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.

I spent the entire day at the city dump.

My hands were cut and scraped, my nails were caked with filth, and my clothes were soaked in foul-smelling garbage juice. The workers stared at me like I was insane—a woman frantically digging through a mountain of trash.

At dusk, I finally found it, buried in a pile of rotting food.

But the picture of my grandmother was gone.

I opened the locket ring with trembling hands. The tiny photograph that had been inside was missing. It was the only color photo of her as a young woman, my last anchor in this world.

It felt like a knife had been twisted in my heart. I knelt in the garbage, sobbing in despair.

I ran back to the hospital like a madwoman.

Isabella was just being discharged. When she saw me, filthy and reeking, a triumphant smirk crossed her lips. The nurses around us stared—a woman who smelled like a landfill.

"Find your ring?" she asked loudly, drawing more attention. "About that picture, though..."

"What did you do with the picture?" I lunged at her, grabbing her shoulders.

"Tore it up. Flushed it down the toilet," she said nonchalantly, as if discussing the weather. "Last night. Tore it into tiny, tiny pieces. I guarantee you'll never find it. Looking at that old hag's face was disgusting anyway."

My sanity snapped.

SLAP!

I hit her with every ounce of strength I had left. Isabella staggered back, a bright red handprint blooming on her perfect cheek.

"Rose!" Dante's voice, full of shock and fury, echoed down the hall. "What are you doing?!"

He stormed over and shoved me so hard I nearly fell. He rushed to Isabella's side, gently stroking her face.

"How can you be so vicious?!" Dante glared at me, his eyes filled with disgust and disappointment. "Isabella is still recovering! Are you trying to kill her? My God, what have you become?"

Vicious? He was calling me vicious?

Watching Dante fuss over Isabella, seeing the judgmental stares of the people around us, and catching the victorious glint in Isabella's eyes, I started to laugh.

"Dante, that's enough," I said, my voice unnervingly calm. "You have no idea what real viciousness is. But you're about to find out."

I turned and walked away, my fingers clenched around the recovered ring. The photo was gone forever, but I had made my decision.

If Isabella wanted to play games, to destroy me piece by piece, then I would play.

I would make everyone see her for what she was—a vicious high-school bully. I would make her feel what it's like to be despised, to be condemned.

I would show her what true viciousness looked like.

Back in my car, I dialed my colleague, Sarah. She was an investigative reporter who specialized in exposing the dark underbelly of society.

"Sarah, I need a favor. Can you help me find some people...?" My voice was choked with tears, but my words were firm.

There was a pause on the other end. "Rose, are you sure about this? The Blackwood and Rossi families are not people you want to cross."

"I'm sure," I said, gripping the steering wheel. "Compared to what she did to me, this is nothing."

Tomorrow, at my wedding, the game would reach its climax.