Olivia POV

The scent of turpentine usually calmed me, grounding me in the quiet work of creation. Today, however, it smelled like a funeral.

I stood in the center of my studio, surrounded by four years of obsession. Sketches of Marcus’s hands. Oil paintings of his silhouette against the New York skyline. Charcoal drawings of his eyes.

With a trembling breath, I began to stack them.

It was heavy work, moving the canvases. My arms burned, but the pain in my chest was sharper, a physical ache that made it hard to breathe.

I picked up a small, unfinished piece. It was Marcus sitting on the terrace, a rare moment of vulnerability I had captured from memory. He looked tired in the painting. Human.

I ran my thumb over the dried paint of his cheekbone.

"You aren't real," I whispered, my voice cracking. "You're just a ghost I dressed up in a suit."

I tossed it onto the pile.

Under a stack of sketchbooks, I found a photograph. It was old, frayed at the edges. A candid shot from a Fourth of July party years ago. The crowd was pushing, and Marcus had stepped back, his arm acting as a barrier to keep me from being crushed.

He wasn't looking at me in the photo. His focus wasn't on me at all; it was locked on the threat. But his body was shielding mine.

Tears pricked my eyes, hot and sudden. I had clung to that moment for so long. I had named it love. Now, looking at his indifferent profile, it just looked like duty. Like guarding a piece of expensive luggage.

I gathered everything in a laundry basket and carried it down to the main hall's massive fireplace. It was late; the house was silent as a tomb.

I threw the photo in first. Then the sketches.

I struck a match.

The flame caught the edge of the paper. It curled, turning black, then bright orange.

I watched Marcus’s face distort in the heat before vanishing into ash.

Just as the fire roared to life, headlights swept across the front windows, cutting through the gloom.

I froze.

I moved to the window, peering through the heavy velvet drapes.

Marcus’s black SUV was in the driveway. He got out, but he wasn't alone.

Izzy slid out of the passenger seat. She was laughing, her head thrown back in a display of carefree intimacy. She looped her arm through his, leaning her weight against him.

They walked toward the front door like a king and queen returning to their castle.

I felt sick. Physically, violently ill.

I turned back to the fire, throwing the rest of the canvases in with a violence that scared me.

Burn, I thought, the heat scorching my face. Burn it all.

*

Three days later, Izzy found me.

I was in the garden, reading a book I wasn't absorbing, the words blurring together on the page.

"Olivia," she purred. Her voice was like silk wrapped around a razor blade. "I didn't know you were an artist."

I looked up. She was smiling, but her eyes were cold, calculating.

"I dabble," I said, closing my book.

"I saw some... remnants in the fireplace," she said, tilting her head mockingly. "Charcoal. Canvas. And a scrap that looked remarkably like Marcus’s profile."

My blood ran cold.

"You have a talent," she continued, stepping closer until she invaded my personal space. "But obsession can be dangerous in our world, sweetie. It causes... misunderstandings."

She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It felt less like a gesture of affection and more like she was marking her territory.

"We have a family dinner tonight," she said. "I need help with the decorations. Since you have such an *artistic* eye."

She wasn't asking.

That night, the dining room was tense. The alliance negotiations were stalling, the air thick with unspoken threats.

I watched Marcus. He looked off. His movements were slightly delayed, like he was moving underwater. His eyes were glassy.

Someone had slipped him something. A mild sedative? Too much alcohol?

He stumbled slightly as he stood to make a toast.

Instinct overrode my brain. I stood up, reaching out to steady him.

"Marcus," I started.

Izzy was faster. She was there in a second, her hand on his chest, guiding him back down.

"Oh no," she said loudly, her voice dripping with fake concern. "Olivia, please. He's just tired. Don't crowd him."

She looked at the table, at the Don, at my father.

"She's been so... intense lately," Izzy whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Always hovering. It's making him uncomfortable."

My father’s face went red. The Don frowned.

Marcus looked at me. His eyes were hazy, confused. He didn't defend me. He let her speak for him.

"I was just—" I tried to defend myself.

"Enough," my father snapped, his voice cracking like a whip. "Olivia, go to your room."

"But Dad—"

"Now!"

Izzy smirked. It was brief, a flash of teeth, but I saw it.

She had baited me. She knew I would try to help. She turned my concern into harassment.

I was grounded. Confined to my quarters like a child.

"Behavior unbecoming of a Hayes," my father had lectured me later. "Trying to seduce the Underboss at a family dinner? Have you lost your mind?"

"I didn't!" I screamed, but he slammed the door in my face.

I sat on my bed, staring at the New York skyline. The city lights blurred through my tears.

I wasn't a princess. I was a pawn. And now, I was a prisoner.

But as the tears dried, something else took their place. A cold, hard resolve.

Izzy thought she had won. She thought by locking me away, she had neutralized me.

She was wrong.

She had just given me the time I needed.

