Charlotte Glover POV:

The emergency room doctor didn't ask questions.

He glanced at the name Glover on my file, then at the name Barnes on my emergency contact list, and suddenly became very interested in the pattern of the floor tiles.

"It's a complex fracture," he said, his voice tight. "Several metacarpals are crushed. You'll need surgery, but for now, we have to immobilize it."

He encased my right hand-my drawing hand, my life-in a heavy plaster cast.

I stared at the white surface. It looked like a sarcophagus for my career.

When I got back to the penthouse, it was dawn.

The pain meds made the world feel fuzzy, detached, wrapping my brain in cotton.

I walked into the living room. The shattered crystal was still on the floor, glittering like cruel diamonds.

I didn't clean it up.

Instead, I went to the shelves.

The photo of Bryant and me in the Hamptons. Into the bin.

The diamond earrings he gave me after he slept with his secretary. Into the bin.

The silk scarf from his mother. Into the bin.

I moved like a ghost, stripping the apartment of his presence. I wanted a blank slate. I wanted a void.

When the door opened at noon, the living room was barren.

Bryant walked in, stopped, and looked around.

"Did we get robbed?" he asked, sounding more inconvenienced than concerned.

I was sitting on the sofa, nursing a cup of tea with my left hand. The cast was resting on a velvet pillow like a grotesque centerpiece.

"I redecorated," I said.

His eyes landed on my cast. He didn't flinch. He didn't ask if it hurt.

"You got a cast. I told you not to make a scene."

"It's hard to be subtle when your bones are pulverized," I said, my voice devoid of emotion.

He sighed, loosening his tie as if I were a tedious business meeting that had run overtime. "You're so dramatic. Kalia feels terrible, you know. She said she barely touched you."

"Is that why you're here? To deliver her apology?"

"I'm here because I left the pearl necklace in the safe. Kalia wants to wear it tonight."

The air punched out of my lungs.

The pearls were my grandmother's. They were part of my dowry. They were the only thing I had left of a woman who actually loved me.

"Those are mine," I said.

"They are family assets," he corrected, walking past me to the wall safe. "And since you are joining the family, they belong to the Syndicate. Which means they belong to me."

He punched in the code.

He took the velvet box.

He didn't even look at me as he walked back to the door.

"Wear something long sleeves tonight," he said over his shoulder. "Hide that ugly thing."

The door closed.

He came back for jewelry. Not for me.

I sat there for a long time, the silence of the apartment ringing in my ears.

Then, I stood up.

I went to my closet.

I bypassed the long-sleeved, modest gowns Bryant approved of.

I pulled out a dress I had designed myself but never worn.

It was black.

Silk.

Backless.

It clung to every curve like a second skin and slit up the thigh high enough to be considered a weapon.

It wasn't a dress for a fiancée. It was a dress for a widow.

I was mourning the death of my engagement, even if the body wasn't cold yet.

I arrived at the Sterling Gala alone.

The moment I stepped onto the red carpet, the whispers started.

The black dress was a statement. The cast on my arm was a scream.

I held my head high, channeling every ounce of Syndicate etiquette I had endured.

Inside the ballroom, the air was thick with expensive perfume and corruption.

I saw them immediately.

Bryant was holding court near the champagne fountain.

Kalia was draped over him, wearing my grandmother's pearls.

They glowed against her skin, a perverse mockery of my heritage.

I walked straight toward them.

The crowd parted. They sensed the violence in the air.

Bryant saw me. His eyes widened, scanning the dress, the exposed skin, the defiance.

Lust flickered in his gaze, followed quickly by anger.

"Charlotte," he warned as I approached.

Kalia smirked, swirling her drink. "Oh look, the cripple made it. Love the cast, very... avant-garde."

"And I see you're wearing stolen property," I said, my voice carrying over the music. "It suits you. Thieves usually do have sticky fingers."

The circle around us went silent.

Bryant stepped forward, his body blocking me from the crowd.

"You're drunk," he hissed. "Go home."

"I haven't had a drop," I said, meeting his eyes. "I'm just finally seeing clearly."

"You're embarrassing me," he growled.

"You embarrass yourself," I retorted. "Walking around with a mistress who looks like she costs by the hour while your fiancée stands here with the bones she broke."

Kalia gasped, playing the victim perfectly. "Bryant, she's scaring me!"

"Go to the balcony," Bryant ordered me, his fingers digging into my uninjured arm. "Now."

I yanked my arm away.

"Fine. The air in here stinks of cheap perfume anyway."

I turned and walked toward the terrace doors.

I needed air. I needed to breathe.

But as I stepped out into the cool night air, I heard the click of heels behind me.

I turned.

Kalia was there.

And she wasn't smiling anymore.

"You think you're smart?" she sneered, closing the distance. "You're just an expired contract. He doesn't want you. He wants the merger."

"At least I bring an empire to the table," I said coldly. "You bring nothing but your knees."

Her face twisted in ugly rage.

"I'm going to be Mrs. Barnes," she screamed. "And you're going to be nothing."

