My sister and I shared one body, Twin Souls bound together since birth, fighting over control for as long as I could remember.

The year we came of age, I gave my heart to the ninth-born son, Romeo. She fell for the heir apparent, Dante.

Our father laid down the rule: whichever girl's beloved claimed the seat of power would claim the body for good.

A year later, Dante Griffin was crowned Don.

He married my sister with a ceremony that shut down half the city, made her his blood-bound bride before every Capo on the Eastern Seaboard.

And I, as promised, sank into dormancy.

I thought I would never wake again.

Until a night of bitter wind tore through me and I opened my eyes to find myself drenched in blood.

Dante Griffin kicked open the doors of the abandoned wing, his eyes shot through with red.

"Chiara Valente. Lucrezia only accidentally lost your child again, and you curse her with infant spirits haunting her every dream?"

"When did you become this vicious?"

I watched my sister's beloved glare at her as though he wanted to tear her apart.

Rage boiled through me.

Dante Griffin had no idea. My sweet sister was soft-hearted and kind, the sort of soul who lived to save others.

But me? I was born from malice. The only creed I knew was an eye for an eye.

……

Pain bored through my body like a drill through bone.

Hot copper surged up my throat.

Dante seized my jaw, his gaze cold and venomous.

"Try your filthy tricks again, and I'll dig that wretched child of yours out of the ground and burn it in the old chamber!"

"So it never dares come back!"

My pupils shrank to pinpoints.

The boy my sister once loved, the one who used to frown over a wounded sparrow.

Now he stood here saying this to her, words so depraved they defied God himself?

I locked my fingers around his wrist and snarled through my teeth.

"Dante Griffin, when exactly did you become this monstrous? Was that not your own child?"

Dante went rigid. His breath caught.

I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Only for an instant.

The next second, he slammed me into the ground.

He looked down at me from above, the disgust in his gaze deepening another layer.

"With a mother like you, dying early was a mercy."

"The interrogator says Lucrezia's nightmares can be cured with the blood from your heart."

"Since you refuse to confess, don't blame me for being merciless. Soldiers!"

I stared at Dante through hooded eyes, a strand of his hair still clenched between my fingertips where I'd torn it free.

Soldiers closed in around me on every side.

Their formation was practiced, seamless. This was clearly not the first time.

"Stand down. I'll do it myself." My voice cut through them like a blade.

I rose to my feet and picked up the silver needle.

In full view of every last one of them, I ripped open my sleeping gown without a shred of hesitation.

Dante's expression twisted. He whipped toward the soldiers and roared, "Close your eyes! All of you!"

I let out a cold, mocking laugh.

He was the one who sent these soldiers. What exactly was he pretending to protect?

I looked down at my own chest.

There, over the sternum, across the center of the body where the old families said the soul was anchored, were seven puncture wounds.

Three to shatter the soul. Seven to strip the spirit.

This was the Traitor's Brand taken further than any code permitted, a method designed to scatter a person's soul into nothing, to ensure my sister couldn't even become a ghost.

Dante's gaze darkened as it settled on the wounds across my body. He rubbed the scar on his left palm without seeming to know he was doing it.

"Chiara, Lucrezia and I did this for your own good. The cleansing ritual was always meant to purge the darkness inside you."

"You even tried to fake your death to escape the compound, claiming the ritual would kill you, that the baby would die too. And yet here you are, alive and well, and the child was born safely. Stop being so ungrateful."

The words hit me like a fist closing around my heart. Cold spread through every limb, every vein, all at once.

"You drove the Traitor's Brand into Chiara while she was still carrying her child?"

When those nails pierced flesh, it was like ten thousand steel needles driving in from every direction, then ripping back out.

They punctured the soul until it was riddled with holes, until the spirit scattered so completely it could never be pieced together again.

My sister must have burned through the very essence of her soul to shield both the baby and me.

And the child she'd gambled her life and her soul to save.

Smashed to death against the ground.

I drove the silver needle into my chest without so much as a flicker of expression. Not a trace of pain crossed my face. Only the fury buried deep in my soul.

Perhaps it was this deathly, silent obedience that finally pricked at something guilty inside Dante. His brow furrowed. His expression softened. He was just about to speak.

