I woke again to the sharp, clean scent of disinfectant.

I opened my eyes to the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room. My hand was warm, trapped in another. I turned my head. William Salvatore sat in a chair by the bed, holding my hand. His eyes were closed, faint shadows of fatigue beneath them.

He must have felt me stir. His eyes snapped open.

Our gazes locked. He released my hand immediately, the weariness and something that looked uncomfortably like concern in his eyes vanishing, replaced by his usual impenetrable calm.

“I’ve spoken to your father,” he said, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. “I’ve taken responsibility for the incident. He won’t press the matter further. But, Isabella, you must promise me you will not lay a hand on Seraphina again. She is your sister.”

“I never asked you to take responsibility for anything,” I croaked, my throat raw. The sound was laced with scorn. “And that bastard-born shadow has never been my sister. In our world, a girl of her… origins wouldn’t be fit to clean my boots.”

William’s brow furrowed slightly. He seemed about to argue when the door to the room opened softly. A nurse peered in.

“Don Salvatore, Miss Seraphina in the adjoining suite is distressed. She’s asking for you.”

William stood, smoothing his already immaculate suit sleeve. He looked down at me. “I must see to her. She was injured because of your actions. As your betrothed, it is my duty to offer… reassurance.”

I gave a brittle smile and turned my face to the window. “Go ahead. She’s your real fiancée, after all.”

William’s steps halted. He turned back, his frown deepening. “What did you say?”

I didn’t bother repeating myself. I just pulled the thin hospital blanket over my head, a clear dismissal.

I heard him exhale, a low, frustrated sound. After a moment, his footsteps retreated, following the nurse out.

The next few days passed in a blur of bland food and routine checks.

I stayed in that hospital bed, and the world came to me in snippets from the chattering nurses who changed my IV and took my vitals.

“Don Salvatore is so attentive to the younger Miss Caruso. He visits her suite every day.”

“Indeed. I heard she dislikes bitter medicine, so he had special candies imported from Sicily for her.”

“Between you and me, they make a more… harmonious pair. A proper Don and his lady.”

They had all decided the gentle, well-mannered Seraphina was the rightful companion to the powerful Salvatore Don.

I listened. I felt nothing. A hollow amusement, perhaps.

I wished everyone would believe it. It would make everything so much simpler.

On the day of my discharge, William came.

He took the paperwork from the nurse and looked at me where I sat propped against the pillows, scrolling mindlessly through my phone. “Get your things. I’m taking you home.”

“I’m not going back to the Caruso house,” I said, not looking up.

His expression darkened. “Isabella. Enough of this.”

He didn’t wait for further argument. In two strides he was at the bedside. His fingers closed around my wrist. The grip wasn’t painful, but it was absolute, an unyielding assertion of control. He pulled me from the bed, his other arm coming around to steady me, and guided me—half-dragged me, really—out of the room and into the back of his waiting armored sedan.

The car moved silently through the city, back to the Caruso mansion. I wrenched my arm free the moment we stopped and walked straight inside, up the grand staircase to my room.

I pushed the door open.

My blood turned to ice.

Seraphina was sitting at my vanity. In her hands was my mother’s sapphire necklace, the stones catching the light as she held it up to her own throat, admiring her reflection.

The last piece of my mother in this world.

“Who gave you permission to touch my things?” My voice was low, deadly cold. “Put it down. Get out.”

Seraphina jumped, startled by my sudden appearance. Then a smug smile spread across her face. She didn’t put the necklace down. Instead, she dangled it from her fingers. “Yours? Everything in this house will be mine one day, Isabella. Everything.”

“Did falling down the stairs not teach you enough?” I took a step forward, my gaze fixed on her.

“That was a lucky shot!” she sneered, emboldened. “You think I’m afraid of you now?”

Before I could respond, her eyes lit with malicious intent. She snatched a heavy crystal perfume bottle from the vanity and hurled it to the floor at her own feet, simultaneously throwing herself backwards onto the shards with a theatrical cry.

The crash brought running footsteps.

Victor Caruso and Giselle burst into the room. My father took in the scene—the shattered glass, Seraphina weeping artfully amidst the wreckage—and his face purpled with rage.

“Daddy!” Seraphina wailed, pointing a trembling finger at me. “I only wanted to see the necklace… she pushed me!”

“Isabella!” Victor roared.

He didn’t ask for my side. He never did. He crossed the room in two strides and his open hand connected with my cheek.

The crack echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

My head snapped to the side. Fire blossomed across my face. I tasted blood where my teeth had cut the inside of my cheek.

I didn’t cry.

A low, humorless laugh bubbled up from my chest.

“What are you laughing at?” Victor demanded, unnerved by the sound.

I lifted my head. My eyes, cold and sharp as broken glass, locked on Seraphina, who was still perfecting her wounded-dove act. “You enjoy performing? Let me give you a scene you’ll never forget.”