She lunged.

Charlotte Glover POV:

Kalia moved fast, fueled by a volatile mix of envy and entitlement, but her anger made her clumsy.

She lunged at my face, her manicured nails aiming straight for my eyes.

I stepped back, my heel catching on the uneven flagstones of the terrace.

Kalia stumbled forward, her own momentum betraying her. She tripped over the hem of her gown and crashed to her knees, scraping them hard against the rough concrete.

"My dress!" she shrieked, the sound piercing the night air.

The terrace doors flew open.

Bryant rushed out, his security detail flanking him like a dark wall.

He saw Kalia on the ground. He saw me standing over her.

He didn't ask what happened. He didn't look for context.

He simply made his choice.

"You crazy bitch!" Kalia screamed, pointing a trembling finger at me. "She pushed me! She tried to throw me over!"

It was a lie so blatant, so absurd, that it was almost laughable.

But Bryant wasn't laughing.

He helped Kalia up, inspecting her knees with a tenderness usually reserved for fine porcelain.

Then, he turned to me.

The look in his eyes was terrifying. It was the gaze of the Don he would one day become-merciless, cold, and utterly devoid of humanity.

"You assaulted my guest," he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Again."

"She attacked me," I countered, my voice steady despite the trembling in my legs. "Check the cameras."

"There are no cameras on this balcony," Bryant said, his tone flat. "I had them disabled for privacy."

Of course he did.

"Apologize to her," he commanded.

I looked at Kalia, who was smirking behind her theatrical tears.

"No."

Bryant moved so fast I didn't have time to draw a breath.

He seized the bodice of my dress, bunching the expensive silk in his fist, and dragged me violently toward the stone railing.

"Bryant!" I gasped, clawing at his hand with my cast.

He slammed my back against the stone balustrade. Below us, the garden was a twenty-foot drop onto a tiled patio.

"You want to see what happens when you push people?" he snarled, his face inches from mine, his breath hot against my skin. "You want to test gravity?"

"Bryant, stop," I pleaded, real fear finally piercing through my anger. "You're hurting me."

"Kalia is upset," he said, as if that justified murder. "She feels unsafe."

"She's lying!"

"She's mine!" he roared, the sound vibrating through my chest. "And you... you are just a liability."

He leaned me back. My feet left the secure ground.

The wind whipped my hair across my face. I stared up at the vast, indifferent night sky, realizing with a jolt of horror that he might actually do it.

"Throw her over," Kalia whispered, her voice like poison. "Teach her a lesson."

Bryant hesitated.

For a split second, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes-sanity? A memory?

Then Kalia let out a soft, pathetic sob. "My knees are bleeding, baby."

The flicker vanished.

He didn't throw me.

He simply... let go.

He released his grip on my dress.

Gravity took over.

I tipped backward over the railing.

The fall was silent. The impact was not.

I hit the terrace tiles with a sickening crunch.

Pain exploded in my leg, a white-hot fire so intense it blinded me. My head slammed against the stone, and the world spun.

I lay there, gasping for air that wouldn't come, my body broken and twisted.

Through the haze, I looked up at the balcony.

Bryant was standing there, looking down like a dark god.

He wasn't rushing to call for help. He wasn't screaming in horror.

He turned his back.

He scooped Kalia into his arms and carried her back inside the warmth of the party.

He left me there.

Darkness swarmed the edges of my vision.

I was going to die here, in a black dress, under the stars, while my fiancé comforted his mistress.

I woke to the rhythmic beep of machines.

The sharp sting of antiseptic burned my nose.

I peeled my eyes open. White ceiling. White walls.

My leg was elevated, encased in a heavy cast. My hand was still trapped in its plaster prison.

I felt like a collection of broken bones barely held together by skin.

A nurse walked in, checking my chart.

"You're awake," she said, her voice dripping with that professional pity I loathed.

"How long?" I croaked, my throat like sandpaper.

"Two days. You had a severe concussion and a compound fracture of the tibia."

"Did anyone come?" I asked, hating myself for the question.

She hesitated, her gaze shifting.

"Mr. Barnes was here."

A spark of hope, pathetic and small, ignited in my chest.

"He was?"

"Yes," she said, adjusting my IV drip. "He was in the VIP suite down the hall. His... companion... needed treatment for scraped knees. He stayed with her all night."

The spark didn't just die; it froze into ice.

"I see," I whispered.

"He left instructions that you aren't to be disturbed," the nurse added, checking the monitor. "He said you needed time to reflect on your behavior."

Reflect.

I closed my eyes.

I saw him turning his back on the balcony.

I saw him carrying her away.

I realized then that it wasn't just that he didn't love me.

He hated me.

He hated me because I was the obligation. I was the shackle.

And for Kalia, he would burn the world.

But he had made a mistake.

He didn't kill me.

And the woman who woke up in that hospital bed wasn't the Caged Canary anymore.

She was the Thorny Rose.

And she was going to draw blood.

Charlotte Glover POV

A sharp chime sliced through the silence of the hospital room.

