Aliana POV

The hospital morgue smelled of bleach and finality.

I signed the papers.

*Cause of death: Cardiac Arrest.*

I knew the real cause.

*Cause of death: Crawford Arrogance.*

My phone buzzed against my hip. It was a text from the transplant coordinator.

*Ms. Rodriguez, a donor heart became available for your father twenty minutes ago. We attempted to contact you multiple times. Since the patient has expired, the organ has been reallocated.*

Twenty minutes ago.

If I hadn't been delayed by that stunt in the fountain. If the tires hadn't been slashed.

He would be alive.

I put the phone in my pocket. My hands were steady. Unnaturally steady.

I walked up to the VIP waiting room on the fourth floor. I knew they were there. Hadley's "panic attack" required the best doctors money could buy, while my father had died in the cold downstairs.

I pushed the double doors open.

Damien was sitting on a plush sofa, scrolling on his phone. Hadley was lying on a chaise lounge, idly plucking grapes from a stem.

"This stress is bad for my complexion," Hadley whined, her voice grating against the silence. "Damien, rub my feet."

Damien sighed, sliding his phone into his pocket. He reached for her foot.

I walked up to him.

He looked up, his expression bored. "Ali? Is the old man—"

I slapped him.

It wasn't just a slap. It was a collision of bone and pure, distilled rage. My palm connected with his cheek with a sound like a gunshot.

Damien's head snapped to the side. The room went dead silent.

He slowly turned back to look at me. His cheek was already blooming a vibrant red. His eyes were wide with shock that quickly morphed into a dark, dangerous fury.

"You killed him," I said. My voice was a whisper, but it sliced across the room.

Damien stood up. He towered over me. He grabbed my wrist, his fingers digging into my pulse hard enough to bruise.

"He was a servant," Damien spat. "People die. Get over it."

"You slashed the tires."

"My mother slashed the tires," he corrected, without an ounce of remorse. "And she did it to keep you here. Because you belong to us."

He dragged me toward an empty exam room adjacent to the waiting area. He kicked the door shut and pinned me against the metal counter.

"You need to learn respect, Aliana," he growled.

He reached onto a stainless steel tray of medical supplies. He picked up a needle. It was a large gauge, the kind used for drawing thick blood.

"Give me your hand."

"No."

He grabbed my left hand and slammed it onto the cold counter. He held it down with the weight of his forearm.

"You slapped me with this hand," he said, his eyes glinting with a terrifying madness. "You touched me without permission."

He raised the needle.

"Damien, don't," I said. Not begging. Warning.

He drove the needle into the back of my hand.

Pain exploded. Bright, white-hot, and sharp.

He pushed it deep, twisting it.

I didn't scream. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, refusing to give him the satisfaction. I stared right at him.

He looked down at my hand. He saw the needle sticking out of my skin.

But then, he stopped.

He was looking at the old scars on the back of my hand. The faint, white dots from the hundreds of IVs I had endured five years ago when they drained me to save him.

He frowned. He tilted his head like a confused dog.

"Why do you have track marks?" he muttered. "Are you a junkie, Ali?"

He pulled the needle out. Blood welled up, dark and thick.

"Marry me," he said, wiping the bloody needle on his expensive pants. "Marry me next week. I'll pay for a nice funeral for your dad. Mahogany casket. The works. But you serve Hadley. You apologize to her."

I looked at the blood dripping onto the floor.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

"Get out," I whispered.

"What?"

"Get out of my face before I rip your throat out with my teeth."

He laughed. He actually laughed. "You're cute when you're feisty. Think about it. You have nowhere else to go."

He opened the door and stormed out.

I stood there, clutching my bleeding hand.

I reached into my pocket with my good hand. I pulled out my phone.

I didn't dial 911. The police were on the Crawford payroll.

I dialed the number that had been saved as a single period in my contacts.

"He's dead," I said into the phone. "They killed him."

Anderson's voice came through the line instantly. "Where are you?"

"St. Jude's Hospital. VIP wing."

"I'm already in the lobby."

"Come get me, Anderson," I said, watching my blood pool on the tile. "And bring your gun."

Aliana POV

Hadley's scream tore through the sterile air.

It was a shrill, practiced sound, evocative of a B-list actress trying too hard to hit her mark. She lay crumpled on the floor of the exam room, clutching a cheek I hadn't even grazed, wailing about assault.

The door slammed open, rebounding off the wall.

Damien stood in the threshold, his chest heaving. His eyes darted from Hadley's theatrical tears to the blood dripping steadily from my fingertips.

He didn't ask what happened. He didn't look at the puncture wound he had just inflicted on me. He saw only his precious porcelain doll broken on the floor.

"Get her out of here," he snarled at Keith, who hovered like a shadow in the hallway. "Take her to the basement at the estate. Lock her in the wine cellar until I get home. I'll deal with her insolence then."

