Alina Phillips POV

The private suite reeked of antiseptic and old money.

It was a facility owned by the Family, designed to stitch up bullet holes and keep secrets buried.

My leg was encased in a cast.

My hip was mottled with deep purple bruises.

But the real damage was invisible.

A nurse bustled in, clutching a tablet like a shield.

"Mr. Francis sent clothes," she said, resolutely avoiding my eyes. "He expects you to be ready in an hour."

"Ready for what?" I asked, my voice rasping.

"The Anniversary Gala," she said.

I laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound.

He ran me over, and now he wanted me to attend his party.

It was a power move.

He wanted to show the world that his little ward was back and everything was fine.

He intended to parade his broken toy.

I put on the dress.

It was black.

Fitting.

Jaxon and Krystal picked me up in a limousine that stretched longer than a hearse.

Krystal wore red.

Not just red-a violent, arterial shade. She looked like she had just bathed in blood and reveled in the warmth.

"I'm so glad you could make it, sweetie," she said, patting my hand. Her nails were sharp enough to draw blood.

"Jaxon told me everything about your... condition. We're going to take such good care of you."

I pulled my hand away.

"I'm sure you will," I said.

Jaxon kept his gaze fixed on the passing city. He wouldn't look at me.

The Gala was held in the sprawling gardens of the Estate.

The same gardens where my father used to teach me how to identify birds.

Now it was infested with politicians, judges, and mobsters.

They sipped champagne and toasted to the happy couple.

A giant screen was set up near the fountain.

It started playing a montage.

Jaxon and Krystal in Paris.

Jaxon and Krystal in Milan.

Jaxon and Krystal on their wedding day, three years ago.

While I was locked in a white room in Switzerland, thinking he was working to keep me safe, he was cutting cake with her.

I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I grabbed a glass of water and retreated toward the edge of the garden, near the kennels.

I needed silence.

I needed to not see his smile on that screen.

I heard a low, guttural growl.

I turned.

A Doberman stood there.

It wasn't one of the old guard dogs. I knew those dogs. I raised them.

This one was new.

It wore a diamond-studded collar.

Krystal's dog.

The gate to the kennel was unlatched.

"Easy," I whispered, holding out a trembling hand.

The dog's ears flattened.

It lunged.

I screamed and threw my arm up instinctively.

Teeth sank into my forearm.

\ The pain was sharp and immediate, tearing through muscle and sinew.

I fell back, the dog's weight crushing me into the earth.

"Jaxon!" I screamed.

He was there in seconds.

He ran from the crowd, Krystal right behind him.

He saw the dog on top of me.

He saw the blood.

He pulled his gun.

"No!" Krystal shrieked. "Don't hurt him! He's protecting me!"

Jaxon hesitated.

He had a clear shot at the dog.

But Krystal grabbed his arm.

"He smells her fear," she cried. "She provoked him!"

Jaxon lowered the gun.

He didn't shoot the dog.

He grabbed Krystal and pulled her behind him, shielding her body with his.

He shielded her from the dog that was currently mauling me.

"Get the handler!" Jaxon roared at a guard.

He waited for the handler.

He let the dog chew on my arm for ten more agonizing seconds because he wouldn't risk a ricochet hitting his wife.

The handler finally dragged the beast off me.

My arm was a ruin.

Blood soaked the black dress.

I looked up at Jaxon from the grass.

He was checking Krystal for scratches.

She hadn't even been touched.

He looked at me, his eyes full of panic, but his hands were still gripping her waist.

That was the moment the last piece of my heart shattered.

He didn't just choose her.

He chose her safety over my life.

Alina Phillips POV

The emergency room doctor pulled the suture thread through my skin in grim silence.

Jaxon stood in the far corner of the room, as far away from the blood as he could get.

He was hunched over, thumbs flying across his phone screen.

Every few seconds, a ping would sound. Sharp. Insistent.

Krystal.

"Is the tendon severed?" Jaxon asked, his eyes never leaving the glow of the device.

"No," the doctor said, snapping the thread. "But the scarring will be permanent."

"Fix it," Jaxon ordered, his tone clipping the air. "Call the plastic surgeon."

"It's fine," I said. My voice was dead, hollowed out by the last hour. "Leave the scars."

Jaxon finally looked at me.

"Don't be difficult, Alina. I want you perfect."

"Perfect for what?" I asked. "To be stored away again?"

He sighed, the sound heavy with impatience, and walked over to the bed.

He reached for my hand-the one that wasn't wrapped in gauze.

"I know this looks bad," he said. "But the marriage... it's just business. You know how the life is. I had to secure the southern borders."

"You have an heir," I said.

It wasn't a question.

I had heard the whispers at the party. The way the elites looked at her midsection.

Jaxon stiffened.

"We are trying," he said. "It's expected."

"So you sleep with her," I said.

"It's duty," he said.

"Do you kiss her for duty?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my resolve. "Do you hold her hand for duty?"

He didn't answer.

His phone pinged again.

He checked it immediately, and the hard lines of his face instantly softened.

"I have to go," he said. "Krystal is in distress. The incident with the dog upset her."

"She wasn't bit," I said. "I was."

"She's... delicate," he murmured.

He turned and walked out.

He left me alone in a room full of bloodied gauze to go comfort the woman who had ordered her beast to tear me apart.

Two days later was my birthday.

I didn't expect him to remember.

