Anastasia POV

The mud was not just cold; it was a living, freezing thing that seeped through my clothes, chilling the marrow of my bones. But the glacial hollow inside my chest was worse.

I looked up at Courtland. Rain cascaded from the brim of his umbrella, a gray curtain masking his expression.

"You knew?" I whispered. My voice was a jagged shard, barely audible over the roar of the storm.

He didn't answer. He just looked at me—the woman groveling in the filth—and then at Kinsley, the resurrected saint.

"Oh, Ana," Kinsley cooed. She stepped out from under the umbrella, sacrificing her dryness for the performance. She let the rain dampen her perfect blonde hair, a calculated move to appear fragile, open. "Don't look so shocked. You should be happy. I forgave you."

"Forgave me?" I choked, coughing as water and bile rose in my throat. "I didn't do anything! You framed me! You stole five years of my life!"

I scrambled to my feet, swaying drunkenly. I lunged for her. I wanted to tear that serene smile off her face.

Courtland stepped in front of her. His hand shot out, catching my throat.

He didn't squeeze, but he held me there, pinned in the suffocating air.

"Enough," he growled.

"She's lying, Courtland!" I screamed, clawing at his wrist until my nails broke. "She faked it! She did this to us!"

"She did it to protect herself from *you*," Courtland said, his voice hard as steel. "She told me everything. How you threatened her. How you were jealous of us. She had to disappear to stay alive."

My jaw dropped. The audacity of the lie was breathtaking.

"I saved you!" I shrieked, the truth finally bursting out. "In the garden! It was me! I was the one who fed you! I gave you the bead!"

Courtland’s eyes narrowed. For a second, just a second, a fracture of doubt appeared in his stoic mask.

"What bead?" Kinsley asked sharply.

I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing the smooth stone.

"This one," I sobbed, pulling out the lapis lazuli.

Courtland stared at it, his gaze locking onto the blue stone.

Kinsley laughed. It was a light, tinkling sound, like glass breaking. "Oh, Ana. You stole that from my jewelry box years ago. I wondered where it went."

The doubt in Courtland’s eyes vanished, snuffed out like a candle in a gale. It was replaced by disgust.

He released my throat. I fell back into the mud with a wet thud.

"Get her out of my sight," he ordered the guards who had appeared behind us.

"Wait," Kinsley said. She placed a delicate hand on Courtland’s arm. "She's sick, Courtland. Look at her. She needs... care. Let me look after her. It’s the Christian thing to do."

Courtland looked at her with blind adoration. "You are too good for this world, Kinsley."

He nodded. "She is yours."

*

Being Kinsley’s "patient" was worse than the kennels.

She moved me to the basement storage room. No bed. Just a pile of mildewed rugs.

She cut my hair while I slept. I woke up with jagged clumps missing, my scalp raw.

She told the staff I was contagious, so no one spoke to me. I was a ghost in my own hell.

But tonight was different.

A guard came to fetch me. "Dining room. Now."

I walked up the stairs, my legs heavy as lead. I was starving. I hadn't eaten in two days.

The formal dining room was set for a feast. Roast beef, potatoes, wine. The rich aroma made my stomach cramp violently.

Kinsley sat at the head of the table. Courtland was gone—business in the city.

She pointed to the floor.

There, on the expensive Persian rug, was a dog bowl.

It was filled with scraps. Gristle, congealed fat, and something that looked like wet dog food.

"Eat," Kinsley said, sipping her wine.

I stared at her. "No."

"Eat," she repeated, smiling over the rim of her glass. "Or I make a call to the West Wing. I hear Aspen is afraid of the dark. I can have the power cut to his room."

My blood ran cold.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

I looked at the bowl. Then I looked at her.

Slowly, my knees bent. I lowered myself to the floor.

I crawled toward the bowl.

The smell was revolting, rancid meat and stale grease.

"Good dog," Kinsley whispered.

I leaned down. I had to do this. For Aspen.

Just as my face neared the food, the double doors creaked open.

"Ana?"

The voice was small. Trembling.

I froze.

I lifted my head.

Standing in the doorway, clutching a worn teddy bear, was Aspen.

He looked older. Thinner. But his eyes were the same.

He was staring at me. His big sister. His hero.

On her hands and knees. Eating out of a dog bowl.

Kinsley clapped her hands in delight.

"Oh, look, Aspen! Your sister is having dinner. Doesn't she look hungry?"

Aspen’s lip trembled. Tears filled his eyes.

"Ana?" he whispered again. "Why?"

The sound of my name on his lips broke whatever was left of my heart.

I stood up. I didn't care about Kinsley. I didn't care about Courtland.

I wiped my mouth.

"Run, Aspen," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "Run."

