Packing what little belonged to me became the last tether to survival. Each second I lingered, the air in this cursed mansion thickened, suffocating me with ghosts of memories that should have been sanctuary. None of it mattered anymore.

I yanked the suitcase from the bed, dragging it down the staircase, every thud of its wheels against the wood reminding me this was real—reminding me I was about to sever the final tie. I needed to be gone yesterday. My fingers brushed the doorknob, freedom just inches away, when her voice snapped through the silence like a whip.

“Don’t you dare move!”

Bianca.

She stood at the top of the staircase like some cheap actress, trembling as though fragile, cloaked in false purity. But her eyes betrayed her — wild, manic, gleaming with something venomous.

“Running away already?” she jeered, lips curling into a smile that was more barbed wire than warmth. “What’s wrong, Valeria? Can’t stomach seeing everything that used to be yours? The man you let slip through your hands?”

I looked at her, my face an empty mask, my heartbeat steady. No tears. No fury. Just nothing.

She slinked down the stairs, each step drawn out like a predator circling prey. “You know,” she whispered, sharp as a blade, “last night Adrian didn’t even say your name once. He screamed mine. Over and over…” She giggled, the sound nauseating. “He begged me to carry his son.”

I blinked. Just once. That was all. It was enough to rattle her. She faltered, confusion flickering in her painted face. She craved my breakdown—my screams, sobs, begging. Instead, she got marble.

That’s when she struck.

She gasped sharply, stumbling forward like a damsel in a staged tragedy. In a single, sweeping motion, she pulled a small knife from beneath her dress and plunged it against a blood pouch sewn into her fabric. Crimson bloomed across her stomach in an instant, staining her pale skin, spreading wide and theatrical. Her shriek tore through the halls like a banshee’s cry.

“She stabbed me! SHE STABBED ME!” Bianca shrilled, collapsing onto the floor in a heap, writhing in manufactured agony.

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Just watched her with hollow eyes.

The thunder of boots rattled the floorboards. Adrian burst into view, shoving his men aside, his expression wild with panic when he spotted her.

“What the hell is going on?!” he roared.

“She—” Bianca wailed, pointing a shaking finger at me, “SHE DID THIS! If you really love me, make her pay. Or I swear—” she gasped dramatically, clutching her stomach, “—I’ll disappear forever. I’ll take our child and you’ll never see us again!”

Adrian’s face twisted, a storm of fury and madness. He didn’t hesitate. Not for a second.

“Seize her!” he bellowed.

Hands like iron clamped onto my arms, jerking me backward. My suitcase toppled, the crash echoing through the marble foyer.

“LET ME GO!” I screamed, thrashing against their grip, my throat raw with desperation. “I never touched her! I never touched her!”

But my words bounced uselessly off deaf ears. No one ever listened. Not to me.

“Get Bianca to the hospital!” Adrian barked. His soldiers swarmed her, cradling her like fragile porcelain, while I was dragged like a dog to slaughter.

Bianca peeked over Adrian’s shoulder, her wet cheeks stretched into a wicked grin of victory.

I gave her something at last—just not what she longed for. I smiled, cold, sharp as glass.

“You’ll choke on those lies, Bianca,” I said, my voice slicing clean through the chaos. “And when you do, remember—you begged for it.”

Her mask cracked.

Good.

But before I could savor the moment, pain exploded across my face. CRACK. Adrian’s hand, heavy as a hammer, struck me sideways. My head whipped violently. The taste of blood filled my mouth, metallic and sharp. I coughed once and spat crimson onto the pristine marble. Silence devoured the room.

Even Bianca flinched.

Adrian towered above me, chest heaving, fists still balled as though he longed to strike again.

“You’re nothing,” he growled, his voice venom wrapped in ice. “A worthless stain I should’ve erased from this world years ago.”

Blood dripped from my mouth as I wiped it with the back of my bound hands. And I smiled—bloody, defiant.

“This stain,” I rasped, “is going to destroy you.”

The cuffs dug deeper into my wrists. But I no longer resisted. This wasn’t surrender. This was declaration. This was war, and it was only beginning.

---

The Lucci council sat before me like an unfeeling jury of stone. And then came my sons—Liam and Cole. My twins. My blood.

They stepped forward, voices steady, swearing they had seen me try to murder Bianca. Their testimony was smooth, polished, each syllable laced with poison. Lies that had been rehearsed until they were second nature.

“You’ve gone too far, Valeria,” Adrian pronounced, his voice colder than any winter. “You’ve become a danger. And this is the price you’ll pay.”