I pulled out my laptop. I wasn't just an artist. I was David Hayes’s daughter. I knew where the skeletons were buried—and more importantly, I knew where he kept his ledgers.

They think they locked me in, I wrote in my diary, the pen digging deep into the paper. But they just handed me the tools to forge a key.

Days turned into a week. My father visited once, telling me it was for my own good. I smiled a plastic smile and nodded.

Then came the letter.

It was slid under my door. No stamp. No return address.

Inside was a photo.

It was me. Taken from the window of the garden house. I was painting Marcus.

On the back, in jagged letters: Stay away from him, or the next picture will be of your grave.

I dropped the photo. My hands shook.

They were watching me. Inside my own home.

This wasn't just jealousy. This was a hunt.

I looked around my room. It didn't look like a sanctuary anymore. It looked like a cage.

I tore the photo into pieces.

I didn't feel fear anymore. I felt hate.

It was a new sensation, heavy and dark in my stomach.

I walked to the wall safe hidden behind my vanity. I began to spin the dial.

I wasn't going to wait to be killed.

Olivia POV

The summons came at midnight, sharp and unforgiving.

Two guards flanked me, marching me down the corridor toward the Great Hall. The silence of the house was oppressive, pressing against my eardrums like deep water.

Marcus sat in the high-backed leather chair at the head of the mahogany table. He looked less like a fiancé and more like a king passing a death judgment. Izzy was seated next to him, her face buried in a silk handkerchief, her shoulders shaking with theatrical sobs.

The air smelled of stale smoke and expensive scotch. My stomach twisted into a knot.

"Olivia," Marcus said. His voice was a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards.

It wasn't a greeting. It was a sentence.

Izzy looked up. Her eyes were red, but suspiciously dry.

"Liv," she choked out. "Why? Why did you do it? I know you hate me, but... the baby?"

My blood froze in my veins. "Baby? What are you talking about?"

"The dress," she wailed, pointing to a heap of white satin on the table. It was shredded. Destroyed. "And the stress... the doctor said..."

She dissolved into tears again, her voice cracking perfectly on cue.

Marcus stood up. He walked toward me, his shadow stretching long and dark across the floor like a stain.

"That dress was for the wedding," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "But that is material. It can be replaced. My heir cannot."

"I didn't touch her dress," I said, my voice shaking. "I haven't left my room in a week. You have guards!"

"Guards can be bribed," Marcus snapped, cutting me off. "We found the scissors in your room, Olivia. Taped under your mattress."

"That's a lie!" I screamed. "She's lying!"

"Silence!"

The roar echoed off the vaulted ceiling, making the crystal chandelier tremble.

"You have always been obsessed," Marcus said, stepping into my personal space. I could smell the acrid burn of alcohol on his breath. "I tolerated your crush because you were a child. But this? Destroying my lineage because of your jealousy?"

"I didn't know she was pregnant," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "No one knew."

"Exactly," Izzy hissed from the table, venom coating her words. "I wanted to surprise you, Marcus. And she... she ruined it."

I looked at Marcus. I looked for the man who once gave me candy. The man who had shielded me from crowds and nightmares.

I saw only a stranger. A man blinded by rage and a woman's performance.

"You have no right to defend yourself," he said coldly.

"She's just a girl, Marcus," old Capo Rossi muttered from the corner, shifting uncomfortably. "Maybe—"

Marcus shot him a look that silenced the room instantly. "She is a Hayes. She knows the cost of betrayal."

Time seemed to slow down. I looked at the window. Rain was lashing against the glass.

*He used to hold an umbrella over me,* I thought numbly. *Now he is the storm.*

"The wedding is postponed," Marcus announced to the room, his voice devoid of emotion. "Due to the tragic loss of my child."

He looked at me.

"And Olivia will be punished. She has dishonored this family. She has insulted me."

I didn't cry. I felt a strange snap inside my chest. Like a rubber band breaking under too much tension.

The girl who loved Marcus died in that moment. She withered up and blew away like dust in the wind.

"Take her phone," Marcus ordered.

A guard ripped it from my hand.

"Delete her accounts. Cut her off. She doesn't exist to the outside world until she learns her place."

I stood straight, my spine locking into place. My chin lifted.

"You're making a mistake," I said. My voice was steady. It surprised even me.

"The only mistake," Marcus said, leaning down so his face was inches from mine, "was thinking you were innocent."

He straightened and gave the order. "Take her to the Ice Cellar."

A gasp went through the room. The Ice Cellar wasn't just a jail. It was a torture chamber. A damp, freezing underground vault used for traitors who were never meant to see the sun again.

My father wasn't there. He was conveniently away on business. Or maybe he was hiding.

I didn't fight the guards.

As they dragged me away, I locked eyes with Izzy. She lowered the handkerchief. A small, triumphant smile played on her lips.

*I will kill you,* I thought. The thought was calm, rational, absolute.

