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.

Alina Phillips POV

The humiliation hadn't killed me; it had merely hollowed me out, leaving a cold numbness in its wake.

I was back in my apartment-the safehouse Jaxon had purchased for me years ago.

Once a sanctuary, the walls now pressed in like the bars of a gilded cage.

Jaxon stood in the center of my living room.

He had let himself in, of course. He owned the building, just as he owned everything else in my life.

"It was an oversight," he said, casually pouring himself a drink from my crystal decanter. "Krystal found the sheet music in the piano bench. She didn't know it was yours."

"She put her name on it," I replied, my voice flat. I sat on the floor, methodically packing a suitcase. "She copyrighted it, Jaxon."

"It's done, Alina," Jaxon said, taking a measured sip. "We can't retract it now. It would project weakness. The Gomez family would take offense to the scandal."

"So my life's work is the price of your peace?" I asked.

"I'll pay you for it," he countered. He reached into his jacket, withdrawing a checkbook with insulting ease. "Name your price. I'll double it. But you have to stop this music nonsense. It's causing scenes."

I looked up at him.

Something audible snapped behind my ribs.

It wasn't the fragile fracture of heartbreak. It was the calcification of hatred. Pure, distilled, and venomous.

"Get out," I said.

Jaxon frowned, the checkbook pausing in his hand. "Excuse me?"

"Get out of my house," I repeated, my voice steady. "I don't want your money. I don't want your protection. I'm leaving."

"You aren't going anywhere," he rumbled, his voice dropping an octave to that dangerous, vibrating low. "Tomorrow marks the anniversary of your father's death. You will visit the grave, and then you will return to the clinic."

"I'd rather die," I spat.

He slammed the glass down on the table with enough force to shatter the crystal.

"You are walking a fine line, Alina. You are testing my patience."

His phone rang, cutting through the tension.

He answered it with a sharp jerk of his head.

His face drained of color.

"What?" he barked. "When?"

He listened for a moment, his gaze locking onto mine.

His eyes changed.

The annoyance evaporated, replaced instantly by a lethal, glacial fury.

He ended the call.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"Who?"

"Krystal!" he roared. He kicked the suitcase I had been packing, sending my clothes scattering across the room. "She's gone. Her car was found abandoned. There was a note."

He stalked over to me, grabbing my face and squeezing my jaw until I felt the bruise forming.

"Did you hire someone?" he hissed, his fingers digging into my skin. "Did you use the hush money my mother gave you to put a hit on my wife?"

I tried to wrench away. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't lie to me!" he bellowed. "You were the only one who threatened her. You are the only one with a motive."

"I didn't touch her!"

He released me with a violent shove, and my shoulder collided hard with the wall.

"If she has a single scratch on her," he said, leveling a trembling finger at me, "I will forget who your father was."

He stormed out, leaving the air vibrating with his rage.

Two hours later, my door was kicked off its hinges.

Jaxon returned.

He wasn't alone. Two of his enforcers flanked him like shadows.

"We found her," Jaxon said. His voice was devoid of humanity, stripped bare. "Bound in a warehouse in Queens. She said you paid the guards to let you in. She said you laughed at her."

"I've been here!" I screamed, backing away. "Check the cameras!"

"The cameras in the hallway were disabled," he replied coldly. "Convenient."

He nodded to his men.

"Grab her."

I struggled. I fought, clawing at their suits.

But I was a painter, not a soldier.

As they dragged me toward the broken door, a violent cough seized my chest.

A warm, metallic fluid surged up my throat, filling my mouth.

I spat it onto the hardwood.

Blood. Crimson and bright.

My body was failing.

"Jaxon, please," I choked out, the taste of iron heavy on my tongue. "I'm sick."

He looked at the blood splattered on the floor, his expression unmoving.

"You are the rot," he sneered, looking at me with absolute revulsion. "And I am cutting you out."