Aliana POV

The Crawford estate was a monument to new money and old sins.

I stepped through the front door, barefoot, my feet blackened from the city streets. The marble floor was ice against my skin.

Martha, the head housekeeper, looked up from her dusting. Her eyes widened when she saw my naked feet, then softened into a look of profound pity that made my stomach churn.

She knew. Everyone knew. I was the punchline of the Crawford family joke.

I walked past her, moving straight toward the living room. I could hear laughter.

Damien's laugh. It used to be the sound of my universe. Now, it sounded like a car engine sputtering before it died—a mechanical, hollow rasp.

I stepped into the archway.

They were sprawled on the Italian leather sofa. Hadley was straddling Damien's lap, her fingers tangled in his hair. Cecil, his mother, sat in the armchair across from them, sipping tea and smiling like a shark that had just smelled blood.

They stopped the moment they saw me.

Hadley didn't scramble off. She just turned her head, smoothing her skirt—the same skirt from the photo.

"Oh, Aliana," Hadley said, her voice dripping with saccharine poison. "You're back early. My car broke down, and Damien was kind enough to come get me. We lost track of time."

"Your car is brand new, Hadley," I said. My voice was flat. Dead.

Cecil set her teacup down. The china clinked sharply against the saucer, ringing in the sudden silence.

"Don't take that tone with a guest, Aliana. You look like a vagrant. Where are your shoes?"

"I left them," I said. "They didn't fit."

"Ungrateful," Cecil sneered. She reached into her purse and pulled out a velvet box. "Since you're here, you can make yourself useful. Fetch us some champagne. We have news."

She snapped the box open. Inside lay the Crawford Emerald. A bracelet worth more than my father's life insurance policy. It was the heirloom promised to the future bride of the Crawford heir.

Damien had promised it to me three months ago.

Cecil took Hadley's wrist and clasped the emeralds around it. The green stones glittered obscenely against Hadley's pale skin.

"Perfect," Cecil purred. "A jewel for a queen. Not for the help."

Damien finally looked at me. His eyes were dark, challenging. He was waiting for me to cry. He was waiting for me to beg. He wanted the satisfaction of my devastation.

I walked over to them.

Hadley smirked, holding up her wrist to catch the light. "It's a bit heavy, isn't it? Do you think it suits me, Ali?"

I looked at the bracelet. Then I looked at Damien.

"It suits you perfectly," I said. "It's cold, hard, and bought with laundered money."

The room went deathly silent.

I turned on my heel and walked toward the hallway.

"Aliana!" Damien's voice roared.

I heard him shove Hadley off his lap. Heavy footsteps pounded on the marble behind me. He caught me in the foyer, his hand clamping around my upper arm. He spun me around and slammed me against the wall.

His face was inches from mine. He was handsome in a way that used to make my knees weak. Now, I just saw the pores. The sweat. The weakness.

"Who do you think you are?" he hissed. "Walking away from me? You exist because I allow it. My father took your pathetic dad in. We gave you a roof. We gave you clothes."

"You gave me scraps," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "I gave you my life."

"You gave me nothing!" he shouted, spit flying onto my cheek. "Hadley saved me from that fire! Hadley was there when I couldn't walk! You were just the nurse who emptied my piss jars!"

He was rewriting history to protect his ego. He couldn't handle the truth—that the girl he treated like a dog was the only reason he was standing on two legs.

He leaned in, his body pressing heavily against mine. He was trying to intimidate me. He was trying to use his size, his scent, and his power to remind me of my place. He grabbed my chin, forcing my head up.

"You love me," he whispered, a twisted smile forming. "You're obsessed with me. Admit it."

He leaned in to kiss me. It wasn't romantic. It was a branding. An assertion of ownership.

I didn't struggle. I didn't push him away.

I just stared into his eyes and whispered one word.

"Filthy."

Damien froze. He recoiled as if I had slapped him. His hand dropped from my chin.

"What did you say?"

"You are filthy, Damien," I said, my voice steady. "Your hands. Your mouth. Your soul. I don't want you anymore. You can keep the whore. You deserve each other."

