The Real Daughter They Wanted Dead

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family.

I thought I was returning to my real home.

Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry.

On my first day back, she set dogs on me.

That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her.

When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar.

Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood—

but she was the daughter they loved.

She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence.

She was wrong.

Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

When I forced my eyes open, all I could see was red.

Blood clung to my lashes and my throat felt packed with broken glass. I tried to speak, but my chest seized before a sound could come out, and a mouthful of dark blood spilled over my lips.

“Yvette!”

My mother’s voice cracked on my name. Veronica DeLuca was not a woman who lost control. But when she dropped to the ground and gathered me into her arms—

“Baby, look at me.” She brushed the blood from my mouth with trembling fingers. “Stay with me. Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

Above us, at the rail of the glass tower, Kane leaned out and looked down like he was already sick of the whole scene.

“Mom, don’t fall for this,” he called. “She jumped on purpose to pin it on Sofia. It’s two stories, for Christ’s sake. Nobody dies from a fall like that.”

Sofia stood half behind him, pale and watery-eyed at exactly the right moment.

“This is all my fault,” she sobbed. “If I hadn’t taken her place, she wouldn’t have gotten so upset. Kane, please stop. I shouldn’t even be here.”

My mother lifted her head. “Shut up.”

My oldest brother, Leon, had just come in from the outer grounds. The moment he saw me, he stopped short.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, frowning. “She walked up there on her own.”

I could feel myself slipping farther away with every second. I had been back at the DeLuca estate less than a day, and I was going to die here.

Pain ripped through me in waves. The family doctor came running with his case, hit his knees beside me, and pressed two fingers to my neck.

His face drained at once.

“Mrs. DeLuca…” he said hoarsely. “Her pulse is gone.”

The courtyard fell still.

My father moved first. Roland DeLuca grabbed the doctor by the lapels and nearly hauled him off the ground.

“What the hell are you talking about? You just stabilized her.”

The doctor swallowed hard. “Miss DeLuca already has severe congenital cardiopulmonary complications and a clotting disorder. She bled earlier today after being startled. Then she was dragged up there into the wind and fell from the tower. A healthy person might not survive that sequence. In her condition…” He couldn’t finish.

My mother bit down so hard on her lip a bead of blood appeared. Then she reached to a guard at her side, drew his gun in one smooth motion, and jammed the barrel against my father’s throat.

“Roland DeLuca,” she said, each word clipped and sharp, “I carried my daughter for ten months. I found her again, and on her first day home, your sons nearly killed her.”

“If Yvette dies tonight, I’ll bury this whole family with her.”

Kane had come down by then, Sofia at his side. The look on his face finally changed.

“Mom, are you out of your mind?” he snapped. “You’re pulling a gun on us over some girl you barely know?”

Sofia dropped to her knees at once.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “If someone has to be blamed, blame me. Don’t hurt Father. Don’t hurt my brothers.”

Something hot and vicious tore through me at the sound of her voice.

My heart, which had been falling into silence, slammed once against my ribs as if rage had dragged it back by force. I sucked in a ragged breath and stared straight at her.

“There,” the doctor shouted. “She’s responding. Get me the shot, now. And oxygen—move!”

My mother let the gun fall to her side and bent over me again, tears slipping down her face unchecked.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “Nobody is touching you again.”

I caught at her sleeve with the last of my strength. My vision had already started to dim.

“Mom,” I whispered. “I’m cold.”

Then I looked past her shoulder, straight at Kane.

“Kane pushed me. The steps were slick. Sofia set it up.”

After that, the dark swallowed me whole.

The last thing I heard was my mother’s voice, stripped down to pure command.

“Take Kane,” she said. “Right now.”