But a car was sent to pick me up.

It took me to Le Bernardin. The air inside smelled of expensive wine and the ocean.

Jaxon had rented out the private terrace.

He was sitting at a table with a velvet box.

"Happy birthday, little bird," he said.

Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He looked tired. Good.

I sat down.

"I don't want dinner," I said.

"Open it," he said, sliding the box across the table.

I opened it.

Inside was a jade bracelet.

It was intricate, expensive, and old.

It also had a distinct scratch on the inner rim.

I recognized it instantly.

I had seen it in a magazine three months ago.

On Krystal's wrist.

She had worn it to a charity gala.

He was giving me her cast-offs.

"It's beautiful," I said, closing the box with a snap. "Did she get bored of it?"

Jaxon frowned. "I bought it from a dealer in Hong Kong. It's unique."

"She wore it in Vogue," I said.

Jaxon's jaw tightened. "You're mistaken."

Suddenly, the sky lit up.

Streaks of light tore through the darkness above the city skyline.

A meteor shower.

I remembered sitting on the roof with Jaxon when I was eighteen.

I told him I wanted to see a meteor shower for my twenty-first birthday.

He remembered.

For a second, a tiny, stupid spark of hope flared in my chest.

Then the elevator doors slid open with a chime that sounded like a warning.

Krystal stormed onto the terrace.

She was dragging a black trash bag behind her.

She was screaming.

"You murderer!" she shrieked.

She lunged for the table and upended the sack onto the pristine white tablecloth.

The dead body of the Doberman slid out with a wet thud.

It was stiff. White foam crusted around its mouth.

"You poisoned him!" Krystal screamed, pointing a manicured finger at me. "Because he bit you! You vindictive little bitch!"

She slammed a bottle of pills onto the table.

My vitamins.

The sugar pills.

"I found these in the dog's bowl!" she yelled.

Jaxon stood up. "Krystal, calm down."

"She killed our guardian!" Krystal sobbed, collapsing into Jaxon's arms like a marionette with cut strings. "She's trying to hurt us, Jaxon. She's unstable. The clinic didn't work!"

I looked at the dead dog.

I looked at the pill bottle.

And then I saw the collar.

Tangled amongst the diamonds of the dog's collar was a piece of silver metal on a ribbon.

My breath stopped.

It was a Silver Star.

My father's medal.

The one Jaxon had kept in his safe.

The one he promised to give me when I turned twenty-one.

He hadn't just forgotten me. He had deemed her dog more worthy of my legacy.

Alina Phillips POV

The dead dog lay between us like a sacrifice.

But I didn't give a damn about the dog.

My eyes were locked on the medal.

My father had earned that Silver Star bleeding out in a gutter to save Jaxon's own father.

It was the only thing I had left of him.

"That's mine," I said. My voice was quiet, trembling with a rage I hadn't known I possessed.

Krystal glanced down at the collar.

"What?" she sniffed, feigning ignorance.

"The medal," I demanded. "Give it to me."

Krystal laughed. It was a wet, cruel sound.

"This old thing?" she said, fingering the collar. "It was just a trinket Jaxon gave me for the dog. He said it was lying around in the safe."

Lying around.

To him, my father's legacy was clutter.

"Jaxon," I said, turning my gaze to him. "Tell her."

Jaxon looked at the medal.

He looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight.

"Alina, not now," he sighed. "Can't you see Krystal is upset?"

"She put my father's medal on a dog," I said, my voice rising. "A dog she trained to attack me."

"It's a piece of tin!" Krystal snapped. "My dog is dead because of you!"

"I didn't kill your dog," I replied coldly. "But I wish I had."

Krystal gasped.

With a shriek of fury, she ripped the collar off the dead animal.

She strode to the edge of the terrace.

Below us, the Hudson River churned-black, freezing, and unforgiving.

"You want it?" she taunted, dangling the collar over the railing. "Go get it."

"Krystal, don't," Jaxon warned, but he didn't move. He didn't take a single step forward.

She let go.

The silver flashed in the light of the meteors overhead before disappearing into the abyss.

I didn't think.

I didn't spare Jaxon a glance.

I scrambled over the railing.

"Alina!" Jaxon shouted, his voice distant.

I jumped.

The fall was short, but the water hit me like concrete.

The cold was instantaneous. It paralyzed my lungs like a thousand needles.

I struggled downward, dragging the dead weight of my broken leg and ignoring the screaming pain.

I groped blindly in the silt and mud.

My fingers brushed against something cold and hard.

I snatched it up.

I kicked for the surface, my lungs burning for air.

I broke the water, gasping, the icy air stinging my throat.

I looked up at the terrace.

I saw them.

Jaxon was holding Krystal close.

He wasn't looking at the water.

He was pointing at the sky.

"Look, tesoro," I heard his voice carry over the wind. "The meteors. I arranged them for you. For our anniversary."

He hadn't remembered my birthday.

But he had arranged the lights for her.

I treaded water in the freezing river, clutching my father's medal against my chest.

The current pulled at me, eager to drag me under.

I let it take me for a moment.

I watched the man I loved comfort the woman who had tried to throw my life away.

He didn't search the black water for me.

He assumed I would swim.

Or maybe he simply didn't care if I drowned.

I realized then that the old Alina Francis died in that river.

And whatever crawled out onto the bank wouldn't be his canary anymore.

It would be his reckoning.