Jenna Jarvis POV

The hospital ceiling was a grid of white tiles, a sterile abacus counting down minutes of a life I felt slipping through my fingers.

I tried to swallow, but my throat seized; it felt as though I had swallowed a handful of razor blades.

I had driven myself to the ER-or rather, I had stumbled into a cab, rasped the address, and collapsed in the backseat before the driver could even ask if I was okay.

I woke up alone.

There were no flowers. No husband pacing the floor. Just the rhythmic, indifferent beep of the cardiac monitor.

I reached for the phone on the bedside table, my movements sluggish. My fingers were bruised from where the IV had been inserted previously.

I dialed Corbett.

It rang four times.

"Hello?"

It wasn't Corbett.

"Ivana," I croaked. My voice was a wreck, a jagged ruin of sound.

"Oh, Jenna," she purred. "Corbett is in the shower. He's so stressed. You really shouldn't have caused such a scene over a cookie. It was very dramatic."

"Put him on," I whispered, gripping the plastic receiver until my knuckles turned white.

"He's busy," she said, dismissively. "We have a meeting with the florist. For the gala. You know how important appearances are."

She hung up.

I stared at the phone, listening to the dial tone hum like a flatline.

Rage is usually described as hot, like fire. But this rage was cold. It was absolute zero, freezing the tears in my ducts before they could fall.

I ripped the IV out of my arm. A sharp sting was followed by a warm trickle as blood dripped onto the pristine white sheets, blooming like a stark red poppy.

I didn't care.

I dressed in my ruined clothes and walked out of the room, using the wall for support.

"Ma'am, you can't leave! You're Against Medical Advice!" a nurse called out from the station, half-rising from her chair.

"I'm saving my own life," I rasped, and kept walking without looking back.

I took a cab back to the penthouse.

When I entered, the air smelled overwhelmingly of lilies-the scent of funerals.

Corbett was in the living room, arranging a massive bouquet of white lilies in a crystal vase. He looked the picture of the grieving husband, minus the grief.

He looked up, startled. "Jenna? The hospital said you left."

"I did."

He rushed over, trying to hug me. I stepped back, putting a clear three feet of distance between us.

"Don't," I said.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking pained, though whether it was guilt or inconvenience, I couldn't tell. "I didn't know it was almond. The box said pistachio. It was a mistake."

"Leaving me on the floor wasn't a mistake, Corbett. It was a choice."

He flinched. "Ivana was hysterical. I thought you had your pen. I knew you could handle it. You're strong, Jenna. She's... she's not."

"I'm strong because I have to be," I said, my voice gaining a steely edge. "Because my husband is weak."

His face hardened. "Watch your mouth."

"I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air, heavy and final.

Corbett laughed. It was a dry, incredulous sound. "You can't divorce me. We are married. You are a Ewing. Nobody leaves."

"Watch me."

"Jenna, stop this," he said, his voice lowering into that reasonable tone he used to manipulate board members. "I'm trying to make it up to you. Look at the flowers. And... I have a solution for the studio issue."

My stomach dropped. "What solution?"

"Ivana needs a space," he said. "For her art therapy. Her therapist suggested it."

"And?"

"And your studio has the best light."

"No," I said, panic fluttering in my chest. "That is my work. My equipment. My father's organ."

"You packed it all up anyway," he said, gesturing to the empty shelves. "I saw the boxes were gone. You don't need the furniture."

"The perfume organ is an antique. It's built into the wall. You can't move it."

"I hired specialists," he said.

A loud thud came from down the hall.

I ran.

I ran past him, down the corridor, to my sanctuary.

Two men in blue jumpsuits were wrestling the massive oak workbench-the organ where my father had taught me how to blend jasmine and cedar-through the doorframe.

Wood splintered.

A deep gouge appeared on the side of the desk, exposing the raw, pale wood beneath the varnish.

"Stop!" I screamed, grabbing the arm of one of the movers. "Put it down!"

"Mrs. Ewing, please," the man said, looking nervous. "Mr. Ewing gave the order."

