Three days after the hospital incident, I went to try on a wedding dress.

By myself.

No entourage of bodyguards. No paparazzi waiting outside. No self-satisfied future father-in-law clapping me on the back. Just me, stepping into a worn-out boutique tucked in the shadows of a defaced old church wall. The proprietor was an aging Russian seamstress, half-blind, half-silent—her lips always occupied with pins or thread.

It was perfect.

I chose a gown without even checking the price. Pulled it over my shoulders, stared at the fractured mirror, and for a fleeting instant imagined an alternate life—one where none of this had unraveled, one where the man waiting at the altar wasn’t cruel. Or worse… wasn’t turning me cruel.

I slipped out the back into the alleyway for a smoke. My heels tapped against concrete, veil still tangled in my hair. The cigarette barely touched my lips before a rag pressed down hard over my mouth.

Sickly sweet chemical. Too sweet.

Chloroform.

I fought. Hard. But the haze seeped into me fast, crawling through my veins like poison. My muscles went slack, vision tunneling. I collapsed before the cigarette even hit the ground.

---

I came to coughing on my own blood.

Blindfolded. Wrists roped behind a chair. Back screaming from some earlier strain. My mouth was a graveyard of copper, cotton, and dust.

The place smelled of wet stone and gasoline. Somewhere underground, I guessed. A faint fan whirred overhead, water dripping at irregular intervals. My skull pounded with each beat of my heart.

Then it began.

A paddle lashed across my back—sharp, merciless. Not the one I had once wielded.

My body convulsed, lungs refusing air. The pain was so clean, so absolute, my mind fractured. I couldn’t scream. Breath itself was impossible.

Every strike carved fire through me, nerves lighting up in agony. My teeth ground together, but still I made no sound. The silence became its own rebellion.

I lost count quickly. Past twenty, past thirty. My body quit flinching, though the torment didn’t lessen. My brain tried to switch off, but the suffering kept dragging me back.

Fifty, maybe more. By then I was unrecognizable—skin torn, blood soaking the ropes, metallic taste drowning my tongue. The agony blurred into something grotesquely familiar, as if my body had accepted this as ritual.

Then came a voice.

Muffled, distorted by static.

“It’s done, sir.”

A pause.

“Send her back.”

My breath froze in my chest.

Leander.

The world stopped.

He had ordered this.

The bastard arranged every blow, every scream. Not for discipline. Not for justice. Not even for Dahlia’s theatrics. This was punishment—mine. His punishment.

Shock crushed me. My body betrayed me, refusing even the instinct to rage. I wanted to scream, to fight, to spit blood in defiance. But nothing came. Just the iron tang filling my mouth as the darkness pulled me under again.

---

When I surfaced, I was in another hospital bed. White sheets. IV piercing my arm. Pain clinging like a second skin. Nurses whispered outside, their voices carrying like gossip through the corridor.

“That man in the VIP suite—dreamy. Stayed up all night by his girl’s bedside, holding her hand.”

“She’s barely bruised. But the one in 106? Looks like she’s been flayed alive. Not a single visitor.”

Guess which room number was mine.

I tore the IV out, the sting meaningless against everything else. The world swayed, but I dragged myself into the hall, leaning on the wall like a crutch. Each step split me open again, but I refused to stop.

And there he was.

Leander.

Outside Dahlia’s room, gently pressing a glass of water to her lips as if she were fragile porcelain. She fluttered her lashes, murmured something syrupy. And he smiled.

He smiled.

Wiped a stray drop from her mouth with his thumb. Tender. Intimate.

My throat constricted—not from jealousy. Not anymore. From the absurdity. The cruelty. I nearly died because of him, and here he was babysitting a fraud who trembled at her own shadow.

My back was an open wound, my body a map of suffering. But my heart? That was the part he’d truly destroyed. Shredded it with words, actions, betrayals.

I didn’t cry. Not then. Not ever again. I’d sooner choke on my own hurt than give him the triumph of seeing me break.

---

No flowers. No escorts. No family apologies. Just a nurse silently handing me discharge papers and a plastic bag containing my ruined dress and heels.

My father? “Abroad on business.” As always.

I hailed a cab to my villa. Every pothole made my ribs scream, but I sat still, stiff, forcing myself not to flinch. Pain had already become my companion—one I could carry like luggage.

Inside, I didn’t unpack. Didn’t shower. I sat on the velvet chaise, staring at my phone until my fingers dialed his number.

He answered on the second ring.

I didn’t give him room for a single word.

“I know it was you.”

Silence.

“I know you had me drugged, chained, whipped to the bone. Every scream—I know they were on your command.”

“How—”

“Doesn’t matter, Leander. Or should I say… Winston Salerno?” His sharp inhale bled through the receiver. I let a cold smile shape my mouth. “Whatever torment you gave me, I’ll carve back into you. Tenfold. That’s a promise.”

Then I ended the call.

No screaming. No dramatics. Just a vow.

I slept for six uninterrupted hours—the kind of dead sleep only pure, unfiltered agony can drag you into.

When I finally surfaced, the villa was cloaked in darkness. The only light came from the pale blue glow of the enormous flat screen, its reflection sliding across polished marble. I flicked it on, desperate for noise, for distraction, for something to drown out the silence pressing against me.

