Eloise's POV

The City Hall clerk's office.

It was a stark contrast to the gilded ballroom I had just left, but the air in here felt cleaner.

Less suffocating.

Alphonse stood beside me, his heavy, steady hand signing the marriage certificate.

He slashed his name in black ink-a sharp, jagged signature that looked less like letters and more like a scar.

"Sign," he said, sliding the paper toward me.

I picked up the pen. My hand hovered over the paper for a split second.

This wasn't a fairy tale. It was a corporate merger. A hostile takeover. I was handing my freedom over to a man rumored to have cut out a capo's tongue just for interrupting him at the dinner table.

But the alternative was being Holden's pathetic ex-fiancée. The girl who wasn't sick enough to make him stay.

I signed. Eloise Bowers.

The clerk stamped the document with a heavy thud.

"Done," Alphonse stated.

He didn't smile, and he didn't kiss me.

He took the certificate, folded it, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, right next to where I knew he kept his gun. "You are under my protection now. Go to my estate; my guards will pack your things."

"I need to go home first," I said. "I need to face him when he gets back."

Alphonse glanced at me. For a fleeting second, I caught a glint in his abyssal eyes.

Was it approval? Or just dark amusement at watching a bug try to fight a hurricane?

"One hour," he said. "If you don't walk out, I'm coming in. And if I come in, I'm burning the house down."

I took an Uber back to the estate I shared with Holden.

It was a sprawling mansion in Lake Forest, paid for with Woodward blood money.

I was packing my jewelry into a velvet box when the front door banged open.

"Eloise!"

Holden.

He stormed into the bedroom, his tie loosened and his hair disheveled. He looked panicked, bordering on frantic.

He reeked of harsh hospital antiseptics.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, pacing the room. "I called you ten times. Jaidyn... thank God, it was a false alarm. Just severe stress. Her heart is fragile, El. You know that."

I didn't look up, my eyes fixed on my jewelry box as I snapped the lid shut.

"I'm glad she's okay," I said. My voice was completely flat, utterly lifeless.

"Why are you packing?" he stopped in his tracks, staring at the suitcase on the bed.

Suddenly, a high, strained laugh escaped his throat. "You're overreacting. It was an emergency. I couldn't just watch her die on the floor. You're being jealous."

He actually looked a little smug.

"Jealousy implies I want what someone else has," I said, turning to face him. "I don't want you anymore, Holden. Not even a little bit."

He flinched. "You're angry, I get it. We'll reschedule the wedding. Next month, once Jaidyn's condition stabilizes."

"There is no wedding next month," I said. "I'm already married."

Holden froze. He went as pale as a wax figure.

"What?"

"I fixed your mistake for you," I said, walking past him toward the door. "I secured the alliance. I married the Don."

Holden grabbed my arm. His grip was harsh, bruising. It was the first time he had ever touched me in anger.

"You're lying," he hissed. "Alphonse wouldn't do that. He knows you're mine."

"I was never yours," I said, looking pointedly down at his hand on my arm until he let go, stung by my icy demeanor. "I was your responsibility. And you failed me."

"You're just doing this to hurt me!" he yelled, following me into the hallway. "This joke needs to stop!"

"I did this to survive," I said. I pulled the front door open.

Outside, a line of black SUVs idled in the driveway. Alphonse was leaning against the hood of the lead car, smoking a cigarette.

Holden saw him and stopped dead in the doorway.

"He's my brother," Holden whispered, his voice trembling with real fear.

"He's your boss," I corrected.

I walked down the steps. The night air was biting, but as I approached Alphonse, I felt a strange, radiating heat. He tossed his cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it under his boot.

He opened the car door for me.

"Did he touch you?" Alphonse asked. He wasn't looking at me; his eyes were fixed on Holden cowering in the doorway.

"No," I lied.

I didn't want to see blood on my wedding night. At least, not yet.

Alphonse nodded. "Get in."

I slid onto the leather seat. As the car pulled away, I watched Holden in the rearview mirror. He looked so small, so utterly insignificant.

But right before we turned the corner, I caught the look in his eyes. It wasn't just heartbreak.

It was sheer, unadulterated madness.

Eloise's POV

The first two weeks of being married to Alphonse Woodward felt less like a honeymoon and more like taking up residence inside the crater of a dormant volcano.

He was perfectly polite, but ice-cold. He slept in the room next to mine, separated by a wall of drywall and courteous formalities.

We ate breakfast in silence-he with his head buried in intel files on extortion rings, me buried in art history journals.

He draped me in emeralds that matched my eyes and surrounded me with a security detail that rivaled the President's.

