"Don't touch my mommy!" Melody swung her cane and cracked it hard against Josephine's shin.

"You little brat!" Josephine yelped, hopping on one foot, and raised her hand to strike.

Ice flooded my veins. I drove my foot into Josephine's knee.

She screamed, both knees slamming into the floor, and crumpled in a rigid kneel right in front of Melody.

"You're dead!" Murray clenched his fist and swung at me.

A long, powerful hand shot out from the side and locked around Murray's wrist like a vise.

Then wrenched it backward.

Crack.

The sickening snap of bone.

Murray shrieked, collapsing to his knees, cold sweat pouring down his face.

Ivan Stephens stood in front of me in a black suit, his expression carved from frost. He drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his fingers with deliberate slowness, and tossed it onto Murray's face.

"What kind of stray mutt thinks it can lay a hand on Ivan Stephens's wife?"

"Ivan Stephens?!"

Murray's features contorted, but the words died in his throat.

The most powerful man in Crestmont's elite circles. Head of the Stephens Consortium.

The Delgados weren't fit to shine his shoes.

Josephine scrambled away on all fours.

Lavinia stared at Ivan's striking face, jealousy spilling from her eyes.

How did she land Ivan Stephens?

Ivan didn't spare any of them a second glance. He scooped Melody into one arm and draped the other around my shoulders.

"Did they scare you?" His voice softened instantly.

"Disgusted me is more like it." My expression stayed flat.

"Then let's go home and wash your eyes."

Ivan shielded me as we left the hospital, a wall of bodyguards flanking us on every side.

A few days later, word came back.

Murray had sent people to dig into the situation. Their conclusion: Ivan Stephens's late wife had only just died.

They decided I was nothing more than a stand-in. A plaything.

"She's a dirty little secret. There's no way Stephens would start a war over her!" Murray was utterly convinced.

The Hensons hatched a plan immediately.

Lavinia's birthday gala was the following week. They sent a gilded invitation specifically requesting that Mr. Stephens bring his female companion.

The scheme was simple: expose me in front of everyone, then force me onto the operating table.

"Going?" Ivan flicked the gold-embossed invitation onto the table.

"Going." I plucked a cherry from the bowl and popped it into my mouth. "They've built the stage. Might as well give them a show."

Ivan smiled and ruffled my hair.

"Good. I'll be right there when you tear it down."

The night of the gala.

The Hensons had booked the grandest ballroom in Crestmont's most exclusive hotel.

Lavinia wore a custom gown worth a fortune, a diamond tiara perched on her head.

Ivan and I walked in. The entire room went silent.

I wore a deep burgundy couture evening gown, my hair swept up. A black silk scarf was loosely knotted around my neck.

Ivan's arm tightened around my waist as we made our way to the head table.

Murray's eyes glazed over. He grabbed a glass of wine and approached, his voice low and venomous through gritted teeth.

"You actually showed up."

"Designer clothes don't turn a crow into a phoenix. Stephens is just having his fun with you."

"You're going to the hospital today. Otherwise I'll rip that mask right off your face."

I scoffed. One flick of my wrist.

A full glass of red wine splashed across his face.

"Sober yet?"

"Ah!" Murray sputtered, frantically wiping his eyes.

Josephine saw it happen. She snatched a microphone and charged onto the stage.

She squeezed out two tears and wailed for the crowd.

"Somebody tell me if this is fair!"

"The Henson family raised her for twenty years! Lavinia is on death's door and needs a kidney transplant. And this ungrateful wretch refuses to save her own sister. Runs off to be some rich man's mistress instead!"

"She came here tonight just to torment us!"

The room erupted. Every pair of eyes swiveled toward me.

Whispers rippled through the crowd.

"So she's the Henson girl."

"Absolutely shameless."

"What does Stephens see in someone like that?"

Lavinia sobbed on stage, the picture of fragile innocence. "Please, Beatrice, I don't need the kidney anymore. Just don't make Mom and Dad angry..."

Curt Henson's voice boomed across the ballroom. "Security! Drag this ungrateful daughter to the operating room!"

A dozen bodyguards closed in at once.

Ivan's lips curved into a cold smile. He didn't say a word.

Black-clad bodyguards surged through the crowd behind him.

In under three minutes, every last one of the Henson security detail was on the ground, groaning in pain.

Ivan pulled out a small red booklet and flung it straight into Josephine's face.

Smack.

"Read it carefully. She is my lawfully wedded wife."

"Kidnapping Mrs. Stephens to harvest her kidney?" His voice dropped to a lethal register. "The Hensons have some nerve."

The entire ballroom went silent.

The steel seal on the marriage certificate was unmistakable.

Not a stand-in.

Not an impersonator.

Mrs. Stephens.

Murray staggered as though struck by lightning, unable to process what he was hearing. He lunged forward like a man unhinged.

"Liar! You're lying to me!"

He seized my shoulders and wrenched me toward him.

Riiip.

The black silk scarf tore clean off.

Crystal chandelier light poured down, illuminating my neck and collarbone.

Murray's gaze froze. His pupils contracted violently.

Below the pale line of my collarbone, the skin was covered in clusters of dark purple lumps, hard and raised. They were the ruined tissue left behind by thick dialysis needles driven into the same flesh over and over again.

Where my collar gaped open, a vicious scar stretched more than four inches across my chest. That was the mark of emergency open-heart surgery to resuscitate a failing heart.

Murray stopped breathing. The color drained from his face.

"What... is this..." His lips trembled, his voice splintering apart.

He remembered what the doctor had told him three months ago: "All her indicators are normal. She's faking it to avoid donating her kidney."

If she'd been faking, how could there be a scar from a surgery that pulled her back from death? How could there be needle marks horrifying enough to turn a person's stomach?

The ballroom doors slammed open.

A squad of fully armed officers strode in.

The lead detective held up an arrest warrant, his voice cutting through the hall like a blade:

"Where is Lavinia Henson?"

"You are suspected of bribing a physician to forge medical records and of lacing Beatrice Henson's emergency medication with poison over an extended period. You are under suspicion of attempted murder!"

"Take her."