Kenia Hayes POV

Freedom tasted sweet for exactly forty-eight hours before it turned to ash.

I was staying in a run-down motel in Queens, trying to figure out how to disappear with only twelve dollars in my pocket.

The burner phone I’d bought with cash buzzed against the cheap laminate nightstand.

It wasn't a number.

It was just the word RUN.

Before I could even process it, the door splintered off its hinges.

Two men in ski masks filled the frame, blocking out the hallway light.

They didn't speak.

They lunged.

I fought, my nails raking uselessly against thick leather jackets, my boots connecting with shins.

One of them backhanded me.

My head snapped back, and the world went blurry at the edges.

They dragged me into a van before I could scream.

A black bag went over my head, plunging me into darkness.

The air inside was thick with the nauseating smell of gasoline and old sweat.

We drove for what felt like an hour.

When the van stopped, they hauled me out and marched me across crunching gravel.

I could hear the roar of the ocean.

The bag was ripped off.

We were at the Cliffside Villa.

Holden’s private estate.

But it wasn't a romantic getaway.

It was a stage.

I was shoved into a chair in the center of the patio.

Zip ties bit into the tender skin of my wrists.

Across from me, tied to another chair, was Estella.

She looked perfect, even in distress.

Her hair was tousled just right.

Her makeup was smudge-free.

"Help!" she screamed, her eyes darting to a camera set up on a tripod. "Holden, please!"

Holden stepped out from the shadows like a dark prince entering his court.

He held a gun.

He looked like a god of vengeance, jaw set, eyes dark.

"Let them go," he growled at the masked men.

"You can only save one, Boss," one of the men said, his voice distorted by a modulator.

"The other goes over the edge."

He pointed to the cliff behind us.

It was a sheer drop straight into the jagged rocks and churning water.

Holden looked at me.

Then he looked at Estella.

For a split second, the mask slipped.

I saw the flicker of amusement in his eyes.

This wasn't a kidnapping.

This was Prank #98.

I had seen the list on his iPad once.

Social experiments.

Tests of loyalty.

Sick games for rich psychopaths.

"I choose..." Holden paused for dramatic effect, looking straight into the camera lens. "Estella."

He rushed to her, cutting her bonds with a knife he pulled from his boot.

He pulled her into a passionate, cinematic kiss.

The masked men grabbed my chair.

"No!" I screamed, the terror real even if the scenario wasn't. "Holden!"

He didn't even look back.

He was too busy playing the hero for his future wife.

The men pushed.

I tipped backward.

Gravity snatched me.

I fell.

The wind rushed past my ears like a scream.

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the impact of rocks.

Waiting for death.

Instead, I hit something soft.

Air hissed out around me violently.

I bounced.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on a giant yellow stunt airbag on the lower deck of the villa.

Above me, on the balcony, Holden and Estella were looking down, laughing.

Estella was holding a glass of champagne.

"You should have seen your face!" she shrieked.

Holden leaned over the railing.

"It's just a game, Kenia," he called down, his voice carrying effortlessly over the wind. "Don't be so dramatic. The airbag cost five grand."

I lay there, staring up at the gray sky.

My body ached.

My heart was a crater.

He hadn't just broken my heart.

He had turned my terror into content for his amusement.

I wasn't a person to him.

I was a prop.

And props don't get to walk away.

Kenia Hayes POV

I dragged myself away from the villa, the raucous sounds of their celebration still drifting from the upstairs windows like a cruel taunt.

My ankle was twisted, throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

My dignity was in shreds.

I reached the main road just as the sun began to set, bruising the horizon in violent shades of purple and black.

I had one card left to play.

A card I had sworn never to touch.

Approaching a payphone outside a closed gas station, my fingers trembled as I punched in the number burned into my memory from three years ago.

It rang once.

"Speak."

The voice was low. Raspy. Laced with dormant violence.

"It's Kenia Hayes," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

There was a silence on the other end.

Heavy. Thick. Suffocating.

"Where are you?"

"Route 9, near the Dalton cliffs."

"Stay in the shadows. Do not move. If a car passes, hide."

The line went dead.

Gael Simpson.

The Don of the Simpson Syndicate.

The rival family.

He was the monster under the bed that Holden had always told me to fear.

But Holden was the one who had just thrown me off a cliff for a laugh.

Twenty minutes later, a black SUV rolled up, headlights cut.

The back door opened.

I barely registered the shadow of a driver in the front.

I just saw him.

Gael.

He was sitting in the back, dressed in a suit that cost more than my entire life.

He didn't smile.

He didn't offer a hand.

He just looked at me with eyes like burnished steel.

"Get in," he commanded.

I climbed in, wincing as I pulled my injured leg inside.

The interior smelled of rich leather and expensive scotch.

"He broke you," Gael stated.

It wasn't a question.

"Yes," I said, my voice hollow.

"Then the contract begins," he said, his tone finalizing my fate. "Three months. You belong to me."

"I know."

My head spun. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a cold, shaking shock.

"I need... I need a hospital," I mumbled, vision blurring.

"Arthur," Gael said to the silhouette in the driver's seat. "St. Jude's. The private wing."

The darkness took me before we even hit the highway.

