The sky turned a bruised, sickly gray. The rain had finally stopped, but the morning air was thick and biting.

Dorothea's lips were a pale, dead blue. Her entire body was locked in a rigid tremor. She couldn't feel her feet anymore.

The heavy gears of the iron gate groaned. The metal doors slowly swung inward.

Dorothea's heart gave a weak, painful thump. She tried to step forward, but her legs wouldn't bend. She stumbled, nearly falling face-first into the gravel.

It wasn't Alfredo walking down the driveway.

It was Mr. Beach.

"Uncle Beach," Dorothea rasped. Her voice was completely gone, reduced to a dry scrape. She looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes. He was Emery's father. He knew her. He would help her.

Mr. Beach stopped three feet away. His posture was rigidly straight, his hands clamped together. The look in his eyes made Dorothea's stomach drop. It was a chilling, bottomless grief that had frozen into something harder than hatred.

He unzipped a clear, waterproof evidence bag he was holding. He pulled out a familiar silver smartphone. Emery's phone.

He stepped closer, shoving the bright screen directly into Dorothea's face.

"Read it," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth, like stones grinding together.

Dorothea forced her blurry eyes to focus. It was a text message from Emery to her.

Dottie, I'm at The Velvet Room. You need to get here. I'm a little scared.

Dorothea nodded frantically. "I know! But I told her I couldn't go! I had a family dinner!"

Mr. Beach let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. He swiped his thumb up on the screen.

Dorothea's reply was there: Sorry Em, stuck at this family thing.

But right beneath it, timestamped ten minutes later, was another message sent from Dorothea's phone.

Fine. Since you're being such a baby, I'll come keep you company. Wait for me there.

All the blood drained from Dorothea's head. The world tilted sideways.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head so hard her neck cracked. "No, I never sent that! Someone took my phone! Or it's fake!"

"Still lying," Mr. Beach spat, his voice vibrating with a father's raw agony. "She waited for you in that hellhole because you told her to. She waited until those animals found her."

"It wasn't me!" Dorothea cried, trying to reach for the phone.

Her arms were too heavy. She couldn't lift them.

Mr. Beach snatched the phone back, stepping away from her as if she carried a disease.

"Mr. Hendrix will not see you," he said, his voice turning to ice. "He told me to give you a message. Get out of New York. Never show your face to him again."

The words hit her like a physical blow to the chest. The entire night of torture-the freezing rain, the humiliation-it was all for nothing. It was just a joke to him.

"Please," she gasped, her vision going dark at the edges.

"The biggest regret of my life," Mr. Beach said, staring down at her, "is watching my daughter befriend a poisonous snake like you."

That was the final strike.

Dorothea's legs gave out completely. She collapsed onto the wet, sharp gravel, her knees slamming into the ground.

Mr. Beach turned his back on her. He walked up the driveway, and the heavy iron gates slammed shut behind him with a deafening clang.

Dorothea knelt in the dirt. The morning sun finally broke through the clouds, hitting her back, but she couldn't feel the heat. Her brain was a flatline of panic. The evidence was there. It was fake, but it was there.

She didn't know how long she stayed on her knees.

The crunch of tires on gravel snapped her back to reality. A sleek black sedan pulled to a stop inches from her legs.

The rear doors of the sedan swung open. Two men in identical black suits stepped out. Their faces were blank, carved from stone.

Before Dorothea could process what was happening, they grabbed her by the upper arms and hauled her off the ground.

"Who are you?" she croaked, her legs dragging uselessly beneath her. "Let me go!"

"Miss Fowler, you're coming with us," the man on her right said. His grip was like a steel vice, bruising her bicep through the thin silk of her dress.

They shoved her roughly into the backseat and slammed the door.

The car sped away from the Hendrix estate. Dorothea slumped against the leather seat, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She watched the street signs flash by. They were heading toward Manhattan.

When the car finally stopped, she looked out the window and let out a shaky breath. The towering glass facade of the Fowler Group headquarters loomed above them.

Her family. They had sent someone to find her.

The men pulled her out of the car and marched her through the private underground garage, straight into a private elevator.

The doors opened on the executive floor. They dragged her down the quiet, carpeted hallway and pushed her through the heavy oak doors of the secret boardroom.

Her father, Jeff Fowler, sat at the head of the long mahogany table. Her mother, Anissa, and her older brother, Jeremy, stood near the window. Their faces were ashen.

"Mom!" Dorothea sobbed, stumbling forward. She reached out her shaking, mud-caked hands. "Someone set me up! They faked messages on my phone!"

Anissa Fowler looked at her daughter's ruined dress and filthy hands. She took a quick, sharp step backward, avoiding Dorothea's touch entirely. "Look at you," Anissa gasped, her face twisting in disgust. "You're dripping dirty water all over the Persian rug!"

The physical rejection felt like a knife slipping between Dorothea's ribs. She froze, her hands hovering in the empty air.

Jeff Fowler slammed a thick manila folder onto the table. The sound echoed like a gunshot.

"Set up?" Jeff yelled, a vein bulging in his neck. He wasn't angry at the injustice. He was terrified. "Alfredo Hendrix just called me personally!"

Dorothea stopped breathing.