They marched me through the bowels of the estate. The air grew colder with every step, seeping into my bones.

They shoved me into the dark room. It was stone, cold, and smelled of mold and old blood.

"This is the price of disrespect," Marcus said from the doorway. He didn't deign to step inside.

"Marcus," I said.

He paused.

"I hate you," I said. "More than I ever loved you."

He didn't flinch. He just signaled the guard.

The heavy iron door slammed shut with a finality that shook the ground. The darkness swallowed me whole.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering violently as the cold bit into my skin.

*I have to die,* I told myself in the dark. *The princess has to die so the survivor can be born.*

Olivia POV

The cold in the Ice Cellar wasn't merely a temperature; it was a physical assault.

It sliced through my thin dress, gnawing at my bones with invisible teeth.

I sat in the corner, knees pulled tight to my chest, listening to the maddening *drip, drip, drip* of condensation.

Hours passed. Maybe days. Time had ceased to exist in this darkness.

Suddenly, the door groaned open.

Light flooded in, violent and blinding.

Marcus stood framed in the silhouette. He held a riding crop in his hand, the leather tapped rhythmically against his leg.

"Stand up," he commanded.

My legs were stiff, locking in protest, but I stood. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me crawl.

"You disrespected a made man," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth, any recognition. "You destroyed a life."

"I did nothing," I croaked. My throat was dry as sandpaper.

The leather cracked through the air.

The crop hit my thigh. A sharp, stinging fire that stole my breath.

I gasped, but I bit my lip until the copper taste of blood filled my mouth. I wouldn't scream.

"Admit it," he said.

"No."

He struck again.

This time it was my shoulder.

I stumbled back, hitting the rough stone wall hard enough to bruise bone.

Above us, through a small grate near the ceiling, I heard a low, melodic laugh.

I looked up. Izzy’s face was pressed against the bars, shadowed and cruel. She was holding a phone, the screen glow illuminating a picture. It was her and Marcus, kissing.

"He's mine, little girl," she whispered, her voice dripping like poison. "All mine."

I looked back at Marcus. He was preparing to strike again, blind to everything but his own rage.

I remembered the garden. The sun. Him laughing at something I said.

The memory twisted in my gut like a serrated knife.

"Do it," I spat at him, my voice trembling with defiance. "Beat me. It won't make her lie true."

He struck me again. Harder.

The pain washed over me, hot and white. But with every blow, the love I held for him evaporated. It was being beaten out of me, replaced by a cold, hard hatred.

"From this day on," I gasped, locking eyes with him, "we are nothing. You are nothing to me."

He stopped. His chest heaved. For a second, I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes—a ghost of the man I knew. But it vanished as quickly as it came.

He turned and left, slamming and locking the door.

I slid down the wall, the stone rough against my bruising skin.

Later—an eternity later—the door opened again. But it wasn't Marcus.

It was my father.

David Hayes looked older. Haggard.

He didn't speak. He walked over to me and draped his heavy coat over my shivering shoulders, his touch gentle.

Then he pulled something from his pocket. My sketchbook. The one I hadn't burned. And my diary.

"He doesn't know," David whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I recovered them."

He handed them to me.

Then, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small velvet bag.

"And this."

I opened it. It was the family crest I had carved for Marcus out of wood when I was twelve. I had left it on his desk as a peace offering.

"He... he stepped on it," David said, his voice breaking. "He didn't even look at what it was. He just crushed it under his boot."

He showed me the pieces.

The final illusion shattered.

"He thinks you're a child who needs to be broken," David said, his hands trembling with suppressed rage. "He told me you'll learn your place and go back to being a princess."

I looked at my father, my eyes dry. "I'm not a princess anymore, Dad."

"I know," he said. A single tear leaked from his eye. "And you can't stay here."

"I heard them talking," David continued, his voice low and urgent. "The other Capos. They say Marcus is going too far. But they won't stop him. Izzy has him wrapped around her finger."

He gripped my shoulders, anchoring me.

"My daughter will not die in a cage."

He pulled a small key from his pocket.

"Tonight," he said. "When the guard changes. I've paid off the night watch. Go to the tunnels."

"Dad..."

"Go," he ordered. "I have resources. Offshore accounts he doesn't know about. I'm getting you out."

He left before I could argue.

I was alone again.

I touched the bruises on my arms. They throbbed, a rhythmic reminder of my new reality.

I picked up the charcoal pencil I had hidden in my pocket days ago. It was broken.

I crushed it in my hand, the black dust coating my skin like war paint.

*Marcus is dead,* I chanted in my head. *The family is dead.*

I wasn't waiting for a savior anymore. My father was opening the door, but I had to be the one to walk through it.

I squeezed my fist tight, my nails digging into my palm until I felt the sharp sting of skin breaking.

Pain meant I was alive.

*I will live,* I vowed. *I will live just to spite him.*