Then Lucrezia Moreno appeared, dropping to her knees without preamble, her voice fragile and trembling:

"Don Griffin, this is all my fault. I failed to protect our sister's child."

"I've been plagued by nightmares, unable to sleep. This is the punishment I deserve..."

"I only beg that our sister show mercy and stop cursing this poor child's spirit. Let the little one rest in peace."

A few sentences, and she'd turned every drop of blame onto my sister.

My gaze went cold. Killing intent churned behind my eyes.

Dante, who had been on the verge of relenting, moved to her side almost instantly, pulling her up and gathering her into his arms.

"Lucrezia, why are you kneeling to her again?" His voice was thick with tenderness and edged with anger. "You are the First Lady now. She is nothing."

"She's the one steeped in malice. You have no reason to lower yourself. I will see justice done for you."

He bent down and brushed the dust from her knees, his touch gentle, as if handling something infinitely precious. Three of her fingertips rested against her collarbone the entire time, the portrait of wounded modesty.

Then he raised his head and looked at me.

"Soldiers! The Valente woman has forgotten her place. Hold her down and make her kneel before the First Lady. She will confess and beg forgiveness!"

I watched the two of them perform their little act, and a cold smile curved slowly across my lips.

"You both truly..."

"Deserve to die."

My sister Chiara and I were born as Twin Souls sharing one body. The old families whispered about it like a curse, a bloodline anomaly that hadn't surfaced in three generations. Two souls, one vessel.

Even in the womb, whenever our mother felt the slightest discomfort, Chiara would push me aside and take control.

As children, every time a dark thought stirred in me, she threw herself in the way to stop it.

When I was five, I grew so sick of my father's distant cousin that I spent three consecutive nights creeping toward her with a knife, intent on slitting her throat.

The first night, Chiara threw herself off a wall.

The second night, Chiara jumped into the well.

The third night, Chiara stabbed herself.

Arlena Moreno stared at the knife in my hand and collapsed weeping into my father's arms:

"How has your wife raised this child to be like this?"

My father was beside himself with rage. At Arlena's urging, he summoned a cleaner. An old-family specialist who dealt in things the Syndicate didn't talk about in daylight.

The man declared me a malevolent spirit. He drew up a ritual circle with great ceremony, intending to obliterate my soul entirely.

It was Chiara who shoved me aside, seized control of the body, and wrapped her own soul around mine so that not a shred of harm touched me.

When I was ten, I tried to have Arlena Moreno's daughter sold off. That daughter was none other than the oh-so-delicate First Lady Lucrezia Moreno standing before me now.

That time, even our mother was shaken. Terrified our enraged father would beat us to death, she rushed us to the Old Monastery Estate.

The sacred light there seared me, keeping me from taking control of the body. But Chiara would sneak down the hill to call me out, letting me taste the joys of the world beyond.

It was also at that estate that she met Dante, then still a sickly, overlooked heir the family had hidden away during a succession war.

A sudden fire engulfed the Old Monastery Estate, turning the sky black with smoke and flame. Chiara charged into the inferno and shoved Dante to safety, only to collapse herself, her strength spent, surrounded by fire.

I was pinned down by the sacred light, unable to move an inch. I endured the searing agony in my soul and dragged myself to the threshold.

In the end, it was the cold and ruthless ninth-born son, Romeo Griffin, who pulled me out at the last moment.

Chiara fell in love with the sickly heir. I fell in love with Romeo.

But the two of us could never go on living like that forever. Our parents made a pact with us. Whichever sister's beloved rose to become the Don would be the one to claim the body from that day forward.

Everyone poured everything they had into placing Dante on the throne. The family pulled strings, called in debts, eliminated rivals. Romeo was exiled to the Canadian border to run the family's northern operations, far from the seat of power.

Chiara married the man she loved, just as she'd always wished. I believed she would live happily ever after.

But now?

I pulled my collar closed.

"Dante Griffin. On your wedding day, you knelt before God and the heads of every family on the Eastern Seaboard. You looked Chiara in the eye and swore you would trust her, protect her, never doubt her. That you would be hers alone, for the rest of your lives."

