Isabelle POV

His fingers tightened around my arms, digging into the fresh bruises from the IV lines. Kade's face was inches from mine, a mask of beautiful, terrifying fury.

"You think this is a game?" he snarled, his voice vibrating through my chest. "You killed a Cameron heir."

"I tried to tell you," I gasped, the pain from the surgery—performed without a single drop of anesthesia—throbbing in my womb like a second heartbeat. "I called you. Two hours ago. I texted you."

Kade released one of my arms only to rip his phone from his pocket. He tapped the screen violently and shoved it in my face.

"Show me," he commanded.

I blinked, trying to focus through the gray haze clouding my vision. The call log was open.

Today.

10:00 AM – Elder Cameron

09:15 AM – Carla Shaw

08:30 AM – Matteo

Nothing. My name wasn't there. The text thread was empty.

"You deleted it," I whispered, looking up at him. "Or she did."

I shifted my gaze to Carla. She stood just behind him, her expression a perfect portrait of concern, but her eyes—cold, blue chips of ice—glinted with triumph.

"You're lying," Kade said. The verdict was final. In the Mafia, a liar was worse than a thief; a liar was a liability.

"I have my phone," I stammered, reaching for the pocket of my thin hospital gown, desperate to prove I wasn't the monster he painted me to be. "Let me show you—"

"Kade, please," Carla interrupted, her voice soft and trembling. She placed a manicured hand on his bicep. "Don't do this here. She's... she's clearly not herself. The grief makes people say crazy things."

Her touch seemed to burn him, but not in the way it burned me. He didn't pull away. He leaned into it.

"She isn't grieving, Carla," Kade spat, his eyes never leaving mine. "She's gloating."

Suddenly, Carla let out a sharp gasp and doubled over, clutching her stomach. "Oh god. Kade... it hurts."

The transformation in my husband was instantaneous. The demon who wanted to strangle me vanished, replaced by a protector. He turned to her, his hands—the hands that had just bruised me—gentle as they supported her waist.

"Carla? What is it?"

"The stress," she whimpered, leaning her full weight against him. "My stomach... I think I need a doctor."

Kade didn't hesitate. He didn't look back at me. He didn't ask if I, the woman bleeding into a hospital pad, needed help. He scooped Carla up into his arms, holding her against his chest like she was the most precious thing in the world.

"I've got you," he murmured to her.

I watched, frozen, as he carried the daughter of our enemy down the hall. He walked straight toward the double doors at the end of the corridor—the entrance to the OB/GYN wing. The same wing where I had just left my dead child.

He was taking his mistress to the place where I had lost everything.

The elevator dinged behind me, but I couldn't move. I stood alone in the freezing corridor, the silence ringing in my ears louder than any scream.

I don't remember the drive back to the estate. I only remember the cold.

The Cameron mansion was silent, a mausoleum of marble and gold. I barely made it up the grand staircase, my legs trembling with every step. By the time I reached the master suite, my stomach lurched violently.

I stumbled into the bathroom, falling to my knees before the toilet just as the retching started.

It wasn't bile. It was blood. Bright, red, arterial blood.

It splashed against the pristine white porcelain, a gruesome contrast to the luxury surrounding me. The cancer was eating me alive, gnawing through my stomach lining, punishing me for surviving the surgery.

I dry-heaved until there was nothing left, then collapsed onto the Persian rug. The room spun. Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision.

I must have passed out.

I woke to the rough sensation of a tongue on my cheek. Fluffy, my white ragdoll cat, was purring anxiously against my neck. I groaned, trying to push myself up, but my arms felt like water.

"Pathetic."

The voice came from the doorway.

I froze. Slowly, I lifted my head. Kade was standing there, still in his suit, though his tie was now undone. He loomed over me, staring at the blood on my lips and the splatter in the toilet bowl with detached disgust.

He didn't rush to help me. He didn't call for a medic. He just watched, as if I were a bug squashed on his expensive floor.

"Kade..." I rasped, the metallic taste of blood coating my tongue. "Help me."

He crouched down, but he didn't reach out. His steel-gray eyes scanned my face, searching for the lie he was convinced was there.

"Save the performance, Isabelle," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "Carla told me everything. How you threatened her. How you planned this."

"I'm dying," I whispered, the truth slipping out in a desperate plea.

Kade stood up, towering over me once more. He adjusted his cuffs, his face hardening into stone.

"A traitor's tears are just as cheap as her blood," he said coldly. "Clean yourself up. You look disgusting."

He turned and walked into the bedroom, leaving me lying in the wreckage of my own body.

Isabelle POV

I didn't know how I managed to stand. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was the sheer, unadulterated hatred burning through the fog of my pain. I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand, leaving a crimson smear across my pale skin, and dragged myself into the bedroom.