I turned to Corbett, who had followed me at a leisurely pace.

"Tell them to stop," I begged. My pride was gone. This was my soul they were dragging across the floor. "Corbett, please. It's all I have left of him."

Corbett looked at the desk, then at the empty room that would soon be filled with Ivana's chaotic, amateurish paints.

"It's just furniture, Jenna," he said softly. "Ivana needs this. Let it go."

He signaled the men.

They heaved. The leg of the desk caught on the doorframe and snapped with a sickening crack.

It sounded like a bone breaking.

I didn't scream.

I just stood there, watching my heritage being hauled away to the trash, while my husband supervised the demolition of my heart.

Jenna Jarvis POV

The movers left a trail of sawdust and scratches on the hardwood floor, jagged scars that mirrored the ones inside me.

I stood at the top of the stairs, gripping the banister as I watched the heavy oak desk disappear into the freight elevator.

Ivana stood at the bottom, wearing a smirk that could cut glass.

She caught my eye and winked.

It wasn't about the room. It wasn't about the light.

It was about taking.

She wanted to hollow me out until I was nothing but a shell, a husk, just so she could step inside and wear my life like a coat.

Corbett wouldn't look at me. He turned his back, feigning intense interest in a painting on the wall, his shoulders slumped in that familiar posture of cowardice.

That night, he came into our bed.

He lay on the edge, his back to me. The distance between us was only inches, but it felt like an ocean of ice.

"She's happy now," he whispered into the dark, his voice strained. "This is the last thing, Jenna. I promise. Once she settles in, things will go back to normal."

I didn't answer.

Normal was a myth. Normal was dead.

The next morning, I found them in the dining room.

Ivana was spreading sketches across the table, deliberately covering my breakfast setting.

"I'm thinking of painting the walls black," she said, biting into a piece of toast that had been on my plate. "To reflect my inner turmoil."

She saw me and smiled, though the expression didn't reach her eyes. "Oh, Jenna. Good morning. I have something to tell you."

My blood ran cold. "What?"

"I was moving some of those old boxes you left in the closet," she said breezily. "To make room for my easels."

"I moved all my boxes," I said.

"Not the small one," she said. "The one with the little crystal bottle. It was wrapped in velvet."

My heart stopped.

The 1928 Guerlain Djedi. My father's most prized possession. The last sealed bottle in existence. He had saved it for my wedding day, but I had never opened it because marrying Corbett felt like a funeral.

"Where is it?" I asked, my voice trembling.

"Oops," she said.

I didn't wait.

I sprinted to the guest room-my old studio.

The smell hit me before I even crossed the threshold.

Dry, animalic, somber. The scent of ancient grief.

The bottle lay shattered on the floor near the window. The dark amber liquid was soaking into the pristine white carpet, a stain that looked like dried blood.

"No," I whimpered.

I fell to my knees.

I reached for the shards, desperate to scoop up the liquid, to save even a drop of my father's memory.

The glass sliced into my palms.

I didn't feel the pain. I only felt the loss.

"It slipped," Ivana said from the doorway. Her voice was flat, bored.

I turned on her, my hands dripping with blood and perfume.

"You threw it!" I screamed. "You did this on purpose! You monster!"

Corbett stepped in front of her, shielding her from me.

"Jenna! Look at yourself!" he shouted. "You're bleeding all over the carpet!"

"She broke it!" I sobbed, holding up my lacerated hands. "It was my father's! She knew!"

"It was an accident!" Corbett yelled back. "Why do you always have to villainize her? She was trying to clean up!"

He looked at my bleeding hands with disgust, not concern.

"You're hysterical," he said. "Go clean yourself up. You're scaring her."

I looked at him.

He was standing over the wreckage of my father's legacy, protecting the woman who destroyed it.

He wasn't just weak. He was complicit.

I stood up.

I wiped my bloody hands on my jeans, leaving dark, crimson streaks against the denim.

The scent of Djedi was overwhelming, a funeral shroud wrapping around us.

"You're right," I said, my voice suddenly calm, terrifyingly steady. "I am scaring her. But not nearly enough."

