The day I took over my family's branch in Monterra City fell right on the water festival—and I barely made it out of the banquet before a crowd closed in around me, blasting me with high-pressure water guns.

The one spraying hardest was Gloria Fox, my fiancé's childhood sweetheart.

The jet hit my gown and soaked it through in an instant, the fabric clinging to every line of my body.

I stepped forward and slapped the water gun out of Gloria's hands, my voice hard.

"There's a line, even on a holiday."

I didn't even finish the sentence before tears were already streaming down Gloria's face.

"The whole point of the water festival is getting soaked through! Why do you always have to pick on me…"

Brent's expression changed the second he saw her crying.

He pulled Gloria into his arms and glanced back over his shoulder.

A dozen high-pressure water guns swung toward me at once and opened fire.

Every jet targeted the same parts of my body—chest, hips, thighs.

The pressurized water hammered through the front of my dress in seconds, the outline of my bra showing clear as day.

The crowd around us kept growing.

My eyes burned red as I screamed.

"Brent Delgado, keep this up and I'm calling the police!"

"The police?!"

Brent let out a cold laugh, grinning wider.

"Wake up, Maya. This is Monterra City, not Kingsport. This is my turf. The king of heaven himself could show up and he'd still have to call me daddy."

I forced a thin, cold smile and slowly reached into my pocket for the secure smartphone, dialing the only number saved in it.

"Send every industrial water cannon truck in Monterra City to Starhaven Plaza. Immediately. And seal the area."

——

The words had barely left my mouth before the crowd erupted into deafening laughter.

Brent stepped forward, snatched the secure smartphone out of my hand, and laughed even louder.

"Maya, are you out of your mind?! You pull out some fake vintage phone and make a little scare call? You think that's going to work?!"

He turned the screen toward the crowd, showing it around.

"Hey, look at this. A four-digit phone number!"

"Tell me, has anyone here ever seen a four-digit phone number in their life?!"

Another wave of piercing laughter tore through the crowd.

The amusement in Brent's eyes deepened. He grabbed my chin, fingers digging in.

"Drop the Kingsport act, Maya. That shit doesn't scare me."

Gloria stepped forward and leaned right into Brent's arms, her eyes bright with triumph.

"She's right, you know? This is Brent's territory. That whole queen-bee routine you run back in Kingsport? Nobody's buying it here."

"Don't waste your breath on someone like her, Gloria."

Brent held Gloria tighter against him and pointed at me, his voice sharp as a blade.

"Apologize to Gloria."

"Or you're not walking out of here comfortably today."

Dozens of men closed in around me, high-pressure water guns leveled and ready.

Their eyes dragged over the outline of my body through the soaked fabric, slow and deliberate, every mouth twisted into the same ugly grin.

I scrambled to grab the shawl that had fallen to the ground, trying to cover myself.

Brent ripped it out of my hands.

He clamped down on my wrist and yanked so hard my knees slammed into the ground at Gloria's feet.

"You're not deaf, are you, Maya?! I said apologize to Gloria!"

Gloria stepped closer. The point of her stiletto came down on my palm and ground in.

But her voice was all wounded sweetness, pouring out in one syrupy breath.

"Maya, I really was just trying to be nice—it's the water festival, you're supposed to get wet, so why do you have to twist everything around? I feel so awful right now. Brent's not too angry yet, so you'd better just hurry up and apologize to me before he is…"

The crowd kept pressing in tighter, pointing at every curve and line the soaked dress gave away, picking me apart out loud like I was something on display.

"Damn, look at those hips. Built to breed sons, that one!"

"No kidding. Stacked front and back. Real piece of work."

"You can tell from how she dresses. Total slut."

Every taunt made the satisfaction in Brent's eyes run deeper.

My stomach turned cold.

I'd refused every match my family ever arranged—eight years I'd held on to Brent, eight years I'd chosen him over everything, and three times in those eight years the Delgado business had nearly gone under, and every single time I'd gone to my father on my knees to bail them out. Earlier this year Brent proposed, and I thought I'd finally gotten my happiness. Then the very next day his childhood sweetheart Gloria Fox flew back from overseas, and from that moment nothing between us was the same.

The only reason I'd agreed to take over the Pruitt branch in Monterra City was to give Brent one last chance. To give us one last chance.

Looking at him now, that wasn't necessary anymore.

"If you still won't apologize, I'm going to get really upset…"

Gloria pouted, tears spilling down her face like beads off a broken string.

I swallowed my disgust and surged to my feet.

My arm swung up and cracked across Gloria's face.

Then I ripped the high-pressure water gun out of the man beside me, aimed it square at Gloria's chest, and slammed the trigger.

Dirty water soaked through her dress instantly, her red bra showing through for everyone to see.

"Don't run!"

I kept the gun on her without letting up for a second.

"It's a water festival, isn't it? You're supposed to get soaked! Come on!!"

Gloria clutched her chest, shrieking as she scrambled into Brent's arms.

My handprint was still on her face.

