Bailey Douglas POV:

I didn't lower my head. I didn't apologize. For the first time in five years, the fear that usually choked me when Kane yelled was completely gone.

I calmly unbuttoned my soaked trench coat. I slipped it off my shoulders and let it drop straight onto the floor.

The heavy, wet fabric hit the priceless white Persian rug with a wet slap. Dark, filthy street mud immediately bled into the pristine white fibers.

Derrick stepped forward, his face hardening into the strict, authoritative mask he always wore. "Pick that up. Clean the rug. Now."

I looked up. My eyes swept over Derrick with total emptiness. "Let the maids clean it," I said, my voice flat.

I remembered being ten years old, kneeling on this exact floor, scrubbing until my fingers bled because Haleigh had "accidentally" knocked over a glass of milk and blamed me. I was done scrubbing.

I stepped around the coat and started walking toward the stairs.

Blake moved fast. He threw his arm out, blocking the bottom step. He sneered at me. "What's your problem? You get dumped out on the street and decide to come back here and throw a tantrum?"

Jameson set his champagne glass down. He walked over to Blake and gently pushed his arm down. He looked at me, his eyes running over my shivering frame. He tried to soften his voice, taking on that arrogant, pitying tone he used when dealing with a stray dog.

"Bailey, go upstairs and take a hot shower. You're making a mess."

I looked at his face. The face of the man who had promised to marry me, who had just spent the afternoon kissing another woman in the rain.

My stomach heaved. A violent wave of disgust hit me. I took a quick half-step backward, putting physical distance between us like he carried a disease.

Jameson froze. His hand, which had been reaching out to pat my shoulder, stopped dead in the air. He looked genuinely shocked by my revulsion.

From the center of the room, Haleigh saw his reaction. She immediately grabbed her chest and let out a weak, rattling cough.

Instantly, the tension around me vanished. All four men whipped their heads toward Haleigh. They abandoned me at the stairs and rushed back to the sofa.

Haleigh leaned weakly against Jameson's side. Her eyes were red. Her voice trembled perfectly. "Don't be mad at Bailey. She didn't mean to ruin my party. She's just having a bad day."

Kane's face turned red with anger. He pointed a finger at me from across the room. "You ungrateful bitch. She's defending you, and you just stand there looking like a psycho!"

I watched the terrible, pathetic play unfold. A cold smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. I turned around and put my foot on the first stair.

"Wait," Haleigh called out.

I heard her bare feet pattering against the carpet. She ran up behind me, blocking the stairs. She was holding a small, black velvet box tied with a silver ribbon.

She held it out to me with both hands. Her smile was sweet and innocent. "I got you a gift, Bailey. Since you had to go on that 'business trip' today."

I stared at the box. I didn't reach for it. When we were kids, Haleigh gave me a "gift"—a hand-knit sweater with sewing needles hidden in the sleeves. I knew what her gifts meant.

"Take it, Bailey," Jameson commanded from the living room. His voice was hard. "Don't be ungrateful."

"She's sick, and she still thought of you," Derrick added, his tone dripping with disappointment. "Have a heart."

I felt the crushing weight of their stares. Four men, ready to tear me apart if I made their precious princess sad.

I slowly raised my pale hand. I took the heavy velvet box from her fingers.

The second the box touched my palm, I saw it. Haleigh's mouth twitched upward into a vicious, triumphant smirk.

My fingers paused on the velvet. I felt it. A tiny, frantic vibration coming from inside the dark box.

Haleigh immediately took a large step backward, putting distance between us. "Open it," she urged, her voice breathless.

"It's an antique brooch she bought at a Paris auction," Kane snapped. "Open it and say thank you."

My thumb rested on the metal clasp. The air in the grand foyer felt suffocating. I looked past Haleigh. I looked straight into Jameson's eyes. There was nothing in his gaze but blind indulgence for the woman beside him.

I closed my eyes. I pressed my thumb down.

*Click.*

The lid sprang open. There was no shine of vintage gold. There was only a blur of dark, hairy brown legs lunging out of the shadows.

A massive Brown Recluse spider dropped directly onto the bare skin of my hand.

Haleigh let out a deafening, theatrical scream. She threw her hands over her face and threw her body backward toward the floor.

"Oh my god! What is that!"

Bailey Douglas POV:

The Brown Recluse moved with terrifying speed. Its hairy legs scrambled across my pale skin. Before I could even flinch, it sank its razor-sharp fangs directly into the blue vein on the back of my hand.

White-hot agony exploded up my arm. It felt like liquid fire was being injected straight into my blood.