I pushed past him. He was too stunned to grab me again.

I walked up the grand staircase, leaving him standing in the foyer, looking at his own hands as if trying to see the dirt I saw.

Aliana POV

I went straight to my room in the attic.

Or rather, the space they allowed me to occupy. It wasn't really a room. It was a converted storage closet with a sloped ceiling that punished me if I stood up too straight.

I opened the door and stopped.

The closet was empty. My drawers were pulled out, their contents vomited onto the floor. My bed was stripped to the mattress.

My books, my few clothes, the photo of my mother—all of it gone.

I walked to the window and looked down into the courtyard. Near the service entrance, by the industrial dumpsters, lay a pile of fabric and paper.

They had thrown my life in the trash.

I didn't feel the sting of tears. Instead, I felt a strange, cold lightness. It was as if they had done the packing for me.

I turned and walked back downstairs, out the service door, and to the dumpsters. I found my old servant's uniform—the black dress with the white collar. It was stained with coffee grounds.

I put it on over my clothes. I didn't care about the filth. If they wanted a servant, I would give them a servant one last time before I burned their house down.

I walked into the staff quarters.

My father, Mr. Rodriguez, was sitting in his small armchair, wheezing. His face was gray. He had been an Associate for the family for thirty years, a glorified bookkeeper who kept his mouth shut. Now, his heart was failing, and the Crawfords refused to approve the surgery.

"Ali?" he rasped. "Why are you wearing that?"

"We're leaving, Papa," I said, kneeling beside him. "Tonight. Anderson is coming."

His eyes widened. "The Reaper? Ali, that is dangerous."

"Staying here is death," I said. "Pack your pills. I'm going to get the car."

I kissed his forehead and marched back into the main house.

I found them in the dining room. They were eating lunch. The air smelled of sherry and cream. Lobster bisque.

Cecil looked up, a piece of bread in her hand. "Finally. You look appropriate for once. Clear the table."

I didn't move. I stood at the head of the table, a stain on their perfect picture.

"I need the keys to the station wagon," I said. "My father is sick. I'm taking him to the hospital, and then we are not coming back."

Cecil laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound. "The station wagon is for staff use only. And since you just tried to walk out on my son, you are no longer staff. You are trespassing."

"Give me the keys," I said, my voice dead flat.

Cecil stood up. She walked over to me, her heels clicking on the parquet floor. She was a small woman, but she was constructed entirely of malice.

"You are trash, Aliana," she hissed. "Just like your father."

She shoved me. Hard.

I wasn't expecting it. I stumbled back, catching my heel on the edge of the rug. I fell, hitting the floor with a bone-jarring thud.

The back of my uniform dress, old and worn, tore open with a sharp *riiiip*. My shirt underneath rode up.

The room went silent.

For the first time in five years, the air touched the skin of my back.

"Oh my god," Hadley shrieked. "That's disgusting!"

I scrambled to my knees, pulling my shirt down, but it was too late. They had seen it.

The map of agony. The thick, rippled, purple and white keloid scars that covered my entire back from neck to waist. The skin that had melted off when I shielded Damien from the fire.

Damien was staring at me. His face wasn't filled with recognition. It was filled with revulsion.

He covered his mouth. "Jesus, Ali. Cover that up. I'm trying to eat."

He didn't know. He looked at the scars *he* caused, the scars that saved his life, and he wanted to vomit.

Cecil sneered, looking down at me like I was a cockroach. "Damaged goods. No wonder you hide in the attic. Who would want to touch *that*?"

A sound bubbled up in my throat. I thought it was a sob.

It was a laugh.

I laughed, wild and manic. I stood up, shaking.

"Does it repulse you, Damien?" I asked, stepping toward him. "Does it make you sick?"

He held up a hand, shielding his eyes. "Get away from me. You're a freak."

Keith, the security guard by the door, took a step forward. Keith was a low-level soldier, but he had kind eyes. He had been there the night of the accident. He suspected.