Kade was pacing by the window, his silhouette framed against the sprawling Cameron estate grounds. He turned as I entered, his eyes narrowing not with concern, but with calculation.

"Why did you come back?" I asked, my voice a broken rasp. I leaned against the doorframe, my legs trembling under the weight of my own body. "If I'm such a liar, such a burden... why are you here?"

"Because I know how your mind works, Isabelle," he said, his tone clipped and professional, as if he were addressing a subordinate rather than his wife. "You saw Carla at the clinic. You saw me help her."

"I saw you choose her," I corrected him. "Over your dead child."

He crossed the room in two long strides, stopping just inches from me. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and cold steel—filled my lungs, making me nauseous.

"Don't twist this," he warned, his voice dropping to a dangerous octave. "Carla is a Shaw. If word gets out that the Underboss of the Cameron family was seen intimately assisting a woman from a rival clan, it compromises everything. My position. My authority."

He reached out, gripping my chin and forcing me to look up at him. His fingers were warm, a cruel contrast to the ice in his gray eyes.

"You are not going to run to my grandfather," he commanded. "You will not go to Elder Cameron and spin some sob story to undermine me. Do you understand?"

A dry, humorless laugh bubbled up in my throat, tasting of iron. "You think I care about your politics? You think I care about the Shaw family's honor?"

"You should," he sneered, releasing me with a shove that sent me stumbling back against the dresser. "Because that's the only reason you're in this room. You seem to forget, Isabelle. You weren't a bride chosen for love. You were collateral. A debt payment from your father to mine three years ago. You have no rights here. And you certainly have no right to judge Carla."

Collateral.

The word hung in the air, stripping away the last shred of dignity I had clung to. For three years, I had tried to be a good wife. I had tried to turn this prison into a home. But to him, I was just a receipt for a paid bill.

Something inside me snapped. It wasn't a loud break, but a quiet, final severance.

"You're right," I whispered. The pain in my womb seemed to dull, replaced by a strange, hollow calm. "I have no rights. So let's end this."

Kade scoffed, turning away to adjust his cufflinks in the mirror. "Stop the dramatics. I'm not in the mood for your games."

"It's not a game, Kade."

I opened the top drawer of the nightstand. My hands shook, not from fear, but from weakness, as I pulled out the manila envelope I had hidden there months ago, back when the cancer diagnosis first came in. Back when I thought I might have a choice.

I tossed the document onto the polished mahogany surface. It landed with a soft thud.

"Divorce papers," I said. "I had them drawn up a while ago. I never had the courage to give them to you. Until now."

Kade stared at the papers, then looked at me, a flicker of genuine surprise cracking his mask. Then, his expression hardened into something ugly.

"Is this your play?" he asked, his voice dripping with disdain. "You threaten to leave, hoping I'll beg? Hoping I'll chase after you?" He laughed, a cold, sharp sound. "You're delusional. If you think this will make me forget your betrayal, you're wrong."

"Just sign it," I said, pushing a Montblanc pen toward him. "Sign it, and I disappear. No Elder Cameron. No scandal. Just... gone."

He looked at the pen, then at me. For a second, I thought he might actually do it. I thought he might set me free.

Then, his phone rang.

The shrill ringtone cut through the tension like a knife. Kade pulled it from his pocket, and the moment he saw the screen, the cruelty vanished from his face, replaced by urgent concern.

"Carla?" he answered, turning his back to me.

I couldn't hear her words, but I heard the fear in her voice through the receiver.

"Slow down," Kade said, his voice gentle—the voice he used to use with me. "Where are you? ... Okay. Stay there. Don't move. I'm coming."

He hung up and grabbed his suit jacket from the bed. He didn't even look at the divorce papers. He didn't look at me. He was already halfway to the door.

"Kade," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "The papers. It will take one second."

He paused in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder. His eyes were impatient, his mind already miles away with another woman.

"I don't have time for your tantrums, Isabelle," he snapped. "We'll deal with your little rebellion when I get back. Stay here."

And then he was gone.

The silence that followed was deafening. I stood there, staring at the empty doorway, realizing that I didn't even rank high enough to be divorced. I wasn't a wife to him. I was furniture. I was a possession he expected to find exactly where he left it.

"No," I said to the empty room.

I picked up the pen. My hand trembled as I uncapped it. I didn't need his permission to die. And I certainly didn't need his permission to leave.

I signed my name on the line. Isabelle Dawson. Not Cameron. Never again Cameron.

I left the papers on the nightstand, right next to his wedding ring, which I pulled off my finger and dropped with a clatter.

I didn't take much. Just a small duffel bag with a few changes of clothes—the cheap ones I had bought myself, not the designer silk he had draped me in. I walked over to the chaise lounge where Fluffy was sleeping and scooped the white cat into my arms. She meowed softly, nuzzling into my chest.