But I knew it was just the calm before the storm.

Holden had vanished without a trace. He had been stripped of his rank, his assets frozen by Alphonse.

And Jaidyn was the wildcard.

I was pruning white roses in the greenhouse of the Woodward estate. The thorns were sharp, snagging against my leather gloves.

"You grip those shears way too hard."

I spun around. Jaidyn was standing in the doorway of the glass structure.

She shouldn't be here. This estate was built like a fortress.

"How did you get in?" I asked, tightening my grip on the shears.

She smiled. Her face was pale, her skin practically translucent. She wore a white sundress that made her look deceptively innocent.

"Holden still has loyal men on the inside," she said softly, taking a step closer. "I just wanted to talk, Eloise. Woman to woman."

"We aren't the same species," I snapped back. "Leave before I call the guards."

"You stole him," she said, her facade of sweetness dropping in an instant. "Alphonse. You know I was working on him before Holden. You know I needed protection."

"Jaidyn, you need a psychiatrist, not a mafia boss."

And then, she lunged.

It happened so suddenly, so clumsily. She threw herself at me-not to hit me, but to grab the shears. We wrestled for a brief moment. For a girl who claimed to be dying of heart failure, she was shockingly strong.

"Let go!" I yelled, shoving her away.

She stumbled and fell backward onto the grass.

Then, she screamed.

It was a bloodcurdling shriek, as if she were being gutted alive.

"My heart! Oh my God, you hit me! You hit me in the chest!"

Before I could even process the absolute absurdity of the situation, the greenhouse door shattered open.

Holden was there.

His eyes were bloodshot, his expression utterly deranged. He didn't even look at me; his eyes were glued to Jaidyn, curled up on the ground.

"She tried to kill me!" Jaidyn sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at me. "She knows about my condition! She punched me right in the heart!"

"No," I said, taking a step back. "Holden, look at her. She's faking it."

Holden didn't look at her. He turned to me with a look of pure, searing hatred.

"You monster!" he spat.

"Holden, this is suicide," I said, fighting to keep my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands. "You are on Alphonse's territory. If you lay a hand on me..."

"Alphonse stole you," Holden said, stalking toward me. "He stole my life, he stole my position. And now you're trying to kill the only thing I have left?"

Two masked men filed in behind him. Rogue soldiers. Traitors who had chosen loyalty to the Don's brother over the Godfather himself.

"Grab her," Holden ordered.

I raised the shears. "Back off."

Holden walked right up to me, ignoring the makeshift weapon in my hand, and backhanded me across the face.

The metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. I dropped to my knees, the shears clattering onto the walkway.

"You're going to save her, Eloise," Holden whispered, grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back. "You want to kill her? Fine. You can give her your life instead."

He dragged me out of the greenhouse. I kicked, I screamed, but the sedative needle one of his men plunged into my neck worked fast.

The last thing I saw was Jaidyn standing up, brushing herself off, and watching me with a twisted smirk.

Eloise's POV

Consciousness returned to me in a thick fog of damp concrete and the acrid stench of bleach.

I instinctively tried to move my hands, but the zip ties bit deeply into my wrists.

I looked down to find myself strapped to a chair, sitting in what looked like a basement retrofitted into a makeshift operating room.

A surgical light hung directly above me, the glaring beam blinding me.

"She's awake." Holden's voice.

He stepped into the light. He had shaved his head. He was wearing a white doctor's coat over his tactical gear. The getup was grotesque-like a child playing surgeon with the intentions of a butcher.

"Where are we?" I rasped.

"Somewhere Alphonse can't find us," Holden said. He didn't look at me; he was busy laying out instruments on a metal tray. Needles, IV tubing, scalpels. "He thinks you ran away. Jaidyn left a note, perfectly forging your handwriting. It was very convincing."

"He won't believe it," I said, my voice growing a fraction stronger. "He knows I never run."

"He knows you're a spoiled princess," Holden turned to me, his eyes bloodshot and unhinged. "And he knows you absolutely loathe this marriage."

"You are the one I loathe," I corrected him, holding his gaze. "I respect him."

Holden's face twisted into an ugly sneer. He picked up a thick needle, the metal glinting menacingly under the harsh light.

"Jaidyn is sick, Eloise. Very sick. Her heart... it's failing. The stress from you attacking her finally pushed her over the edge."

"I never laid a hand on her," I said, struggling against the plastic ties. "She's playing you, Holden. She's been playing you for ten years."