Jenna Jarvis POV

Corbett tried to buy my forgiveness with a diamond bracelet.

He left it on my pillow the next day. It was a thick, heavy slab of platinum and ice, utterly tasteless.

I left it there.

He tried to buy me a new perfume next. Chanel No. 5.

"It's a classic," he said, smiling anxiously, his eyes darting over my face for a reaction. "Better than that old stuff that smelled like dirt."

I didn't tell him that Djedi was a masterpiece of dry woods and leather, and that Chanel on me smelled like battery acid.

I just nodded. The silent wife. The obedient doll.

Inside, I was screaming.

But I had a secret. I had accepted Kain Solomon's offer. The extraction team was in place.

I just needed one window of opportunity.

That window opened at the St. Jude's Charity Gala.

It was the biggest event of the season. The Commission would be there. The heads of the Five Families.

And Ivana was the guest of honor.

Corbett insisted I wear a red dress. "To show we are a united front," he said.

I felt less like a wife and more like a sacrificial lamb, draped in crimson for the slaughter.

The ballroom was suffocating. It was a cage of crystal chandeliers, predatory smiles, and the cloying scent of expensive desperation.

We sat at the head table. Ivana sat on Corbett's right. I sat on his left.

The hierarchy was clear.

After dinner, the lights dimmed.

"And now," the announcer boomed, "a special unveiling by our patron, Ms. Ivana Manning."

Ivana walked onto the stage. She looked radiant in a silver gown that shimmered like cold fish scales.

"This piece," she said into the microphone, her voice trembling with practiced emotion, "is inspired by the complex emotional landscape of my family. Specifically, the raw, unfiltered grief of my sister-in-law."

Corbett squeezed my hand under the table. "She's honoring you," he whispered.

I felt sick.

The curtain dropped.

The painting was massive.

It was a grotesque, distorted image of a woman on her knees, clawing at a broken bottle, her hands bloody, her face twisted into a mask of ugly, animalistic sobbing.

The title was painted in bold red letters at the bottom: SHATTERED MEMORIES.

It wasn't art. It was a violation.

She had taken my most vulnerable moment, the moment my heart broke for my father, and turned it into a spectacle for the elite to gawk at.

A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd. Some looked shocked. Others looked amused.

I froze.

I waited for Corbett to stand up. To shout. To demand they take it down. To defend his wife's dignity.

Corbett stood up.

And he began to clap.

He clapped loudly, nodding at Ivana, a proud smile on his face.

"Bravo!" he called out. "Bravo!"

The room followed his lead. The applause grew, a thunderous wave of approval for my humiliation.

I looked at Corbett's profile.

He was clapping for my pain.

He was celebrating the monetization of my trauma.

The tether finally snapped.

Not with a bang, but with a whisper.

I stood up.

Corbett grabbed my wrist. "Sit down," he hissed through his teeth, his grip bruising. "Don't make a scene."

I looked down at his hand. The wedding ring on his finger caught the light.

"Let go," I said.

"Jenna, everyone is watching."

"Let them watch," I said.

I ripped my hand from his grip.

I didn't run. I didn't cry.

I turned and walked through the center of the ballroom.

The applause faltered as people watched me leave.

I walked past the tables of Dons and Capos. I walked past the security guards.

I walked out the double doors and into the cool New York night.

I stripped the diamond bracelet from my wrist and dropped it into a silver champagne bucket with a hollow clink on my way out.

My phone buzzed in my clutch.

Extraction team at the north exit. You have 3 minutes.

I didn't look back at the hotel.

I looked at the black SUV idling at the curb.

The window rolled down.

Kain Solomon was sitting in the back seat.

He was darkness personified. Sharp angles, cold eyes, and a power that made the air around him vibrate.

He didn't smile. He just opened the door.

"Get in, Jenna," he said, his voice a low rumble. "It's time to breathe."

I stepped into the car.

The door slammed shut, sealing out the noise, the applause, and the man who had been my husband.

I wasn't Mrs. Ewing anymore.

I was free.