Anastasia POV

"Run," I urged, my voice fracturing.

Aspen didn't run. He stood frozen in the doorway, his small knuckles turning white where he gripped his teddy bear. His eyes, wide and terrified, darted between me crouched on the floor and the woman sitting like a queen at the head of the table.

Kinsley laughed. It was a sound like crystal shattering on stone—sharp, jagged, and utterly dangerous.

"Don't be rude, Aspen," she purred, swirling the red wine in her glass. "Your sister is just showing us her true nature. Isn't that right, Ana?"

She nudged the dog bowl with the toe of her stiletto. The metal scraped loudly against the Persian rug, a screech of degradation.

"Eat," she commanded. "Or the boy sleeps in the dark tonight."

My stomach cramped, empty and aching, but the nausea rising in my throat had nothing to do with hunger. I looked at Aspen. I saw the confusion clouding his innocence. He was seeing his hero reduced to an animal.

That was her goal. Not just to break my body, but to sever the only connection that kept me human.

"Stop." The word scraped out of my throat. I stood up, my knees cracking in protest. I wiped the grease from my mouth with the back of my hand. "I’ll do whatever you want. Just let him go."

Kinsley smiled. She set her glass down with a deliberate clink.

"Whatever I want?"

"Yes."

She leaned forward, her blue eyes glittering with malice. "Divorce him."

The air left the room.

"What?"

"Divorce Courtland," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Sign the papers. Admit you are unfit. Admit you are an adulterous, drug-addicted rat. Leave the state. Leave the country. If you disappear, the boy stays safe. I’ll make sure he goes to a nice boarding school in Switzerland. Far away from this... mess."

I looked at Aspen. He was the only reason I had endured five years of hell. If I left, I couldn't protect him. But if I stayed, she would destroy us both.

"Do you promise?" I asked.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she mocked, tracing a jagged X over her chest.

"Okay."

The word tasted like defeat.

Kinsley snapped her fingers. Two maids appeared from the shadows, grabbing Aspen by the arms.

"No! Ana!" he screamed, kicking his legs.

"Go with them, Aspen," I choked out, tears blurring my vision. "I love you. Remember that. I love you."

They dragged him away. His screams echoed down the hallway until the heavy oak doors slammed shut, cutting off the sound with finality.

I was alone with the monster.

"Tonight," Kinsley said, throwing a manila envelope onto the table. "Take these to his study. Make him sign them. If you fail, I feed the boy to the dogs."

*

Outside, a storm battered the estate, rain slashing against the glass like shrapnel.

I stood outside Courtland’s study. My hand hovered over the brass knob. I was shaking. Not from cold, but from a bone-deep terror.

I pushed the door open.

Courtland sat behind his massive mahogany desk, the only light coming from a green banker’s lamp. He looked hollowed out. Shadows clung to the sharp angles of his cheeks. He was reading a file, his brow furrowed in concentration.

He looked up. His eyes were hard, unyielding.

"I did not send for you."

I walked forward, my legs heavy as lead. I placed the envelope on the desk.

"I want a divorce," I said.

The silence that followed was deafening. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner sounded like a bomb counting down to detonation.

Courtland didn't blink. He looked at the envelope, then at me.

"A divorce," he repeated flatly.

"Yes. I want to leave. I want nothing from you. No money. No alimony. Just... out."

He stood up slowly. He was looming over me, a dark tower of rage and power.

"You think you can just walk away?" he asked, his voice dangerously low. "You think you can shatter my family, murder my fiancée, crawl back from the grave, and then simply... quit?"

"I didn't kill anyone!" I cried. "But it doesn't matter anymore. Just let me go, Courtland. Please."

He reached out and grabbed the papers.

*RRRRRIP.*

He tore the thick stack in half. Then in quarters. He threw the shreds of white into the air. It rained down on us like snow.

"You are a Johnson," he roared, slamming his hands on the desk. "You wear my name. You wear my ring. You die when I say you die. You leave when I say you leave."

"I hate you!" I screamed, the five years of torture boiling over.

He rounded the desk in a blur of motion. He grabbed my waist, lifting me off my feet and slamming me against the edge of the desk.

"Good," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "Hate is passion. Indifference is what I cannot tolerate."

He pinned my wrists above my head. His body pressed against mine, hard and unyielding.

"You belong to me, Anastasia. Body. Soul. And every breath you dare to take in between."

He kissed me.

It wasn't a kiss of love. It was a punishment. It was a branding. His teeth clashed against mine, bruising my lips, stealing the air from my lungs. He was reclaiming his territory, marking me with his anger.

I didn't fight back. I went limp, a ragdoll caught in the jaws of a wolf.

Outside, thunder cracked, shaking the foundations of the house.