He meant me.

Keith stepped into the room. He was a massive man, broad-shouldered, with a face that looked as if it had been hewn from granite. He wore the Crawford crest on his uniform, a symbol of absolute loyalty, but as he looked at me, his eyes were startlingly human.

He glanced down at my hand. The blood was pooling on the linoleum, bright and accusing.

"Move," Keith said, his voice gruff.

He grabbed my arm, but his grip wasn't tight. It was a guide, not a shackle. He marched me down the hallway, away from the VIP suite, away from Damien's shouting and Hadley's fraudulent sobbing.

We didn't go to the elevators that led to the parking garage. Instead, Keith turned left, shoving open the heavy door to the emergency exit stairwell.

The cool, stagnant air of the stairwell hit my face, smelling of concrete and old dust. The door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the hospital sounds.

Keith let go of my arm.

Without a word, he reached down and began to unlace his heavy combat boots.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice trembling.

He kicked the boots aside. Then, he peeled off his thick wool socks.

"Put them on, Miss Ali," he said, thrusting them toward me. "You can't run barefoot."

I stared at him, stunned. The man who was supposed to be my jailer was offering me his socks.

"Why?" I whispered.

He looked away, a flush of shame creeping up his neck. "I saw your back, Miss. In the dining room. I was there the night of the fire. I drove the lead car. I know who pulled him out."

He shoved the socks into my hands, his urgency mounting.

"Run," he said. "Go out the side door. Don't go back to the estate."

I pulled the socks on. They were huge, warm, and smelled faintly of cedar. I didn't take the boots; they would only slow me down.

I looked up at Keith. I bowed my head—a small gesture, but it was the only currency I had left.

"Thank you," I said.

I pushed through the exit door and burst into the alley behind the hospital. The city noise was a sudden roar in my ears. Rain was starting to fall, a cold drizzle mixing with the grime on the pavement.

I fumbled for my phone with my good hand. My left hand was throbbing, the needle wound sending a pulse of hot agony up my arm with every heartbeat.

I dialed the contact saved simply as a dot.

It rang once.

"He's dead," I choked out. The words felt like broken glass in my throat. "They killed him."

There was a silence on the other end that felt heavier than the sky.

"I'm already en route," Anderson said. His voice was calm. Lethal.

I hung up. I knew I should run to the nearest subway station. I should disappear. But my father's heart medicine, his watch, the only surviving photo of my mother—they were still in the staff quarters. I couldn't leave him behind completely. I couldn't let them take those last pieces of him.

I hailed a cab. The driver looked skeptically at my bloodied hand and the oversized wool socks, but he took the wad of cash I had shoved in my pocket earlier.

When the cab pulled up to the Crawford estate gates, my heart stopped.

Damien was there.

He must have driven like a maniac to beat me back, or perhaps he had sensed the shift in the air, the scent of Keith's betrayal.

The heavy iron gates were closed. Keith was on his knees in the gravel driveway. Damien was standing over him, wielding a heavy metal flashlight like a club.

I screamed at the cab to stop. I scrambled out before it fully halted, my socks slipping on the wet asphalt.

Damien was screaming at Keith, his voice cracking with rage. "You let her go? You disobeyed a direct order?"

Keith didn't answer. He just stared at the ground, accepting his fate.

"Show me your loyalty," Damien spat. "Break it. Break the hand that opened the door for her."

I ran toward the gate. I squeezed through the pedestrian gap just as Damien raised the flashlight high.

"Stop!" I screamed.

Damien froze. He turned slowly to look at me. A cruel, incredulous smile spread across his face.

"Look who came crawling back," he sneered. "The stray dog."

I ran to Keith and stood in front of him. I was small, shaking, and bleeding, but in that moment, I felt like a wall of iron.

"Don't touch him," I said.

Damien laughed. It was a hollow, terrifying sound. "You think you can give orders? You are nothing. You are the help."

"I am Aliana Morrison," I said.

The name tasted strange on my tongue. Powerful. Dangerous.

Damien blinked, momentarily taken aback. Then he threw his head back and laughed harder.

"You're delusional," he said, his amusement vanishing instantly. "You're Rodriguez's brat. And now you're going to watch what happens to traitors."

He stepped forward, raising the flashlight again.

Keith looked up at me. His eyes were wide with fear—not for himself, but for his family. Damien held their livelihood, their very existence, in his hands.

"Do it, Keith," Damien commanded, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Or your wife loses her job tomorrow. And that will only be the beginning."

Keith let out a sob. He placed his left hand flat on the rough asphalt.

"No!" I screamed, grabbing Damien's arm.

He backhanded me without looking. The force of it sent me sprawling into the gravel, tasting copper and dirt.

Keith brought the flashlight down.

The sickening crack of bone was louder than the thunder rolling overhead.