*

I woke up in a white room.

The steady *beep-beep-beep* of a monitor was the only sound.

A TV was mounted on the wall, playing the news on mute.

I blinked, trying to focus through the haze of medication.

I saw Holden’s face on the screen.

He was standing at a podium, looking solemn.

Estella was beside him, dabbing at dry eyes with a handkerchief.

I fumbled for the remote on the side table and unmuted it.

"...tragic misunderstanding," Holden was saying, his voice smooth as poisoned honey. "Kenia was unstable. She was jealous of my engagement to Estella. She threw herself off the balcony in a bid for attention. We are just grateful she survived."

Liar.

"We are praying for her recovery," Estella added, her voice trembling with practiced grief. "She needs help."

The door to my hospital room opened.

Holden walked in.

He was wearing the same suit from the press conference, fresh from his performance.

He held a bouquet of lilies.

"You're awake," he said, closing the door with a soft click.

He tossed the flowers onto the end of the bed.

"Lilies," I rasped, my throat tightening. "I'm allergic to lilies."

Holden paused.

He frowned, genuine confusion knitting his brow.

"Are you?" he asked. "I didn't know that."

Three years.

He didn't know I was allergic to lilies.

He didn't know anything about me.

"Get out," I said.

"Don't be like that, baby," he cooed, stepping closer. "The press ate it up. You're the tragic ex. I'm the benevolent savior. It's good for the stock price."

He reached out to touch my face.

I flinched violently.

"Don't touch me."

"You're still mine, Kenia," he whispered, his eyes darkening into two pits of obsession. "You live in my city. You breathe my air. Don't think for a second you can leave."

He didn't know who had brought me here.

He thought his men had found me.

He didn't know the wolf was already inside the house.

Kenia Hayes POV

Two weeks later, he didn't just ask me to attend the Art Center Charity Gala; he commanded it.

"It's for Mr. Evans," Holden had said, dangling my mentor's name before me like bait. "He's receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. You wouldn't want to miss that, would you?"

I wore the dress he picked out.

Black.

Backless.

A collar of diamonds fastened tight around my throat—a decoration that felt far less like jewelry and far more like a leash.

The gala was in full swing when we arrived.

Crystal chandeliers dripped light from the ceiling.

Champagne towers shimmered like liquid gold.

The elite of the underworld were mingling with high-court judges and politicians, a seamless blend of crime and legality.

Holden gripped my elbow, his fingers acting as a vice, steering me through the crowd.

Estella was already there, holding court near the main stage.

She was wearing white.

Of course.

"And here is the artist behind the restoration of the chapel," the announcer boomed over the speakers.

I looked up.

My work.

The frescos I had spent six months painstakingly restoring, breathing life back into fading pigment.

High-definition images of them flashed on the giant screen behind the podium.

"Please welcome, Estella Duncan!"

Applause thundered.

I froze.

Estella walked up the stairs, waving with practiced grace.

"Thank you," she gushed into the microphone, feigning humility. "It was a labor of love."

I felt the blood drain from my face until I was cold all over.

She hadn't touched a brush.

She didn't know the difference between tempera and oil, between a glaze and a scumble.

I looked at Holden.

He was clapping.

"You gave her my work," I said.

My voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a collapsing building.

"She needs the good press, Kenia," Holden said without glancing down at me. "You're a nobody. No one cares if you restored a ceiling. But a Mafia Princess doing charity work? That's a headline."

Something snapped.

It wasn't a loud snap.

It was the sound of the last thread binding me to sanity finally breaking.

I reached into my clutch.

I pulled out the folded piece of paper I had carried with me since the day he proposed.

The marriage license.

He had told me we were married in secret, a private ceremony before the big public one.

I walked onto the stage.

The applause died down into confused murmurs as I approached the microphone.

Estella looked annoyed, her perfect smile faltering.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

I ignored her.

I held up the paper.

"This," I said into the mic, my voice echoing through the cavernous hall, "is the marriage license Holden Dalton gave me two years ago."

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Holden started moving toward the stage, his expression shifting from confusion to panic.

"It's a fake," I said, my voice steady. "Just like his honor."

I ripped the paper in half.

Then in quarters.

I threw the confetti of lies into Estella's face.

"I am not your *Comare*," I declared, looking straight at Holden as the paper rained down. "And I am not your property."

The room went silent.

The heads of the Five Families were watching.

Holden’s face turned a shade of red I had never seen.

He lunged onto the stage.

He didn't care about the cameras anymore.

He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging mercilessly into my existing bruise.

"You stupid bitch," he snarled.

He dragged me off the stage.

He hauled me through the kitchen, past stunned staff.

He shoved me out the back exit and threw me into his car.

"Home," he barked at the driver.

He locked the doors.

"You wanted a show?" he asked, unbuckling his belt as the car sped off. "I'll give you a show. You're never leaving the penthouse again. I'm going to board up the windows. You're going to rot in there until you learn your place."

I didn't cry.

I looked out the window at the passing city lights, blurring into streaks of gold and red.

I saw a black car following us.

Gael.

He was watching.

Waiting.

The three months hadn't started yet.

But the clock was ticking.