I grabbed the shawl from Brent's hand and threw it over my own shoulders.

One cold look at him, and I turned to leave.

The kick hit the small of my back before I'd taken a step.

Brent.

Blinding pain tore outward from the base of my spine and flooded my whole body.

But it was nothing compared to the pain in my chest.

Three years ago, a rival faction kidnapped Brent. I brought every last one of my family's men from Kingsport to pull him out, and a knife went clean through the small of my back. Eighteen hours of surgery. Thirty-six steel pins just to hold me together.

On the day I was discharged, Brent knelt in front of me.

Told me he could never repay what I'd done for him. Not in this lifetime.

For three years after that, every overcast day, every rainstorm, the pain locked me in place so completely I couldn't move—and every time, Brent would cancel everything, meetings, dinners, all of it, just to kneel beside me and hold warm compresses against my back, hour after hour.

And now, for one woman, he'd driven his foot into that very spot.

"Maya. I told you. Apologize—or you don't get to walk away from here clean."

Brent's voice, ice-cold, dragged me back.

He planted his foot on the small of my back.

A crack.

White-hot numbness and a searing ache ripped through my lower back at once, and I couldn't hold back the groan. I knew—somewhere in there, something had just given way.

The doctor's words when I was discharged hit me like a wall: one more serious blow to that area and I'd never walk again. No one on earth could fix it.

My father's voice on the phone moments ago echoed in my head.

I clenched my teeth, looked up at Brent, and forced the words out through the shaking.

"I was wr—"

He cut me off before I could finish.

"You want to apologize?! Too late!"

His eyes were vicious.

"Maya, I let you run wild for eight years. Today I'm putting you back in your place."

He glanced behind him. Dozens of water guns swung toward me in unison.

The jets hit all at once, slamming into my face and body like whips.

The blast knocked me flat.

Brent grabbed Gloria's hand, aimed the water gun she was holding straight at my face, and water hammered up into my nose and ears, a vicious burning sting that set everything on fire at once.

I tried to get up, but the pressure blurred my vision completely.

I didn't even have the strength to lift my head. All I could do was lie there while the freezing jets slammed into me, every impact tearing through me under all that force.

Gloria watched me floundering and let out peal after peal of shrill laughter.

The moment she started laughing, Brent finally stopped.

He wrapped an arm around Gloria's waist, his voice going so soft it was nauseating.

"Happy now, Gloria?"

"When have I ever not been happy with what you do for me..."

Her coy little whine drew a smug laugh out of Brent,

but before the sound even faded,

Gloria's expression crumpled into wounded innocence.

"But..."

Brent's smile vanished instantly.

"But what?"

"Don't be scared, Gloria. I'm right here. Tell me what's wrong."

Gloria clasped the hand he had on her waist, stroking the back of it over and over, her voice sweet and helpless.

"My clothes got soaked because of her just now... I'm so cold..."

"That's nothing. I'll take you to the mall right now and buy you something new."

"No."

Gloria pointed at me, tugging Brent's arm with a little shake.

"I want the one she's wearing. Right now."

"Absolutely not!"

I cut straight through her wheedling.

This gown was the Pruitt family's heirloom, passed down with the leadership of the branch.

The family regarded it the same way they regarded the family's honor itself.

And this one, the one on my body, my late mother had altered stitch by stitch to fit me.

My father had preserved it with painstaking care for twenty years, waiting for the day I took over the Pruitt branch in Monterra City and finally put it on.

I clutched my shoulders and staggered to my feet,

shaking uncontrollably from the icy cold soaking through every layer.

Brent glanced in my direction, something shifting behind his eyes that I couldn't place.

After a few seconds of silence, he pulled Gloria into his arms and murmured,

"Gloria, that thing on her isn't anything special. The style went out of fashion ages ago."

"Besides, it's drenched in dirty water. You'll catch a chill if you put it on. Let's forget about that one. I'll take you to get a brand-new—"

"No!"

Gloria wrenched herself out of his arms,

and the tears came all at once.

"I want hers! You won't give it to me because you feel sorry for her, is that it? She matters more to you than I do, doesn't she?!"

"No, I just meant it's ugly and it's wet..."

"I think it's beautiful! I don't care if it's wet, I want it!"

Brent went rigid for two seconds.

"You do feel sorry for her..."

"I don't!"

He snapped it out without hesitation, then turned on his heel to face me, his voice dropping cold.

"Maya. You heard her. Gloria wants that dress. Take it off."

I looked around at the wall of men packed tight on every side,

then stared back at Brent, shaking, my voice cracking with disbelief.

"You want me to take off my clothes... here?"

"Take it off!"

The words had barely left my mouth before the crowd around me erupted.

They closed in, pressing tighter, eyes crawling over every line of my body.

"Strip! Young Mr. Delgado told you to strip. What are you standing there for?!"

"Young Mr. Delgado, thank you so much! If it weren't for you, when would we ever get the chance to see a body like that with nothing left to the imagination?"