"Isabella!" Dante immediately knelt by her side.

"Help... me..." I held out a shaking hand, trying to get Dante to give me the injection.

But he didn't even glance at me. He snatched the EpiPen from my hand. "Isabella, hang on!" He jabbed the needle into her arm without a second thought.

"Marco, quick! Get Isabella to the hospital!" Dante scooped her up. "Call an ambulance!"

"What about Rose?" Marco hesitated, glancing at me. I was slumped in my chair, my lips turning blue.

Dante didn't even answer him. He just ran out.

After a moment's pause, Marco chased after them.

They were gone.

I was alone in the room, my consciousness fading. I could feel my heart slowing, my breathing getting shallower.

"Miss? Miss!" It was a waiter's voice. "Oh my god, call an ambulance!"

I slipped into darkness.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed with an oxygen tube in my nose.

"You're awake," the doctor said, walking over. "You're very lucky. Ten more minutes and it could have been fatal."

I managed a weak, bitter smile. It wasn't luck. Dante had stolen my medicine. It was attempted murder. And Isabella wasn't allergic. She just wanted me to know that between the two of us, Dante would always choose her.

"Rose." Dante's voice came from the doorway. "You're awake."

I turned my head. He stood there, impeccably dressed. Maybe my near-death state had stirred a shred of guilt in him, because his face held a hint of remorse.

He walked to my bedside but wouldn't meet my eyes. "I'm glad you're okay... about tonight, you have to understand. Isabella's family, the Rossis, are important partners. For the sake of the family, she couldn't be put at risk."

"Is that so?" I stared at him, searching for any sign of a lie. "Or is it because you have... special feelings for her?"

His face stiffened, then he seemed to remember his mission. His tone turned dismissive and mocking. "I knew you were still jealous. Isabella and I grew up together. If I wanted her, why would I be with you?"

I knew what he was thinking. He was reminding himself of his goal—to punish the gold-digging woman who’d angered his precious Isabella.

For a second, I wanted to tell him everything—the bullying, the lies. But we had been together for three years. If he had ever truly known me, ever truly cared for me, he wouldn't have conspired with his own brother to deceive me.

So I closed my eyes and said nothing.

Dante paused. "Get some rest. The wedding is in two days."

He still had no idea that the bride wouldn't be showing up.

After he left, my phone buzzed. A video from Isabella.

What I saw made my hands tremble, a sharp pain twisting in my gut.

The video showed a man standing over my grandmother's hospital bed. He was holding up photos—pictures of me being bullied, the humiliating moments I’d tried so hard to bury. One by one, he shoved them in her face.

I recognized the crest on his jacket. He was one of Isabella’s men.

My grandmother, who had always loved me so fiercely… tears were streaming down her face. She was shaking so badly from the grief, she couldn't even form words.

Already so frail, the color drained from her face. The heart monitor beside her started screaming, a flat, piercing wail. And the man? He just turned and walked away, completely unfazed.

Then came a text from Isabella.

“Such a shame, Rose. I was just trying to do a good thing, telling your grandma what you went through. Who knew she'd get so worked up and just… die?”

“Oh, and by the way, this was your grandmother’s ring, wasn’t it? It looks great on me. The wedding’s in two days. I’m planning on wearing it. As your bridesmaid, you won’t mind, will you?”

The message came with a picture: Isabella, smiling for the camera, wearing my grandmother's ring on her finger.

It was one of the few things I had left of her. I’d been looking for it for weeks. And that thief, Isabella, had it the whole time.

No. She wasn't just a thief. She was a murderer.

I forced my still-recovering body out of bed and stormed to Isabella’s hospital room.

The door was unlocked. I burst in. Isabella was standing by the window, holding my grandmother's locket ring, dangling it in the sunlight.

“Isabella, you murderer—” A fire of pure hatred burned in my chest, so hot it hurt to breathe.

I pictured my grandmother's face in her final moments, her eyes filled with tears. It all made sense now—why she had insisted on seeing Dante. She knew the hell I'd been through, and she was desperate for someone to protect me.

But her last wish never came true.

Isabella's voice echoed in my head, taunting me. "So call the cops. Who do you think they'll believe?"

She was right. It was just like before, when she bullied me. No one would listen.

"Give it back," I gasped, out of breath. "That's the only thing my grandmother left me."

"Oh, you mean this?" She held the ring up high, out the window. "It's a beautiful antique. But I think it suits someone like me better."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "Isabella, I'm warning you one last time. Give me back the ring."