"Shut up!" He slammed a hand on the tray, making the instruments clatter. "She needs a blood transfusion. It's the only way to keep her strength up until I can source a compatible heart donor from the black market. Your blood type is a match. O-negative. The universal donor. Isn't that ironic?"

The door opened.

Jaidyn walked in.

She looked radiant, her cheeks flushed with a healthy color. She looked perfectly fine. She was even eating an apple.

"Is she ready?" Jaidyn asked, taking a loud, crisp bite of the fruit.

I stared at her in sheer disbelief. "You're eating. You're walking. You are perfectly fine."

Jaidyn winked at me. She literally winked.

"Holden, I feel so weak," she cooed, her voice instantly dropping to a frail whisper. She leaned against the doorframe, letting the apple slip from her hand. "I feel like... I'm going to pass out."

Holden rushed to her side instantly, abandoning me. "Sit down, baby. I'm starting the procedure now. I'll get the blood for you."

He guided her to a plush armchair in the corner. She sat down, flashing me a knowing smirk over his shoulder.

"Holden, look at her!" I screamed, thrashing against the chair. "She's playing you! She's jealous of me, and she wants to bleed me dry!"

Holden marched back to me. He grabbed my arm, roughly swabbing the inside of my elbow with alcohol.

"You don't get a say in this," he growled. "You lost the right to speak the second you tried to kill an angel."

"She's not an angel," I whispered. "She's a succubus."

Without a hint of hesitation, he plunged the needle into my vein.

I gasped. The pain was sharp and intense. Dark red blood surged through the tubing, flowing at an alarming rate into the collection bag hung on the IV pole.

"Comfy?" Jaidyn asked from her corner.

"Go to hell," I spat.

She giggled. "Your husband isn't coming. No one is coming."

I watched helplessly as my life force drained from my body, filling the plastic bag. A deep chill set into my bones. My vision began to blur, the edges of the room turning fuzzy.

But I didn't beg. My maiden name was Bowers. My married name was Woodward.

I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of a single scream.

Three days.

I spent three agonizing days handcuffed to that chair.

Holden had drained three bags of blood from me.

I felt incredibly heavy, trapped in an endless spell of dizziness. I was severely dehydrated, surviving on mere sips of water and dry crackers, just because Holden wanted my blood kept "pure."

Jaidyn sat in the corner, idly flipping through a fashion magazine. She was hooked up to an IV tube that supposedly led somewhere. The saline solution was just dripping onto the floor behind her chair, pooling on the concrete, but Holden was too obsessed with monitoring my drip rate to even notice.

"She looks pale," Jaidyn said, bored. "Maybe drain another pint, just to be safe."

"That might kill her," Holden muttered. He was in a daze, his eyes bloodshot. He hadn't slept, entirely consumed by his twisted medical fantasy. "If she dies, the supply dries up."

"If she dies, we dump the body and flee the country," Jaidyn said coldly. She stood up and sauntered over to me. She scrutinized my face-the dark circles under my eyes, my cracked lips.

She smirked. "You don't look much like a Mafia Queen right now, Eloise. You look like a junkie."

"And you," I rasped, "look like a cheap whore in borrowed clothes."

Jaidyn's expression hardened. She reached out and brutally jammed the needle deeper into my arm.

A sharp pain shot up to my shoulder, and I let out a groan.

"Holden, get another bag," she ordered. "She still has way too much fight in her."

"Okay," Holden said. He was nothing but a puppet, a weapon she pointed and fired. "One more."

He reached for a fresh bag.

I closed my eyes. I was destined to die right here.

Alphonse.

I thought of his dark eyes, the way he had looked at me at the wedding.

One hour. If you don't walk out, I'm coming in.

That deadline had passed days ago. He didn't come. Maybe Holden was right. Maybe he truly believed I had run away.

Holden hooked up the new bag. The pull started again. A cold wave washed over my chest.

Suddenly, there was a sound.

Not from inside the room, but from above.

A thud. Heavy. Like a body hitting the floor.

Holden froze. "What was that?"

"Probably just the wind," Jaidyn said, but her voice trembled. "Hurry up and finish this."

Holden tensed, his hands visibly shaking.

"Don't worry," Jaidyn insisted. "Alphonse isn't coming."

"There's no love between him and Eloise. It's just a transaction."

Another muffled thud. Then the sound of splintering wood.

Holden snatched a gun from the tray. "Stay here."

He moved toward the door.

Before he could even reach it, the steel door exploded inward.

It wasn't kicked open; it was blown off its hinges by C4. The room instantly filled with acrid gray smoke.

Holden fired blindly into the haze. Bang! Bang!

A silhouette emerged from the gray mist. A titan. A demon.