"All those vows dripping with devotion. Did you feed every last one of them to the dogs?"

I didn't wait for his answer.

My gaze dropped to the strands of his hair still tangled between my fingers, torn loose only moments ago.

"No matter."

"Every wrong done to her, I will repay in full."

Dante's brow furrowed. "You—"

Lucrezia wrenched herself free of his arms and threw herself at my feet.

She flashed me a taunting smile, but the words that left her mouth were a tearful wail:

"Sister, whatever grievance you have, take it out on me! Don't hurt him!"

I was happy to oblige.

Without a heartbeat's hesitation, I swung my hand and slapped her across the face.

Then I hurled the entire bowl of heart's blood over her.

Lucrezia screamed.

The blood was still warm. It dripped from the diamond pins in her hair, ran down her temples, soaked through the black silk of her gown until the fabric clung to her skin.

She raised a hand on instinct and wiped at her face, smearing the blood into a grotesque mask.

Dante stared at Lucrezia, drenched and trembling.

As though she were the one who'd been bled. As though she were the one who'd been hurt.

Every ounce of tenderness in his eyes belonged to her. Every shred of his pity, his bias.

"Chiara, you've bullied Lucrezia since you were children. And now you use whatever affection I still hold for you to humiliate her again and again!"

"Since you drew heart's blood and still refuse to save her, then I will have every last one of those wretched spawn dug up and ground to dust. Let's see you use them to terrorize Lucrezia then!"

He turned to the soldiers standing along the walls of the room. Not one of them had moved. Not one of them would move without his word.

"Dig up the remains. All five. The firstborn. The second son. The daughter. The fourth. The fifth. All of them."

"Burn them. Douse them in lye. Then bring Alaric in to do whatever needs doing so there's nothing left. Not a bone. Not a name. Nothing anyone can pray to."

A savage pain detonated in my chest.

It wasn't mine. It was my sister's.

I froze.

Was Chiara's soul still inside this body?

Then why, no matter how many times I called for her, had she never answered?

With every word Dante spoke, the pain deepened, as if something were being ripped apart inside me, slow and alive. The room was silent except for the faint settling of the compound around us, the old walls holding their breath the way walls do in houses where too many orders have been given.

Lucrezia sat crumpled in the pooling blood, biting her lip, sobbing as though each breath cost her dearly.

"Don Griffin, my sister truly despises me beyond all reason!"

"But... but Alaric himself said those five children died because of the elder sister's wickedness. That her sins brought it down on them..."

"That's why they were smothered one by one, run down, thrown from the balcony... I grieve for those poor children so deeply..."

Dante's chest heaved violently. He erupted.

"Even after you've humiliated her to this degree, Lucrezia still weeps for those children! That is a heart of pure sincerity!"

"And you? All you do is use your own children as weapons for revenge! You don't deserve to be called their mother!"

Two lines of blood-red tears spilled from my eyes, beyond my control.

Those were my sister's tears, shed for her five murdered children.

I clenched my fists until the strands of hair bit into the flesh of my fingers.

I laughed. The sound was jagged, ugly.

"Sister Chiara! Your five children are barely cold in their graves, and you... you can still laugh?!"

Lucrezia's tears flowed without end, her expression the very portrait of unbearable grief. Three fingertips rested against her collarbone, trembling with practiced delicacy.

But I saw it clearly. The triumph glinting in her eyes.

The same look her mother had worn, all those years ago, when the two of them had wielded their fragile, pitiful act to steal Father's affection and driven Mother to weep alone every night.

"I'm laughing," I said, "because you fools don't know what you've done. You woke me up."

I raised my hand and pressed a finger to my own chest.

"Dante Griffin. Do you know what the Traitor's Brand is?"

"It is a punishment designed to destroy a living soul. They burn it into the body in stages, stripping away everything that holds a person together, until there is nothing left. No memory. No name. No self."

"I was trying to save you, and you threw it back in my face!" Dante's eyes were full of bitter disappointment. He rubbed the scar on his left palm without seeming to know he was doing it. "That ritual was meant to purge the darkness festering inside you. And it didn't do a damn thing!"