My muscles violently spasmed. My fingers gave out. The velvet box slipped from my grasp and hit the hardwood floor with a dull clatter. The spider hit the ground and instantly scurried into the dark crack beneath the baseboard, vanishing entirely.

I clutched my burning hand to my chest. I stumbled backward, my spine slamming hard against the wooden railing of the stairs. I gasped for air, but my lungs felt tight.

At the exact same moment, Haleigh let out another blood-curdling shriek. She fell backward, her arms flailing. As she went down, she deliberately twisted her body, making sure her forehead scraped against the sharp corner of the marble statue base near the sofa.

"Haleigh!" Jameson roared.

The sound tore from his throat like a wounded animal. He sprinted across the room, diving toward the floor, and pulled her into his arms.

Derrick and Blake lunged forward, their faces pale with terror as they surrounded her.

Kane didn't go to Haleigh. He turned to me. His eyes were completely unhinged with rage.

He crossed the distance between us in two strides. He grabbed the front of my wet shirt in his massive fists and slammed me back against the wall. The impact knocked the remaining air out of my lungs.

"What did you put in that box?!" Kane screamed in my face, spit flying from his lips. "You sick freak!"

I couldn't answer him. The venom was already racing through my system. The back of my hand was rapidly swelling, the skin turning a sickening shade of purple and black. My vision blurred into dark, fuzzy patches.

I opened my mouth to tell him I was bitten. To tell him I was dying. But my throat was swelling shut. Only a broken, wheezing hiss came out.

Kane didn't look at my hand. He didn't care. He shoved me away with brutal force.

I collapsed onto the floor, my knees hitting the wood hard.

"Derrick, get the car to the front! Now!" Jameson yelled, his voice trembling with panic.

He was holding Haleigh. A tiny, single drop of blood was welling up on her forehead from the scrape.

Haleigh clung to Jameson's lapels. She kept her eyes half-closed, crying softly. "Jameson, I'm so scared... Why does Bailey hate me so much?"

"I've got you. You're going to be okay," Jameson whispered frantically. He turned his head and glared at me where I lay gasping on the floor. His eyes were pure ice. "If something happens to her, I will kill you myself, Bailey."

The four towering men formed a protective wall around Haleigh. They lifted her up and rushed her out the front doors, treating a paper-cut like a fatal gunshot wound.

The heavy brass doors slammed shut behind them.

The noise vanished. The manor fell into a deadly, suffocating silence.

I lay curled on the cold floor. I couldn't breathe. Anaphylactic shock was shutting down my organs. My airway was a pinhole.

I remembered being thirteen. I had a fever of 104 degrees. I was lying in the basement, shivering, while the entire family packed their bags and flew Haleigh to a ski resort in Switzerland because she had a mild sniffle and needed "fresh mountain air."

They left me to die then. They were leaving me to die now.

I dragged my body forward. My fingernails scraped against the wood. I forced myself to crawl toward the landline phone resting on the side table near the sofa.

My vision went completely black. My fingers brushed the plastic cord of the phone. Then, my strength snapped. My body crashed heavily onto the floor.

The swinging door to the kitchen suddenly pushed open.

Maria, the head maid, walked out holding a tray with a bowl of hot soup. "Mr. Jameson, I made—"

She stopped. She saw me lying motionless on the floor, surrounded by a puddle of dark, toxic blood leaking from the bite wound.

The tray slipped from her hands. The porcelain bowl shattered, hot soup splashing everywhere.

Maria screamed. She threw herself onto her knees beside me. She grabbed my shoulders, her hands shaking violently when she saw my black, swollen arm and my blue lips.

She scrambled over my body and grabbed the phone. Her fingers smashed the 911 buttons.

"Help! Please! Send an ambulance to the Douglas Estate!" Maria sobbed into the receiver. "She's been bitten! She's not breathing!"

While the operator dispatched the medics, Maria kept the phone pressed to her ear and pulled out her cell phone. She frantically dialed Jameson's number.

It rang twice. Then, it was declined.

She dialed Kane. Declined. Derrick. Declined.

They were hanging up on her.

Through the thick, crushing darkness of my fading consciousness, I felt something wet and warm hit my cheek. It was Maria's tears.

I used the absolute last shred of my energy to weakly curl my fingers around Maria's hand.

My heart slowed to a crawl. My mind went blank. But before the darkness took me completely, a single, burning thought branded itself into my soul.

"If I survive this, I will make all of you pay."

Bailey Douglas POV:

Blinding white light pierced through my heavy eyelids.

I slowly opened my eyes. The harsh glare of the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling forced me to blink rapidly. The rhythmic, mechanical hiss of a ventilator filled the room.