Before I could reply, his men dragged me again, hauling me like a carcass down endless halls. Toward the underground vault. A tomb for traitors. A place no one ever returned from.

The door slammed shut with a metallic clang, sealing me in. Darkness swallowed me whole.

Time unraveled—hours, days, weeks? Meaningless.

All that existed was the dark. And then—the sounds.

At first, faint sobbing. A girl’s voice, fragile and distant. Then whispers, slithering through the air, dozens layered upon dozens. Some I almost recognized. Others not at all. None of them right.

And then—the chanting. Low. Guttural. As though demons themselves crawled upward from the pit of hell to sing in my ears.

The voices seeped into me, threading under my skin. I clawed at my scalp, shrieking for silence, but the vault only hurled my screams back at me, warped, louder, monstrous.

Footsteps cut through the madness. Deliberate. Steady.

The lock turned. The door creaked.

Liam and Cole entered.

Their grins were carved from cruelty. Two devils walking into the cage of their plaything.

“Well, well,” Cole sneered, eyes glowing with malice. “Look at the rat in her trap.”

“You really thought you could get away?” Liam tilted his head, his voice mocking, dissecting me like prey beneath glass.

The lights flickered. Their silence stretched. Then Cole lifted a small device in his hand and pressed a button.

The speakers screamed alive with sound.

A little girl crying—“Mommy, please, stop!”

Then laughter—my laughter—warped, reversed, twisted until it no longer sounded human.

Then more crying. Layered. Hundreds. Thousands.

I stumbled backward into the corner, trembling.

“Why are you doing this?” I gasped. “I’m… I’m your mother. Not Vivienne. She stole you from me.”

They froze. For a breath.

Then Liam burst into a laugh so cruel it echoed like glass shattering.

“Our mother?” he spat.

“If you were our mother, I’d rather slit my own throat,” Cole snarled. “What a disgusting joke.”

“Nice try, rat,” Liam sneered. “You’re rotting down here already.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I forced the words out. “I carried you. I named you. They renamed you when they took you, but I know who you are—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Liam snapped, his voice a lash. “You’re not real. You’re just a phantom we conjured to test how much filth we could endure.”

Cole leaned close, his breath icy at my cheek. “Say that again,” he whispered, deadly calm, “and the next sound you’ll hear will be your skull breaking.”

Their laughter chased them as they left.

The door stayed unlocked.

They wanted me to flee. A new game. A fresh torment.

With a snarl, I forced myself forward. Rats clung to my legs, biting deep, but I didn’t stop. Blood ran down my calves. My lungs burned raw. But I shoved the door open and stumbled into the corridor.

I staggered through the halls, half-falling into the courtyard. For one fleeting heartbeat, I was free. The gate stood there, so close I could taste it.

Then I saw them.

Liam and Cole. Waiting at the gate like executioners, grins carved into their faces.

“You really thought you’d make it out, didn’t you?” Liam called, his tone dripping with false pity.

Cole raised something from behind his back. A weapon. Heavy. A rifle—except not for bullets.

No, they wouldn’t let me die. Not yet.

“Run, little mouse,” Cole taunted, leveling the weapon lazily. “No matter how far you go, we’ll always catch you.”

My heart thundered so violently I couldn’t hear my breath. My body still moved. One step. Then another.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer to the gate.

I almost reached it.

Then—

THWIP.

I staggered forward, my heartbeat pounding so loud it drowned out everything else. My lungs burned, but instinct pushed my body onward. One step. Another.

Closer.

Closer to the gate.

Freedom was right there. I could almost touch it.

And then—

THWIP.

The sound sliced through the air, followed by a savage eruption of pain in my thigh. A ragged scream tore from my throat as my body folded, crashing against the hard ground.

I looked down through blurred vision and saw it: a thick dart, barbed and cruel, buried deep into my leg. Blue sparks crawled along the wire attached to it, hissing and crackling as electricity tore through my veins.

A shock dart.

My muscles convulsed violently, every nerve screaming as if my body itself was being incinerated from within. I writhed, twitching helplessly, the agony so fierce it blurred the edges of the world into a spinning haze.

I collapsed in a broken heap, the gate—freedom—just meters away.

So close.

So devastatingly close.

Above me, echoing across the courtyard, came Cole’s victorious laughter—razor-sharp and merciless.

“Well, look at that,” Liam drawled, his voice carrying a lazy, mocking amusement. “She nearly made it. Nearly.”

Their boots crunched against the gravel, their footsteps slow, deliberate, as if savoring the moment.

Then another voice cut through the night, booming and furious.

Adrian.