"Mr. Crawford," Keith said, his voice trembling. "Those scars... she got them when—"

"Silence!" I snapped. I wouldn't let him tell them. They didn't deserve to know. Not yet.

Damien looked from me to Keith. His eyes narrowed.

"You're sleeping with the guard?" Damien accused, his jealousy flaring up despite his disgust. "Is that it? You let the help touch your freak skin?"

"You're insane," I whispered.

"You're fired," Damien barked at Keith. "Get out. And you—" He pointed at me. "Go to your room. You don't leave until I decide what to do with you."

"I am leaving," I said.

"No," Damien smiled, cruel and cold. "You aren't."

Aliana POV

Damien dragged me to my room and slammed the door, locking it from the outside.

I didn't waste time banging on the door. I didn't scream.

I threw open the window.

It was a three-story drop, but there was a sturdy trellis covered in ivy clinging to the brick. I had climbed it when I was ten. I could climb it now.

My hands shook, but I found the footholds. The ivy tore at my palms, stinging and raw, but I didn't feel it. I scrambled down, reached the ground, and sprinted toward the staff quarters.

I burst through the door.

My father was on the floor.

He was clutching his chest, his mouth open in a silent scream. His face was turning a terrifying shade of blue.

"Papa!" I screamed.

I fell to my knees beside him. No pulse. No breath.

"No, no, no." I started compressions. *One, two, three, four.* "Come on, Papa. Don't leave me."

He gasped—a shallow, rattling breath. He was still in there.

I needed the hospital. Now.

I ran out of the quarters. The station wagon was parked in the driveway. I saw the keys sitting on the hood—Keith must have left them there for me before he was escorted out.

I grabbed them.

"Going somewhere?"

Damien was standing on the porch steps. Hadley was clinging to his arm, sobbing theatrically into a tissue. Cecil stood behind them, watching like a spectator at a play.

"He's dying!" I screamed. "Damien, move! I need to get him to the ER!"

Damien didn't move. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Hadley is having a panic attack," he said calmly. "Seeing your... deformity... traumatized her. She needs the security detail to take her to the spa to calm down."

"Are you joking?" I shrieked. "My father is having a heart attack!"

"He's just an Associate," Cecil said, examining her fingernails with bored indifference. "Associates die. It's part of the job description."

"Please," I begged. I dropped to my knees on the gravel. "Please, Damien. I will do anything. I will sign the marriage contract. I will be your maid. Just let me save him."

Damien looked at me. For a second, I saw hesitation flicker in his eyes.

Then Hadley let out a loud, fake wail. "My chest hurts, Damien! I can't breathe!"

Damien's face hardened. He walked over to me and snatched the keys from my hand.

"My driver takes Hadley," he said. "Your father waits."

"He can't wait!"

Cecil stepped forward. She took the spare set of keys from her pocket.

"You want to drive so bad?" she asked.

She turned and threw the keys. They arched through the air and landed with a *plop* in the center of the decorative fountain dominating the circular driveway.

The water was green with algae and sludge.

"Fetch," Cecil said.

I didn't look at her. I didn't look at Damien.

I ran into the fountain. The water was freezing. The sludge coated my legs, ruining the uniform. I fell to my hands and knees, groping blindly in the muck.

I heard the engine of the luxury SUV start. I heard tires crunch on gravel as Damien drove Hadley away.

My fingers brushed metal.

I pulled the keys out, dripping with slime. I scrambled out of the fountain and ran to the station wagon.

I jammed the key into the door.

I looked down.

The tires were slashed. All four of them. Deep, jagged cuts made with a steak knife.

I looked up at the porch. Cecil was standing there, holding a kitchen knife. She smiled.

"Oops," she said.

A scream tore out of my throat. It wasn't human. It was the sound of a soul snapping.

The door to the staff quarters opened behind me. A maid stood there, tears streaming down her face.

"Ali," she whispered. "He's gone."

I dropped the keys. They hit the gravel with a dull clink.

I walked back to my father. I sat on the floor and held his cold hand.

The code says family is off-limits. The code says you take care of your own.

They had broken the code.

And now, I was going to break them.