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.

Alina Phillips POV

The water didn't kill me, but the look on Jaxon's face when I was dragged onto the bank nearly did.

He didn't pull me out.

A low-level soldier named Enzo did.

Enzo looked at me with unmasked pity as I convulsed on the mud, clutching the Silver Star so hard the edges cut into my palm.

Jaxon stood ten feet away.

He was dry. Perfect. Utterly untouchable.

He had Krystal tucked under his arm, shielding her from the wind while I froze in the dirt.

"Take her to the hospital," Jaxon ordered Enzo. He didn't look at me. He looked at the river, annoyed that I had made a scene. "Get her sedated. She's hysterical."

Hysterical.

That was the narrative now.

I sat in the hospital bed for the second time in a week.

My leg throbbed in its cast. My skin smelled like river sludge and dead things, a scent that no amount of scrubbing seemed to remove.

When Jaxon finally walked in, he didn't ask if I was okay.

He checked his watch.

"This behavior has to stop, Alina," he said, his tone flat, like a CEO addressing a problematic employee. "Jumping into the Hudson? You need to go back to the clinic. You aren't well."

I looked at him.

Really looked at him.

I saw the man I had worshipped since I was a child. The man who taught me to shoot, to drive, to survive.

And I realized he was the very thing I needed to survive against.

"I want a divorce," I said. "From this family. From you."

Jaxon laughed. It was a cold, dismissive sound.

"You don't divorce the Family, Alina. You are property of the Francis estate until I say otherwise."

"I am not a piece of furniture," I whispered.

"You are acting like a child," he said. "We will discuss your treatment plan tomorrow."

He turned to leave.

"Jaxon," I called out.

He paused, his hand on the door handle.

I pulled the ring off my finger.

It wasn't an engagement ring. It was a promise ring he gave me before he sent me to Switzerland. A promise that he would wait.

A lie forged in platinum and diamonds.

"Catch," I said.

I threw it.

It hit the window with a sharp clink and fell into the radiator vent. Gone.

Jaxon stared at the vent. His jaw ticked.

"You will regret that," he said softly.

Then his phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen, and the anger vanished, replaced by urgency.

"Krystal has a migraine," he muttered. "I have to go."

He walked out without looking back.

I turned on the TV to drown out the silence.

The news was on.

Breaking News: Cartel Princess Krystal Gomez-Francis releases debut single 'Shattered Wings'.

My blood ran cold.

I turned up the volume.

The melody filled the room.

It was haunting. Melancholic. Beautiful.

It was also mine.

I wrote that song three years ago. I composed it on the piano in the East Wing, the one Jaxon said was soundproof.

The screen showed Krystal at a press conference, dabbing fake tears from her eyes.

"I wrote this during a very dark time," she told the cameras. "It's about survival."

The anchor's voice cut in.

Sources say a troubled family friend of the Francis clan, Alina Phillips, has been claiming authorship. Insiders suggest Ms. Phillips is suffering from severe delusions.

I threw the remote at the screen.

It cracked, but the sound didn't stop.

I got dressed.

I didn't care about the cast. I didn't care about the hospital gown underneath my coat.

I took a cab to the Francis Corp Headquarters.

I limped past security. They hesitated, recognizing the wife of the Don, too uncertain of their standing to physically stop me.

I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the conference room.

Flashes of light blinded me.

Jaxon stood at the podium. Krystal was seated beside him, looking like a victim.

"Jaxon!" I screamed. "She stole it! You know she stole it!"

The room went silent.

Cameras turned to me.

I looked like a wreck. Wet hair, hospital bracelet, wild eyes.

Jaxon didn't flinch.

He stepped closer to the microphone.

He looked at me with the cold, dead eyes of a Don protecting his investment.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice steady. "I apologize for the interruption. This is Alina Phillips. She is a... troubled family friend we have been trying to help."

He paused, letting the pity in the room settle.

"She has a history of mental instability," he continued. "She often confuses reality with her own fantasies. We are handling her care privately."

He disavowed me.

He looked the world in the eye and called me crazy to protect his alliance with the Gomez cartel.

I collapsed to the floor.

Not because of my leg.

But because the man who swore to protect me had just pulled the trigger.