"Give it back?" She smiled brightly, dangling it further out the window. "Then get on your knees and beg me. Like a dog. Maybe then I'll consider it."

"In your dreams."

"Not kneeling, huh?" Isabella's fingers suddenly went limp. "Well then, what if I were to have a little... accident?"

I watched in horror as my grandmother's ring fell from the high-rise window, tracing an arc through the air before disappearing from sight.

"NO!" I lunged toward the window, trying to catch something, anything, but it was too late.

In that instant, Isabella grabbed my arm as it reached out the window. Then, as Dante and Marco burst through the door, she let out a piercing scream.

"HELP! ROSE IS TRYING TO PUSH ME OUT THE WINDOW! SHE'S GONE CRAZY! SHE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!"

"What?!" Dante's face turned to stone as he charged over.

"I didn't!" I struggled against Isabella's grip. "She threw my ring out the window! She's framing me!"

"Shut up!" Dante yanked me away from the window, his eyes blazing with fury. "Are you insane? We're on the tenth floor! You were trying to kill her?"

"I really didn't push her! She provoked me, she deliberately—"

SLAP!

A sharp, stinging slap landed across my face, cutting off my words. My cheek burned, and I could taste blood.

"Enough!" Dante's eyes were full of rage. "You're so jealous you'd resort to murder?"

"Dante, I was so scared..." Isabella sobbed, burying herself in his arms. "She was really trying to push me. If you'd come a second later, I would have..."

"Rose, you've disappointed me more than I can say." Marco's voice was cold with disgust. "I thought you had some basic morals."

"I didn't! I really didn't push her!" I screamed, trying to make them see the truth. "She used my grandmother's ring to threaten me! She let it go on purpose!"

But no one believed me.

"Get her out of here," Dante ordered Marco, his voice like ice. "Don't let her near Isabella again."

"No, you have to listen to me—"

Before I could fight back, Dante and Marco grabbed my arms and began dragging me out of the room. I thrashed and struggled, but they were too strong.

As they hauled me through the doorway, I locked eyes with Isabella.

She was smiling at me, a triumphant, venomous smirk that belonged on a snake.

She mouthed one silent word at me: Idiot.

They didn't take me home. They dragged me to a nondescript building on the outskirts of the city.

A heavy steel door opened into an underground casino. The air was thick with smoke, sweat, blood, and despair.

"Welcome to the real world of the Blackwood family," Dante said, shoving me forward.

In a corner of the casino, a few gamblers who couldn't pay their debts were being beaten by enforcers. The sound of bones snapping was sickeningly clear, blood spattering on the walls as the men screamed.

I felt a wave of nausea and covered my mouth, gagging.

"What's wrong? Scared?" Marco laughed mockingly. "This is just another Tuesday for the mob, Rose. If you can't handle this, what makes you think you can be a Blackwood?"

"I..." I tried to turn and leave, but the two of them blocked my path.

"You're staying here until morning," Dante said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "This is your punishment for trying to hurt Isabella. And it's a lesson in what real cruelty looks like."

"No! The sight of blood... I can't handle it, I'll pass out!" I shook my head, my voice choked with panic.

"Then pass out," Marco shrugged. "Pass out, wake up, pass out again. You'll get used to it."

They ignored my trauma, my history of being bullied, my physical state. In that place, filled with violence and blood, I fainted again and again, only to be jolted awake by a splash of ice water. Every time I fell, someone would kick me or douse me with water, forcing me to stay conscious.

I spent the entire night in that cycle of passing out and being violently woken up. The hatred I felt for those two men grew inside me, a poison spreading through my veins.

By dawn, I was too weak to even stand.

"Can you do me a favor?" I managed to grab one of Dante's men. "Go to the hospital... look for my grandmother's ring. It might be on the ground below..."

The man looked at me with a flicker of pity, but quickly shook his head. "Sorry, Miss Rose. I can't go against the boss's orders, and I can't afford to get on Miss Isabella's bad side."

Everyone refused to help me.

I had to drag my exhausted, broken body out of the casino and walk toward the hospital. Every step was agony, but I had to find that ring.

When I finally reached the hospital, breathless, the janitors were already cleaning up.

"Excuse me," I asked one of them. "Did you see a small object fall from one of the upper floors yesterday? It was an old-fashioned ring..."

The janitor paused, then looked at me apologetically. "Miss, last night's trash was already taken to the landfill. By now, it's probably..."

My world collapsed.

The only memento my grandmother had left me was gone.