"He gave the Fowler family two choices," Jeff said, his voice cracking with panic. "Choice one: We cut all ties with you. We disown you, and you face his wrath alone."

He swallowed hard, leaning over the table.

"Choice two: Every single asset the Fowler Group has on Wall Street will be shorted into bankruptcy the second the market opens tomorrow."

Dorothea stared at her father. Her brain struggled to process the words.

Jeremy took a step forward. "Dad, Dottie wouldn't do this-"

"Shut up, Jeremy!" Jeff roared, shooting his son a lethal glare.

Anissa pressed a tissue to her eyes, her voice shrill. "What are we supposed to do, Dorothea? The Fowler name is ruined! He will destroy everything our family has built for generations! It's over... it's all over. You brought this monster to our door!"

Dorothea looked at the three of them. The realization crashed over her, heavy and suffocating.

She wasn't rescued. She was delivered here for sentencing. Alfredo didn't even have to touch her. He just squeezed her family's bank accounts, and they were throwing her to the wolves.

The tears stopped falling. A strange, hollow numbness spread through Dorothea's chest. She slowly stood up straight, ignoring the agonizing pain in her legs. She looked at the people who raised her, and a broken, ugly smile twisted her lips.

"So," she whispered, her voice dead. "You picked choice one."

The boardroom was dead silent. No one looked her in the eye.

The heavy oak doors clicked open. Two uniformed NYPD officers walked into the room.

"Dorothea Fowler?" the lead officer asked, holding up a piece of paper. "I have a warrant for your arrest in connection to a homicide. Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

Her father looked away. Her mother covered her face.

Dorothea slowly turned around. The cold, heavy steel of the handcuffs snapped shut around her wrists.

The smell hit her first. It was a suffocating mixture of industrial bleach, stale sweat, and human despair.

Dorothea was shoved through the heavy metal doors of the Rikers Island intake center. The noise was deafening-women screaming, guards barking orders, metal gates slamming shut.

"Strip," a female guard ordered, pointing to a cold tile floor in a small, windowless room.

Dorothea's fingers shook as she peeled off the ruined Dior dress. She stood naked, shivering violently under the harsh fluorescent lights, while the guard conducted a humiliating, invasive search.

They took everything. They even pulled the cheap, silver ring off her finger-a birthday gift from her mother when she was sixteen.

They tossed her a scratchy, bright orange jumpsuit. It smelled like chemicals and old body odor.

"Move, 926," the guard barked, pushing her shoulder.

Her name was gone. She was just a number now.

She was marched down a long, concrete corridor and shoved into a crowded holding cell. The heavy iron bars slammed shut behind her, the lock engaging with a loud, final clack.

Ten pairs of eyes snapped toward her. The cell went dead silent. They looked at her the way starving dogs look at a fresh piece of meat.

Dorothea kept her head down, walking toward an empty patch of concrete in the corner.

A foot shot out. Dorothea tripped, slamming hard onto the floor. Her knees scraped against the rough concrete, tearing the skin. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, refusing to make a sound.

Heavy boots stepped into her line of sight.

Dorothea looked up. A massive woman with a thick neck and arms covered in faded prison tattoos stood over her. Rhonda Koslowski. She ran this block.

Rhonda slowly crouched down. She jammed the toe of her boot under Dorothea's chin, forcing her head up.

"Fresh meat," Rhonda sneered, her breath smelling like rotting teeth. "Heard you used to be a little rich bitch on the outside."

Dorothea stared at the wall, keeping her mouth shut. Any word would be used against her.

Rhonda's eyes narrowed. "You deaf? Or do you think we're too dirty to talk to?"

Rhonda flicked her fingers.

Two women instantly grabbed Dorothea by the hair and the back of her jumpsuit. They dragged her across the floor, her boots kicking uselessly, straight toward the open, stainless-steel toilet in the back of the cell.

Panic exploded in Dorothea's chest. She thrashed wildly, but they were too strong.

A hand grabbed the back of her neck and slammed her face down into the bowl.

Freezing, filthy water rushed up her nose and into her mouth. She gagged, her lungs screaming for air. She kicked her legs, her hands clawing desperately at the concrete floor, tearing her fingernails.

Just as her vision started to go black, they yanked her up by the hair.

Dorothea collapsed onto the wet floor, coughing violently, vomiting up the foul water. Her chest heaved, her whole body trembling in shock.

Rhonda squatted down next to her. She reached out and patted Dorothea's wet, tangled hair. Her voice dropped to a sickeningly sweet whisper.

"Don't take it personal, princess," Rhonda murmured right into her ear. "Someone paid a lot of money to make sure you get special treatment in here."

Dorothea's body went completely rigid.

"He said," Rhonda continued, her voice dripping with malice, "to make sure every single day is pure hell. By the way... his name is Hendrix."

Alfredo.

The name was a serrated knife twisting directly into her heart.

He didn't just want her locked away. He wanted her tortured. He had used his endless wealth to reach inside the prison walls and turn this place into his own private slaughterhouse.

The last tiny, microscopic shred of hope Dorothea had left for humanity-for him-evaporated.

She stopped coughing. She stopped shaking. She lay on the wet concrete, staring blankly at the rusted pipes under the sink. Something inside her chest physically snapped. The Dorothea Fowler who loved Alfredo Hendrix was dead.