Ella Farmer POV

The sound of tearing paper screamed through the silence of the guest room.

I shredded the sketchbook in half, destroying the charcoal portrait of Arthur I had spent months perfecting.

His eyes in the drawing were full of love-a lie I could no longer stand to witness.

I threw the pieces into the fireplace and watched the flames lick the edges of his face, curling the paper into black flakes before turning him to ash.

Just like he had done to me.

The door opened without a knock.

Arthur stood there, dressed in a tuxedo that cost more than my father made in a year.

He looked impeccable, the lethal prince of the city, but the soul was missing from his gaze. His eyes were glassy, vacant.

"Stop being dramatic, Ella," he said, his voice flat as he adjusted his cufflinks.

"Grandfather is expecting us. It's his seventy-fifth birthday."

"I'm not going," I said, refusing to look away from the fire.

"You are going." He stepped into the room, his presence sucking the oxygen right out of the air.

"You are my fiancée. You will stand by my side."

Diana walked in behind him, wearing a couture red gown that I knew Arthur had paid for.

It was backless, daring, and around her throat, she wore my mother's necklace.

It rested against her skin like a trophy of war.

"Arthur wants me to come too," Diana said, her voice saccharine and poisonous.

"He thinks it's important for the Family to see that he honors the donor's memory."

Arthur nodded, as if this insanity made perfect sense.

We arrived at the Plaza Hotel an hour later.

The ballroom was filled with the city's elite-judges, politicians, and the Capos who ran the underworld.

Don Cornelius sat at the head table, looking frail but sharp as a hawk.

I took my seat next to Arthur, keeping my head high, my face a mask of porcelain indifference.

Diana sat on his other side.

The whispers started immediately.

Arthur stood up to make a toast, tapping his glass with a silver knife.

The room went silent.

"To family," he said, raising his glass.

"And to new beginnings."

He looked down at Diana, smiling a hollow, rehearsed smile.

"To the woman who gave me a second chance at life by connecting me to the man who saved me."

He didn't mention me.

He didn't mention the nights I slept in a chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand while he screamed in pain.

He forced me to raise my glass.

"To Diana," he commanded, looking directly at me.

My hand trembled.

I drank the champagne, and it tasted like vinegar and ash.

A sharp pain ripped through my stomach, my stress-induced ulcers flaring up violently.

I excused myself, rushing to the restroom, coughing blood into the sink.

When I wiped my mouth and stepped out onto the balcony for air, I heard voices.

"She's still wearing your ring, Arthur," Diana's voice drifted through the open doors.

"It confuses the blood. My lover... the donor... he hates that you're bound to her."

I froze in the shadows.

I saw Arthur leaning against the stone railing, looking confused, heavily sedated.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Prove it," she said.

"Prove that the new blood is stronger than the old promises."

She pointed to his chest, right over his heart, where he had tattooed my initial, 'E', three years ago.

"Remove it."

Arthur hesitated for only a second.

He grabbed a champagne flute from a passing waiter's tray and smashed it against the railing.

The glass shattered into a jagged, lethal shard.

"Arthur, no," I whispered, but the wind carried my voice away.

He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing the tattoo.

With a grimace of pain that looked disturbingly like pleasure, he drove the glass into his own skin.

Blood welled up, dark and thick, running down his chest ruining the pristine white shirt.

He carved the skin away, slicing through the ink, slicing through my name.

Diana watched, breathless, her hand clutching my mother's necklace in ecstasy.

"There," Arthur panted, dropping the bloody glass.

"It's gone."

He looked at the bloody mess on his chest and smiled at her.

I backed away, stumbling into the darkness.

The man I loved didn't just die in that hospital bed.

He had been replaced by a monster.

Ella Farmer POV

I didn't just leave; I fled.

I had violated every protocol of a Mafia fiancée by leaving the Don's party without permission, but I didn't care. Fear was a far more potent motivator than tradition.

I took a taxi back to the penthouse, my hands shaking so hard I couldn't even steady the key to unlock the door. It took three tries before the tumbler finally clicked.