"We're going, Fluffy," I whispered, burying my face in her fur to hide the first tear that escaped.

With my free hand, I dialed the only number I had left.

"Izzy?" Addisyn's voice was groggy, confused. "It's late. Is everything okay?"

"Addy," I said, staring at the bloodstain on the Persian rug one last time. "Come get me. Please."

Kade POV

Seven days.

One hundred and sixty-eight hours of silence.

I sat behind the massive mahogany desk in my study, a glass of amber whiskey untouched near my hand. The house was quiet—too quiet. Usually, there was the faint sound of Isabelle moving through the halls, the soft click of her heels, or the distant hum of her presence that I had taken for granted. Now, the silence was a physical weight, pressing against my temples.

On the leather sofa across from me, that damn white cat, Fluffy, stared at me with unblinking green eyes. It hadn't moved in hours. It looked at me with the same silent accusation I had seen in Isabelle's eyes before she walked out.

"Stop looking at me," I muttered, running a hand through my hair.

The cat yawned, unimpressed, and curled back into a ball.

Isabelle was playing a game. That was the only logical explanation. She had left the divorce papers—unsigned by me, of course—and the ring on the nightstand like a dramatic teenager. She thought this stunt would force my hand? She thought disappearing to her friend's little apartment would make me chase her?

She was wrong. I was the Underboss of the Cameron family. I didn't chase. I waited. And when she realized how cold the world was without my protection, she would come back.

My phone buzzed on the desk. Mother.

I swiped to answer, putting it on speaker. "What is it?"

"Have you retrieved your wife yet, Kade?" Audie Cameron's voice was sharp, cutting through the stale air of the office. "People are starting to ask questions. It looks... messy."

"She needs time to cool off," I said, leaning back in my chair. "She's at the Greene girl's apartment."

"Yes, I know," my mother sighed, her tone dripping with disdain. "I had one of my men check. She's been locked in there all week, crying her eyes out, apparently sick with grief. Pathetic, really."

I felt a knot of tension loosen in my chest. Crying. Sick. Good. That meant she was suffering. That meant she regretted it.

"Let her cry," I said coldly. "She needs to learn that tantrums have consequences. When she's ready to apologize, she can come home."

"Just make sure she doesn't run to your grandfather," Audie warned. "We don't need the Elder involved in your marital squabbles. Tonight is the St. Regis Charity Gala. You need to be there. Alone. Show them the Cameron family is unbothered."

"I'll be there," I promised.

I hung up, a grim satisfaction settling over me. Isabelle was breaking. It was only a matter of time before she returned to her place.

The St. Regis Grand Ballroom was a cesspool of fake smiles and expensive lies. Crystal chandeliers the size of small cars hung from the ceiling, casting a glittering light over the city's elite—politicians, businessmen, and the monsters like me who pulled their strings.

I stood in the private box on the second floor, gripping the velvet-covered railing. From here, I could see everything, but no one could touch me. The air smelled of champagne and desperation.

"Signor Cameron," Marco said from behind me. He was my most trusted soldier, a man of few words.

"Report," I said, not taking my eyes off the crowd below. I was scanning for threats, for rival families, for anything out of place.

"The perimeter is secure. The Shaws are here, near the bar. And..." Marco hesitated. That was unlike him.

I turned, frowning. "And what?"

Marco cleared his throat, stepping closer to the railing. He pointed a gloved hand toward the center of the room, near the massive marble fountain that served as the focal point of the dance floor.

"A thousand pardons, Boss... but the woman in the red dress, by the fountain... is that not the Signora?"

My blood ran cold.

Isabelle? Here? Impossible. My mother said she was sick. She was supposed to be curled up in a ball, mourning the loss of me.

I followed Marco's finger.

At first, I didn't recognize her. The woman standing by the fountain was wearing a gown of blood-red silk that clung to every curve of her body—curves I thought I knew, but which looked dangerously foreign in that dress. The back was open, exposing a expanse of pale, creamy skin that I had claimed a thousand times.

She wasn't crying. She wasn't sick.

She was laughing.

Her head was thrown back, her neck exposed, as she smiled at a man standing next to her. A man I didn't know.

The glass in my hand shattered.

Whiskey and blood dripped onto the expensive carpet, but I didn't feel the cut. All I could feel was the inferno igniting in my chest. The lie my mother told me dissolved, replaced by a truth that was far more jagged and violent.

She wasn't hiding. She was parading herself.

"Stay here," I growled, my voice sounding like grinding stones.

I didn't wait for Marco's reply. I turned toward the stairs, my vision tunneling. The world narrowed down to that splash of red in a sea of black and white.

She wanted to be seen? Fine.

I would make sure the whole world saw who she belonged to.