His roar carried pure rage, but I was already slipping under. My body shook with aftershocks of pain, my limbs jerking uncontrollably. Darkness crept into my vision, swallowing the courtyard, dulling the fire in my nerves into a numbed, hollow ache.

The last thing I heard before the world went black was Adrian bellowing my name, as though shouting it could drag me back to him.

---

The next time my eyes opened, harsh fluorescent light stabbed down from above. It flickered unsteadily, like it was mocking me.

Adrian stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded across his chest, his shadow stretching long. His expression was unreadable—until the corners of his lips twisted upward in a faint, cruel smirk.

“You really thought those words would mean something?” he said, his tone low, edged with amusement. “Did you believe the boys would look at you differently? That they’d call you their mother?”

My throat burned, raw from earlier screams, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My body still trembled, shuddering with lingering jolts from the electricity.

He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing like blades cutting into me. “They don’t believe you. They never will.”

A humorless chuckle slipped from his mouth. “You should’ve seen them when they told me about you. They laughed at you, Valeria. Laughed like you were nothing but entertainment. A sideshow.”

I swallowed hard, my throat tight.

Adrian stepped closer, the temperature of the room plummeting with his presence.

“This… this is the price you pay,” he said, his voice suddenly hard and cold, each word a nail hammered into me. “For daring to harm my child.”

His eyes burned with conviction, and then the blade twisted deeper.

“My child with Bianca.”

The words hit harder than any dart.

I clenched my fists, the restraints digging painfully into my skin, metal biting against flesh. He didn’t care. He never cared.

“You’re nothing now,” he murmured, his tone almost soft, but dripping venom. “You’re a shadow. A problem I should’ve erased long ago.”

Then, with a sudden shift, his voice became mocking again—silk covering steel.

“But…” He tilted his head, lips curving. “If you’re ready to crawl, to beg, I might grant you mercy. I’ll let you out of this bed, let you sleep in a guest room instead of being locked in the vault like the rat you are.”

He let the silence stretch, savoring it.

“All you need to do is say it. Say you’re sorry. Say Bianca is better. Admit you were jealous. Admit you were nothing but a mistake.”

He smiled as if he’d just offered me salvation.

Then he turned and walked out, slamming the door shut with finality.

And I was alone again—strapped down to a hospital bed in Adrian’s private clinic. The air reeked of antiseptic and control. Two guards loomed outside the door, ready to follow his orders without hesitation, even if it meant putting a bullet in me.

Pain radiated through every limb, but I refused to shed a single tear. Crying wouldn’t save me. Not anymore.

Time slipped away—minutes, maybe hours. The sterile lights buzzed overhead.

The door opened again. This time, it wasn’t Adrian.

A man in hospital scrubs walked in, clipboard in hand. He didn’t meet my gaze, just muttered curtly, “We need her for a CT scan.”

One of the guards blocked his path. “She’s not leaving unless—”

The man snapped open his badge, flashing credentials too quickly to challenge. “Direct orders from Adrian. You want to be the one explaining to him why she missed her imaging?”

The guards exchanged a wary glance, then stepped aside.

The man wheeled my bed out into the hall. The corridor stretched long, walls blindingly white, lights humming overhead.

The elevator doors slid open. Once we were inside, away from prying eyes, the man finally leaned closer.

My heart stopped.

“Damien?” I rasped, my voice hoarse with disbelief.

His lips curved into a tight smile. “Took you long enough to recognize me, sister.”

Shock rooted me in place. I couldn’t form words.

Then, from his pocket, he produced a small set of keys and a scalpel.

By the time the elevator doors opened again, the restraints were gone. I was standing on my own legs, weak but upright, cloaked in a coat he’d slipped around my shoulders. Together, we slipped through the service exit unnoticed.

The night air hit me like a tidal wave of freedom.

I don’t remember where Damien took me—only that it was far enough, safe enough.

For days I lay in his apartment, healing. My body screamed with pain, every bone and muscle demanding rest. Nightmares clawed at me, dragging me back into darkness every time I closed my eyes.

But I was alive.

Alive—and blazing with rage.

One night, staring up at the cracked ceiling, I whispered into the silence, “I’m going to make them pay. For all of it. The lies. The twins. Adrian. Bianca. Every scar they carved into me.”

Damien’s eyes, steady and sharp, met mine. He nodded once. “Then we begin. No more chains. No more cages.”

I turned toward him, my voice stronger than it had been in weeks.

“I’ll go back,” I said, certainty hardening every syllable. “But not as their victim.”

I paused, my eyes cold, my blood steady.

“I’ll return as their reckoning.”