I moved.

My hand shot out, grabbing a heavy, solid-silver letter opener from the vanity. Before anyone could react, I drove it down with all my strength.

It pierced the back of Seraphina’s hand, the tip embedding in the wooden floorboards beneath the rug.

A scream, genuine and shrill this time, tore from her throat. Blood welled around the silver, vivid against her pale skin.

“You… you vicious creature! Out!” Victor was trembling, apoplectic. He pointed to the door. “Get out of this house! I will not harbor a viper like you!”

He shouted for the household guards. Two large men appeared and seized my arms, hauling me from the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. A small suitcase followed, tossed unceremoniously onto the gravel driveway beside me.

I stumbled, then righted myself.

Expressionlessly, I rubbed my bruised arm. Then I bent down, unzipped the suitcase, and pulled out my mother’s sapphire necklace. I clenched it in my fist until the metal bit into my palm.

I took one last look at the mansion—ornate, cold, a gilded prison.

Then I turned and walked away.

I hadn’t gone three blocks when the sky opened up. A cold, spring deluge soaked me to the skin in seconds. The chill seeped through my clothes, into my bones. I shivered violently, ducking under the narrow awning of a closed boutique.

I hugged myself, watching the rain curtain the street, feeling a vast, empty desolation settle in my chest.

The low purr of an engine cut through the drumming rain. A familiar black Bentley glided to a stop at the curb.

The window lowered. William’s profile was sharp against the gray interior.

He saw me—drenched, shivering, standing in the runoff from the awning. His jaw tightened.

He got out, not bothering with an umbrella. In three steps he was before me. “Get in the car.”

“I don’t need your help.”

He didn’t argue. His hand clamped around my bicep, a grip of sheer force, and he all but carried me to the passenger side, shoving me inside.

Blessed, dry heat enveloped me. He tossed a folded towel into my lap and drove in silence to his fortified townhouse.

Inside, he thrust a bundle of his own clothes—a soft cotton shirt and trousers—at me and pointed to a bathroom. When I emerged, changed, my wet hair in a messy knot, he had a first-aid kit open on the low table in his study.

“Sit,” he ordered. He uncapped a tube of ointment. His touch was clinical as he applied it to the bruise on my cheek. “What happened?”

I kept my mouth shut.

The doorbell chimed.

William went to answer it. Standing on the step, hand wrapped in a thick white bandage, face pale and wan, was Seraphina.

“William…” Her voice trembled, her eyes welling with tears on command. “Isabella was thrown out. I was so worried… Even after what she did to me, we’re sisters. I wanted to find her, to bring her home.”

I walked into the foyer, leaning against the doorframe. “Seraphina, if you don’t stop this pathetic act, I will rip your lying tongue out myself.”

“Isabella!” William’s voice was a whip-crack. “When will this end? Assault, attempted murder, stabbing a woman’s hand to a floor! Is this how a Caruso behaves? Seraphina is showing you mercy, and you spit in her face?”

Seraphina fluttered forward, clinging to William’s sleeve. “It’s alright. I just want her to come home.”

“Apologize to her,” William commanded, his eyes boring into me.

“Never.”

The argument escalated. William reached for me. I shoved his hand away. He grabbed my shoulder. I twisted.

In the struggle, William’s elbow slammed against a side table.

A polished silver thermal carafe, the kind that kept coffee scalding for hours, wobbled, tipped, and crashed to the marble floor.

It exploded.

A torrent of near-boiling liquid erupted across the foyer.

Time seemed to slow.

William moved on pure instinct. He pivoted, throwing his body around Seraphina, who was closer to him, shielding her with his back. The spray hit his jacket, hissed.

I was on the other side.

I had no shield.

The blistering coffee splashed across my legs, my left arm, the side of my neck.

Agony, white-hot and searing, tore through me. A choked gasp escaped my lips. I folded over, vision swimming.

William quickly checked Seraphina. A few drops had caught her bandaged hand. The skin beneath was pink.

Satisfied, he released her and finally looked at me.

I was crumpled on the floor, clutching my arm. The skin was already an angry, blistering red.

His eyes widened fractionally. He took an involuntary step toward me.

“William!” Seraphina’s cry was perfectly timed. She caught his arm again, her voice a whisper of pain and compassion. “I’m fine, it’s just a sting… but Isabella… she looks really hurt. Shouldn’t you…?”

William stopped. His gaze flicked from my contorted face of pain to Seraphina’s beautifully concerned one. He remembered the letter opener. The blood. My defiance.

His expression hardened into something cold and final.

He looked away from me. He bent and scooped Seraphina into his arms. “Leave her. The pain might teach her the consequences her actions should have.”

He carried Seraphina out into the rain, never glancing back.

