowed me whole. Only when I was down to my very last breath did he let go.

"You destroyed Sandra's reputation. Tell me—how should I punish you?"

"Start from the suburbs. Walk a full loop around the Capital with a bullhorn, apologizing to Sandra. Tell everyone the photos were AI fakes. Tell them you did it because you were jealous of her. How does that sound?"

I had no room to fight back. My throat was full of the taste of blood. I couldn't force out a single word.

"The apology tour ends when I decide to take your photos down. Not a second sooner."

With that, two of his assistants grabbed me off the floor and threw me into a car.

Two hours from downtown to the outskirts. They dumped me on a desolate mountain road lined with abandoned factories.

Before they'd dragged me out, I'd been clutching something in my palm the entire time—the honeymoon plane ticket.

From here to the airport was a thirty-minute walk. The departure time on the ticket was thirty minutes away.

Making the decision took me one second.

I didn't dare stop for even a heartbeat. I dropped the bullhorn and ran toward the airport.

Before the plane took off, I sent Tristram one last message.

Tristram, I don't need my name cleared anymore. And I don't need you anymore.