The sharp, chemical stench of bleach and iodine burned my nose. I tried to swallow, but it felt like I was swallowing crushed glass. My throat was raw and torn from the emergency intubation tube they had shoved down my windpipe to keep me alive.

A doctor in blue scrubs stood next to my bed, writing on a clipboard. When he saw my eyes open, his shoulders dropped in a heavy sigh of relief.

He reached over and pressed the nurse call button. "Ms. Douglas, you're awake. You went into severe anaphylactic shock last night. Your heart stopped for nearly a minute in the ambulance. You are very lucky to be breathing."

I tried to lift my right arm to touch my throat. It wouldn't move. I looked down and saw my entire right arm wrapped in thick, heavy white bandages, elevated on a foam block. It felt like it was made of solid lead.

The heavy soundproof door to the ICU swung open.

Maria rushed into the room. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. The moment she saw me awake, she let out a loud sob and threw herself at the side of my bed.

She grabbed my uninjured left hand, pressing it against her wet cheek. "Oh, thank God. Thank God. I was so scared, Bailey. I thought you weren't going to make it."

I looked at her crying face. I forced a weak, trembling smile. My lips cracked. "Thank you," I rasped. My voice sounded like grinding stones.

Growing up in the Douglas house, I was taught never to thank the help. The family believed servants existed to be used. But Maria was the only person in that cold mansion who had ever looked at me like a human being.

The doctor finished writing his notes. "You need to stay in the hospital for at least a week of strict observation. The necrotizing venom is still in your system. If you leave, the tissue damage could spread." He turned and walked out of the room.

The room fell quiet, save for the hum of the machines.

Maria wiped her face with a tissue. Her sadness suddenly morphed into fierce, trembling anger. "They didn't come, Bailey."

I stared at the ceiling. I didn't say anything.

"I called them over twenty times last night," Maria cried, her voice shaking with rage. "Finally, Kane answered the phone. I told him you were dying. Do you know what he said?"

My heart monitor beeped in a steady, unbroken rhythm. I already knew.

"He said, 'Let her die,' and hung up the phone." Maria choked on a sob. "They rented out the entire VIP floor of St. Jude's Private Hospital across town. They brought in plastic surgeons. For a scrape on Haleigh's forehead. A scrape!"

I looked at the white fluorescent lights. My eyes were completely dry. There was no pain left in my chest. No anger. Just a vast, frozen wasteland.

On the bedside table, a cheap burner phone suddenly vibrated. The screen lit up. Maria had brought it from my room.

She picked it up and handed it to me, her eyes hopeful. "Maybe it's Mr. Jameson. Maybe he finally realized..."

I took the phone with my left hand. I swiped the screen open. It wasn't Jameson. It was an encrypted text message from Abernathy.

[Island preliminary screening complete. Background checks initiated. However, the trust liquidation has a deficit. You are three million dollars short for the purchase.]

My pupils dilated. Three million dollars. It was the only wall standing between me and my freedom.

I stared at the screen. My brain rapidly calculated my options. I would rather die than touch a single cent of the Douglas family's money.

Then, a name I had buried three years ago flashed in my mind.

*Hale.*

It was my mother's maiden name. It was also the alias I created on the dark web. When I was locked in the Douglas basement for weeks at a time, my only escape was drawing on the concrete walls with pieces of burnt charcoal. That pain had birthed a monster in the art world.

I gripped the phone tightly. My knuckles turned white.

I threw the thin hospital blanket off my body. Ignoring Maria's loud gasp, I swung my heavy, trembling legs over the side of the bed.

The moment my bare feet hit the freezing linoleum floor, my knees buckled. I almost crashed to the ground, but Maria lunged forward and caught my waist.

"Bailey! What are you doing? Get back in bed!" she screamed.

I ground my teeth together. The pain radiating from my right arm was blinding. I reached over with my left hand and grabbed the thick IV needle taped to the back of my hand.

I ripped it out.

A stream of bright red blood instantly spurted out, dripping down my fingers and staining my pure white hospital gown.

Maria shrieked in horror. She grabbed a towel and pressed it against my bleeding hand. "Are you insane? The doctor said you'll die!"

I pressed my thumb hard against the puncture wound to stop the bleeding. I looked Maria dead in the eyes. My gaze was harder than steel.

"If I stay in this bed, I will die in that house," I told her.

I leaned my weight against the cold wall, forcing my spine completely straight. I looked at my pale, ghost-like reflection in the room's mirror.

"Go process the discharge. I have a massive deal to make."