When I finally got inside, I went straight to the guest room where I had been sleeping. I didn't want to be here, but I had no choice.

I needed my passport.

I needed to leave New York tonight.

But the hallway was wrong. The silence was wrong. The door to the guest room was open.

Diana was there.

She was wearing my silk robe, the one Arthur had given me for our anniversary. It hung loosely on her frame, a ghost of the life I was trying to escape.

She was rummaging through my drawers, yanking out handfuls of silk and cotton and flinging my clothes onto the floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice cracking under the weight of my exhaustion.

"Making space," she said, not even looking at me. She tossed a blouse aside like it was a rag.

"Arthur said I could have this room. The energy is better here."

"Get out," I whispered.

She turned, smiling. It was a cold, predatory expression.

"You don't get to give orders anymore, Ella. You're just a placeholder until the old man dies."

She stepped toward me, her eyes gleaming with malice, then suddenly threw herself backward, crashing into the nightstand.

The sound of wood splintering was sickening. She knocked a lamp over, shattering it into a thousand ceramic shards.

"Help!" she screamed, her voice piercing the silence. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar.

"Arthur! She's hurting me!"

I stood there, paralyzed by the sheer audacity of the lie. My brain couldn't process the speed of her betrayal.

Arthur burst into the room a moment later, his shirt still stained with his own blood from the balcony. The metallic scent of violence clung to him.

He saw Diana on the floor, sobbing, and me standing over her.

He didn't ask what happened.

He didn't look for the truth.

He grabbed my arm, his grip bruising, his fingers digging into my flesh like iron claws.

"I told you to be nice to her!" he roared.

"Arthur, she threw herself-" I tried to explain, panic rising in my throat.

He dragged me out of the room, through the living room, and to the front door of the penthouse. I stumbled, unable to find my footing against his rage.

He opened it and shoved me into the hallway.

"You need to cool off," he spat, his eyes devoid of any recognition, any love.

"Don't come back inside until you learn your place."

He slammed the door in my face.

The lock clicked. A sound of finality.

I was locked out of my own home, in the hallway, wearing a gala dress, with no phone and no money.

The pain in my stomach returned, sharper this time, like a knife twisting in my gut. It radiated outward, stealing my breath.

I slid down the wall, clutching my abdomen. The cold plaster offered no comfort.

The world started to spin. The floor tilted.

Black spots danced in my vision, swallowing the light.

I passed out on the cold marble floor of the corridor.

I woke up under harsh fluorescent lights. The smell of antiseptic stung my nose.

A doctor was standing over me, looking concerned.

"Mrs. Mckay?" he asked, assuming I was already married. The name felt like a slap.

"Miss Farmer," I corrected, my voice a dry rasp.

"You collapsed from stress and dehydration," he said, checking my chart. His tone was clinical, but his eyes held pity.

"But your baby is fine."

The room went silent. The hum of the machines seemed to vanish.

"My what?" I whispered.

"You're eight weeks pregnant, Miss Farmer."

I stared at the ceiling, tears finally leaking from my eyes, hot tracks against my cold skin.

I was carrying the heir to the Mckay crime family.

I was carrying the child of a man who had just locked me out in the hallway like a dog.

I borrowed a nurse's phone to call Arthur.

He needed to know.

Maybe this would break the spell. Maybe the blood tie would mean more than Diana's lies.

He answered on the second ring.

"Arthur, I'm in the hospital," I said, my voice trembling.

"I'm busy, Ella," he said coldly. Ice dripped from every syllable.

"Diana is having a panic attack because of you. Don't call again."

The line went dead.

A moment later, a notification popped up on the nurse's phone.

Diana had posted a photo on Instagram.

It was a selfie of her and Arthur in our bed. In my bed.

She was wearing my necklace.

The caption read: Healing old wounds with new love.

Then a text message came through to my old number, forwarded to the nurse's phone because of the family cloud account.

It was from Diana.

Stay away from him. Or the next time you cough blood, it won't be from an ulcer.