I fumbled for the phone on the bedside table with my good hand, fingers trembling slightly.

It was a photo.

Bryant and Kalia. In bed. His arm draped over her, her head resting possessively on his chest.

The caption read: He's exhausted from worrying about me. Best nurse ever.

I stared at the screen until the pixels swam together.

It was sent ten minutes ago. While I lay here with a metal rod in my leg.

I didn't cry. I think the reservoir had finally run dry.

The door to my room burst open.

I expected a doctor.

Instead, Bryant stormed in.

He looked disheveled. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, the look of a man unhinged.

He crossed the room in two predatory strides and grabbed the front of my hospital gown.

"Where is she?" he roared.

I gasped, pain shooting through my ribs. "What?"

"Kalia! Where is she?"

"I don't know! I've been in a coma, you lunatic!"

"She's gone," he spat, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth. "She sent me a text saying she felt unsafe because of your threats. Now her phone is off. Where did you send your goons?"

"I didn't send anyone! I can't even walk!"

"Liar!"

With a savage yank, he tore the IV out of my arm. A hot spray of blood hit the pristine sheets.

"You're coming with me."

"I can't leave! My leg-"

He didn't care. He scooped me up, ignoring my scream of agony as my broken leg jostled violently against his hip.

He carried me out the service exit, past the security guards who looked away, too terrified of the Barnes empire to intervene.

He tossed me into the back of his SUV like a bag of refuse.

He drove with a lethal, silent focus.

Not to the penthouse. Not to the police station.

He drove to the Meatpacking District. To one of the warehouses the Syndicate used for "storage."

He dragged me inside.

It was an industrial wine cellar, a massive walk-in freezer used for high-end vintages.

He threw me onto the metal floor. The cold seeped through my thin hospital gown instantly, biting into my skin.

"You stay here until you tell me where she is," he said, his breath fogging in the frigid air.

"Bryant, please," I chattered, my teeth clacking together uncontrollably. "I don't know. I swear."

"Think about it," he said, his voice devoid of mercy.

He walked out.

The heavy steel door slammed shut. The lock engaged with a sound like a gunshot.

Darkness.

Cold.

It started as a sting, then a burn, then a terrifying numbness that crept up my fingers and toes.

I curled into a ball, trying to preserve heat, but the concrete floor sucked the life out of me.

Time lost its meaning.

Was it an hour? Five?

My broken leg throbbed with a dull, distant ache. My mind started to drift into dangerous places.

I thought about Jaden.

Why hadn't I called him? Why had I been so proud?

Burn it down, I had texted.

Maybe I was the kindling.

I started to hallucinate. I saw my father standing in the corner. I saw the wedding dress I would never wear turning to ash.

My skin turned blue. My breathing slowed to shallow hitches.

I was freezing to death in a wine cellar because my fiancé loved a lie.

Suddenly, the door hissed open.

Light blinded me.

Bryant stood there. He wasn't alone.

Kalia was with him. She was wearing oversized sunglasses and holding a shopping bag from Bergdorf's.

"Oh my god," she said, sounding bored. "Is she dead?"

Bryant rushed to me, dropping to his knees. He touched my face. His hands felt like fire against my frozen skin.

"Charlotte?"

I couldn't speak. My jaw was locked tight.

"She... she was at a spa," Bryant stammered, looking at me with wide, horrified eyes. "She turned her phone off for a detox weekend. She wasn't kidnapped."

I stared up at him.

He had tortured me. He had nearly killed me. For a spa weekend.

"Get her a blanket!" he screamed at his guards.

He lifted me up, cradling me against his chest. "I'm sorry. Charlotte, stay with me. I didn't know."

I wanted to push him away, but my arms wouldn't move.

"You..." I rasped, my voice a broken whisper.

"Shh, save your strength," he said, running back to the car.

I blacked out again.

When I woke up, I was back in a hospital bed. A different one. A VIP private suite.

Warmth. Heavy blankets.

Bryant was sitting in the chair next to the bed. He was holding my phone.

He looked up when I stirred.

He didn't look arrogant. The usual armor was cracked; he looked shaken.

"You're awake," he said softly.

He held up my phone.

"It rang," he said. "A reminder for your birthday party next week. The notification said 'Dinner with Jaden'."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Who is Jaden? And why did you tell the staff I was out of the country?"

I stared at him.

The audacity.

After the balcony. After the freezer.

He was jealous.

I felt a laugh bubble up in my chest, dark and jagged like broken glass.

I reached out with my casted hand and snatched the phone from his grip.

"Get out," I whispered.

"Charlotte, we need to talk about compensation. I can-"

"Get. Out."

He stood up, adjusting his jacket, regaining his composure.

"I'll have the bill sent to my office. Rest up. We have a public image to maintain."

He walked to the door.

"Oh, and Charlotte?"

He paused, hand on the handle.

"Happy early birthday."

He left.

I looked at the phone.

I unlocked it.

I found Jaden's number.

I didn't text this time.

I hit call.