I sat on the cold marble, my body a map of fire, my heart a hollow, freezing void.

Teeth gritted against the nausea and dizziness, I used my uninjured right hand to fumble my phone from my pocket.

My fingers shook as I dialed.

I called the ambulance myself.

I left the hospital, again, just in time for Seraphina’s birthday gala.

The Caruso mansion was a blaze of light and sound. As the disgraced but still technically eldest daughter, my presence was mandatory.

I stood in a shadowed alcove, a ghost at my own family’s feast. I watched Victor, his face flushed with pride and expensive champagne, parade Seraphina through the crowd. He stopped before the assembled guests—rival family underbosses, corrupt politicians, business associates with slippery morals.

“To my daughter,” he announced, his voice booming. “The true light of this family! As a token of my faith, I am transferring controlling interest in Caruso Shipping and seventy percent of my liquid assets to her name.”

A murmur of approval and envy rippled through the room.

I felt nothing. Just a deep, cold stillness.

My own birthdays had been silent affairs. A small cake ordered by a disinterested housekeeper. Candles blown out in an empty dining room. Wishes that dissolved into the quiet.

The gift-giving began. Victor’s was obscenely generous. But the true showstopper came from William.

He produced a black velvet box. Inside, nestled on satin, was a necklace. Not just diamonds. A waterfall of baguette-cut stones, centered by a blood-red ruby the size of my thumbnail. The Salvatore family color. He fastened it around Seraphina’s neck himself.

The crowd’s gasp was audible. Seraphina glowed, her eyes darting to my corner with triumphant glee.

I’d had enough. I slipped away to the long bar set up in the conservatory. I bypassed the champagne, poured three fingers of neat Scotch, and swallowed it in one burning gulp.

Peace was not an option.

A cluster of Seraphina’s hangers-on—daughters of minor syndicate figures—swarmed over, their laughter sharp and pointed.

“Look, it’s the Caruso ghost,” one sneered. “Why the long face? Jealous that your sister actually deserves her party?”

I set the glass down and turned to leave.

A hand shot out, manicured nails digging into my burned forearm. “We’re talking to you. Where are your manners?”

I snapped.

I wrenched my arm free so violently the girl stumbled. My eyes swept over their smirking faces.

Then I moved.

I didn’t reach for a glass. I grabbed the nearest weapon—a heavy, ice-filled crystal champagne bucket.

“You had your chance to walk away.”

I swung it.

It connected with the first girl’s shoulder and head with a solid, wet thwack. Ice and water sprayed. She went down with a shriek.

Chaos erupted.

I was a whirlwind of cold fury. I used the bucket like a mace, driving it into a stomach, cracking it against an upraised arm. I kicked a knee out from under another. It was brutal, efficient, and utterly without finesse.

Strong hands seized me from behind, pinning my arms. The bucket fell from my grip, clattering on the floor.

William spun me around. His face was a mask of icy fury as he surveyed the whimpering, soaked, injured girls. “Isabella! What is wrong with you?”

I met his glare, my breathing ragged. “They mouthed off. I shut them up. It’s the language people like us understand.”

“This isn’t ‘shutting them up’! This is unprovoked assault!” His voice was low, dangerous. “They criticized you? Perhaps you should listen. Improve. Apologize to them. Now.”

“Go to hell.”

His patience, always thin where I was concerned, vanished. He knew my fear. The dark. Enclosed spaces. A childhood haunted by punishment rooms.

“If you won’t learn decency, you’ll learn fear.” He nodded to two of his men who had materialized at his side. “Take her to the strong room in the basement. Lock her in. She doesn’t come out until I say so.”

He looked at me, his eyes devoid of any warmth. “Sometimes fear is the only teacher that works.”

I didn’t fight as the guards marched me away. The strong room was exactly as I remembered from childhood: a windowless concrete cube, a single dim bulb behind a wire cage in the ceiling, a drain in the floor. The door was solid steel.

It shut with a final, resonant clang.

Darkness, thick and suffocating, rushed in as they turned the light off from the outside.

The old terror rose like a tide, cold and choking. I sank to the floor in the corner, pulling my knees to my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs. Sweat, cold and clammy, soaked through my clothes.

Time lost meaning. Hunger gnawed. Thirst parched my throat. The dark pressed in, a physical weight. The memories of a little girl locked in a closet for crying too loud whispered from the corners.

On what I thought was the third day, the door clanked open.

Light from the corridor blinded me. Seraphina stood silhouetted in the doorway, a smile playing on her lips.

“I thought William would be harsher,” she mused, stepping inside. “A few days in the dark? That’s a vacation.” She clicked her fingers.

Two of my father’s security detail, men with blank faces, entered behind her.

“What are you doing?” My voice was a dry rasp.

“Giving the lesson some… teeth,” she said sweetly. “String her up.”