And then I saw it.

Breaking news. Fireworks bursting over the sea. Spotlights dancing across the glossy surface of a luxury yacht.

Leander.

Down on one knee.

A diamond so oversized it could double as a planet gleamed in his hand.

Dahlia shrieked, tears streaming, flinging herself into his embrace as though the world had gifted her paradise.

The news anchor’s syrupy voice coated the scene, narrating it like the climax of some fairy-tale.

“Until now, the world knew him only as a discreet bodyguard. But tonight, Winston Salerno—heir to the Salerno empire—has revealed himself to the world.”

Cut to him, sharp in a tailored suit, hair tousled by the breeze, eyes pretending sincerity.

“I did all of it,” he said smoothly, “because I needed to stay close to the woman I adore… Dahlia.”

Cue another round of fireworks. Cue the kiss. Too long. Too sloppy. Too obscene for a public broadcast.

I laughed. A jagged, broken laugh that scraped its way out of my throat. It didn’t even sound like it belonged to me anymore.

Then my phone rang.

Her name blinked across the screen.

Dahlia.

I answered. I wanted to hear it from her, raw and unfiltered.

“Did you catch Winston’s proposal?” Her voice was breathless, high-pitched, giddy—like a ballerina who’d had too much champagne. “It was straight out of a storybook. Shame you weren’t there to see it.”

I stayed silent.

She giggled, wickedly. “Lucky me, huh? That quiet little bodyguard you used to roll around with turned out to be a billionaire. The Salerno heir. And guess what—he picked me.”

Another pause, purposeful.

“Oh, and by the way—you’re invited to the wedding.” Her tone turned sultry. “But not as a guest… as the loser.”

The line went dead.

I dropped the phone onto the couch and just sat there. Smiling. Because neither of them had the faintest clue about the storm already building for them.

I didn’t hesitate.

I dialed my father directly from the villa landline. His assistant answered in that perfectly polished voice until I cut her short with, “Put him on. Now.”

There was a beat of silence. Then his voice, careful, wary.

“Raven. Are you—safe?”

“No,” I said, my tone calm, clipped. “But I’m on my way.”

He exhaled slowly. Didn’t ask. He knew better.

“I’ve decided something.”

“What sort of decision?”

“Caius Martino.”

I let the name hang heavy in the air, sharp as a guillotine dropping.

“I’ll marry him. Today.”

I heard him suck in a breath, followed by the creak of leather as he shot to his feet.

“You… Raven, you’re serious?”

“I’m already in the dress.”

Silence stretched, stunned and trembling. Then came the eruption—genuine, greedy joy. He barked at someone nearby.

“London. Book her the earliest jet. Martino will be ecstatic. I’ll be right behind. Double her security—”

I ended the call before he could finish his sentence.

His delight curdled in my stomach, but I would still board that plane. I would go to London. I’d play the dutiful heiress, the loyal daughter, the woman clinging to power for survival. And in exchange, I’d secure the shield I needed—the war chest to fuel the inferno I planned to unleash.

But not yet.

Not before I made one final stop.

I went to her grave. The only place left where my lungs could fill without burning.

The cemetery was hushed. Cold. The air carried a silence that treated the dead with more respect than it ever gave the living.

I knelt, my coat sweeping over damp stone, fingers trembling as they brushed across her engraved name.

“Mother,” I whispered, voice breaking softer than it had in days, “forgive me.”

I pressed my forehead to the tombstone, closing my eyes. The ache in my body dulled in her presence, but the ache in my chest only blazed hotter.

“They think they’ve won. That I’m finished. But you raised me stronger than this, didn’t you?”

A tear escaped before I could stop it. I wiped it fast, refusing to let even her see me collapse.

“I won’t cry for him again. Not for her. Not for anyone. I’ll marry Martino. I’ll cloak myself in their power like steel. And then…” I rose, wind tugging my hair into my face like a ghost’s hand. “I’ll set fire to everything they love.”

---

I arrived at the private terminal dressed like vengeance incarnate.

Black silk draped my frame, clinging to every dangerous line, slit high enough to start wars. Oversized sunglasses masked my eyes, the kind women wear either to hide heartbreak or to plan annihilation. For me, both applied. My lips were lacquered in blood-red—a promise and a weapon.

I didn’t flinch as I strode across the tarmac. The jet shimmered in silver, sleek and waiting. Ground staff scattered to the sides like I was parting seas in stilettos. Let them gawk.

I boarded like I was entering a throne room, not a cabin. Each step was deliberate, my heels clicking a steady rhythm of ruin. I didn’t smile. Queens don’t smile when they’re marching into war—they only adjust their crowns.

Once seated, I pressed the call button. A flight attendant in razor-sharp uniform appeared instantly.

“Stock the jet,” I ordered coolly. “Champagne, couture, Cartier. I want to land like temptation itself.”

She blinked once, nodded, and vanished. Wise girl.

I pulled out my phone, opened my private social feed, and snapped a single photo—legs crossed, thigh revealed, champagne glass balanced with casual perfection. My shades hid my eyes. I looked untouchable. Deadly. Desirable.

The caption read:

Mid-flight, mid-chaos. Hours away from marrying my fiancé. #thrilled

I pressed post, smirk curving my painted lips.

Goodbye, Leander.