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the hospital air.

I handed the phone back to the nurse.

My grandmother, Hertha, was the only family I had left.

I needed to get to her.

I needed to run.

Ella Farmer POV

I spent three days in the hospital. Arthur never came.

Not once.

The only person who kept vigil by my bedside was my grandmother, Hertha. She was seventy years old, a woman of soft hands and iron will, who hated the Mafia but loved me enough to tolerate the darkness that came with it.

She held my hand for hours, humming old lullabies, fiercely shielding me from the reality that my life had imploded.

On the day of my discharge, I noticed something wrong. The Mckay security detail that usually guarded her was missing.

Arthur had pulled them.

He had reassigned the men to guard Diana while she went shopping for shoes.

I was signing the final discharge papers when my phone rang. It was the police.

"Miss Farmer, there's been an accident."

My heart stopped beating.

"Your grandmother was struck by a vehicle crossing 5th Avenue. It was a hit and run."

Panic seized me. I ran to the Emergency Room, my hospital gown flapping around my legs, ignoring the nurses shouting after me to slow down.

The ER was absolute chaos.

I found a nurse behind the desk, frantically typing.

"Hertha Mills," I gasped, gripping the counter. "Where is she?"

"She's in trauma bay four," the nurse said, looking frazzled. "We're waiting for a vascular surgeon. She's bleeding internally."

"Where is the surgeon?" I screamed.

"He was called away to the VIP suite," she said, avoiding my eyes. "Mr. Mckay summoned the entire surgical team."

No.

No, this couldn't be happening.

I sprinted to the VIP elevators, slamming my hand against the button until the doors slid open.

When the doors opened on the top floor, the scene before me made my blood run cold.

Arthur was standing outside a suite, looking visibly annoyed. Diana was sitting in a wheelchair, holding a cloth to her nose.

"Arthur!" I screamed, running toward him.

He looked up, his eyes narrowing in distaste.

"Stop making a scene, Ella."

"My grandmother is dying in the ER!" I yelled, grabbing his lapels and shaking him. "You have the surgeons here! Send them down!"

He pushed my hands away, smoothing his suit jacket.

"Diana fainted," he said calmly. "She hit her nose. It might be broken."

"A broken nose?" I stared at him, horror washing over me. "Hertha is bleeding out! She needs a vascular surgeon now!"

"Family resources are for family," Arthur said, his voice ice. "Diana is family now. Your grandmother is a civilian."

He turned to the chief of surgery standing next to him, dismissing me entirely.

"Check her nose again. I want to make sure there's no deviation."

"Please," I begged, falling to my knees at his feet. "Arthur, please. I'm pregnant. She's the great-grandmother of your child."

He didn't hear me.

Or perhaps he simply chose not to believe me.

To him, it was just another lie, another desperate attempt to get attention.

"Security, remove Miss Farmer," he ordered.

Two guards dragged me backward toward the elevators.

I watched helplessly as the surgeon examined Diana's perfectly straight nose.

I screamed until my throat bled.

By the time I got back to the ER, the room had fallen into a terrible silence.

The monitor above trauma bay four was black.

A young intern walked out, pulling off bloody gloves with a defeated expression.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "We couldn't stop the bleeding in time."

I slid down the wall, the cold tile pressing against my cheek.

Hertha was dead.

Arthur had killed her just as surely as if he had been the one driving the car.

He came to the funeral two days later.

He wore black, looking somber, with Diana clinging to his arm like a parasite.

She whispered a fake apology to me, her eyes completely dry.

"It was an accident," she said. "Maybe if you hadn't distracted the guards with your drama, they would have been there to protect her."

Arthur nodded in agreement.

He pulled a check out of his jacket pocket and tried to hand it to me.

"For the expenses," he said.

I looked at the check.

It was for ten thousand dollars.

The price of my grandmother's life.

The price of my soul.

I didn't take it.

I looked at Arthur Mckay, the man I had planned to marry, the father of the baby growing inside me.

And I realized the man I loved was truly dead.

Only a monster remained.