The bleeding had stopped, but the throbbing remained a dull, persistent echo.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the master suite, pressing a cold compress to my cheek.

The entire room was suffocating, saturated with his scent.

It reeked of sandalwood, expensive scotch, and the metallic musk of a man who killed for a living.

I used to find comfort in that scent.

Now, it made the bile rise in my throat.

The door opened without a knock.

I expected a maid.

Instead, Breann sauntered in, followed by a girl I had never seen before.

The girl was young.

She had wide, innocent eyes and hair the color of corn silk, and she was wearing an oversized t-shirt that I recognized immediately.

It was Brennan's.

"You need to leave," Breann said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"This is my room," I said, forcing myself to stand. "Get out."

The blonde girl stepped forward.

This had to be Debbi.

She looked around the room with hungry eyes, fingering the silk curtains and running her hand over the mahogany dresser.

"Brennan said I could pick the decor," Debbi said. Her voice was high and breathy. "He said this room was too... cold. Like a museum."

"Get out," I repeated, stepping toward her.

"Brennan ordered your things moved," Breann said, a smirk twisting her lips. "To the basement."

"The basement is unfinished," I said. "It's a storage unit."

"It's where you belong," Breann countered. "You're just clutter now, Alyssa. Expired inventory."

Debbi walked over to the vanity where my jewelry box sat.

She opened it.

She picked up my pearl earrings-a gift from my father on my eighteenth birthday.

"These are pretty," she said. "Vintage."

"Put them down," I warned.

Debbi giggled.

She looked at me, and the mask slipped. Her eyes flashed with a malice that belied her innocent face.

"Or what?" she asked. "You're damaged goods. Look at your face. Brennan doesn't want a scarred wife."

She dropped the earrings.

She stepped on them.

The crunch of the pearls shattering under her sneaker was a sickening sound.

I didn't think.

I simply snapped.

I lunged forward, grabbing Debbi by the arm.

She shrieked, a piercing sound that echoed off the walls.

I twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to stumble.

She tripped over her own feet and fell to the carpet, twisting her ankle.

"My leg!" she screamed. "She broke my leg!"

The door slammed open again.

Brennan was there in a heartbeat.

He didn't look at me.

He didn't even glance at the blood on my bandage.

He went straight to Debbi, falling to his knees beside her.

"Debbi," he said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it. "Are you hurt?"

"She attacked me!" Debbi sobbed, clinging to his shirt. "I just wanted to see the room... she went crazy!"

Brennan looked up at me.

His eyes were black pits.

"You touched her," he said.

"She destroyed my property," I said. "She was in my room."

"This is not your room," Brennan growled. "This is my house. Everything in it is mine. Including you. And you do not touch what I protect."

He scooped Debbi up into his arms as if she weighed nothing.

"Breann," he barked. "Get the guards. Take Alyssa to the cellar. The real cellar. Not the storage room."

"Brennan," I said, my voice shaking. "You can't be serious."

"You need to learn discipline," he said, walking past me with the mistress in his arms. "You act like an animal, you live like one."

Two soldiers appeared in the doorway.

I knew them.

I had signed their paychecks.

Now they looked at me not as their Queen, but as a target.

"Don't touch me," I said, straightening my spine. "I will walk."

I walked past my husband, past the girl pretending to cry in his arms, and headed toward the darkness below.

The cellar reeked of damp earth and soured wine.

It was bitterly cold.

My silk blouse offered no protection against the icy chill that seeped from the rough stone walls.

I wasn't in a cell, exactly. I was in the open area where the wine barrels were stored, stacked high in the shadows, but the soldiers stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking the only exit.

Brennan came down twenty minutes later.

He was alone.

He held a frame in his hand.

It was our wedding portrait. The one that had hung in the hallway for three years, a monument to a lie.

In the photo, I looked perfect. Pristine.

He looked triumphant.

"Debbi is in pain," he said, his voice echoing in the silence.

"Good," I shot back.

He didn't hit me.

That would have been too simple for a man like him.

He walked over to a heavy wooden table and slammed the picture frame down.

The glass shattered with a sharp crack.

"Come here," he ordered.

I didn't move.

He closed the distance between us in two long strides, grabbing my wrist.

His grip was like iron.

He dragged me to the table despite my resistance.

"You like to use your hands," he said, his tone dangerously low. "You like to hurt things."

He forced my hand down.

He pressed my palm into the broken glass of our wedding photo.

I bit my lip until it bled to keep from screaming.

The shards sliced into my skin with searing heat.

Blood pooled on the photograph, staining the white of my wedding dress a deep, violent red.

"This is what you did to our marriage," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You broke it. Not me. You couldn't just be a wife. You had to be a problem."

He released my hand.

I pulled it back, cradling it against my chest as it throbbed in time with my heart.

Blood dripped onto the cold stone floor.

"You are a monster," I whispered.

"I am the Don," he corrected coldly. "And you are a disappointment."

He turned and walked away without looking back.

"Stay down here until you learn how to apologize," he called over his shoulder.

The soldiers followed him up, locking the heavy door behind them with a tone of finality.

I was alone in the dark.

I looked at my hand.

I looked at the ruined photo.

My blood covered his face in the picture, obliterating him.

I reached into my pocket with my good hand.

I still had the silver lighter he had given me on our first anniversary. It was engraved with the words My Flame.

I walked over to the corner where a stack of old files and boxes sat, forgotten in the gloom.

I found a box labeled "Letters."

They were his letters. The ones he wrote when he was trying to court my father's favor.

I dumped them onto the stone floor.

I flicked the lighter.

The flame was small, dancing in the drafty room like a dying hope.

I dropped it onto the paper.

The fire caught quickly.

I watched the words love and forever curl into blackened ash.

The door at the top of the stairs opened again.

Breann stood there, framed by the light from the hallway.

She threw a small first-aid kit down the stairs.

It landed with a hollow plastic clatter.

"Use it," she said. "We don't want you getting an infection and dying before the gala. You still have appearances to keep."

"Why do you hate me, Breann?" I asked, looking up at her silhouette. "I protected you."

"Protected me?" She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "You lied to me. You told me Marco left town. You told me he didn't love me."

I froze.

"He was a rat, Breann," I said, my voice trembling. "He was selling us to the Feds. Brennan executed him. I told you he left so you wouldn't have to hate your brother for killing the man you loved."

"Liar!" she screamed. "Debbi told me the truth. She told me you ordered the hit because you didn't want a commoner in the family. Just like you don't want her."

"Debbi is playing you," I said, desperation creeping in.

"Debbi is my friend," Breann spat. "Rot in there, Alyssa."

She slammed the door.

I sat by the small fire of burning lies, opening the first aid kit with trembling fingers.

I pulled out the tweezers.

I had to pick the glass out of my own palm.

It took two days for the lock to turn.

The heavy door swung open.

"Dinner," a guard grunted.

I knew immediately-I wasn't being fed.

I was being summoned.

I walked up the stairs, my legs trembling beneath me.

My hand was wrapped in gauze, throbbing in time with my erratic heartbeat. The cut on my cheek had scabbed over, leaving an ugly red line marring my skin.

I walked into the dining room.

The chandelier glittered overhead, casting a harsh, beautiful light on the nightmare before me.

The table was set for three.

Brennan sat at the head.

Debbi sat at his right hand-in my seat.

Breann sat across from her.

There was a place setting for me at the far end of the table, an ocean away from them.

"Sit," Brennan said without looking up from his steak.

I sat.

Debbi stood up.

She was wearing my dress.

It was a vintage emerald silk gown I had bought in Paris. It hung loose on her slender frame, but she wore it with possessive pride.

"I made soup," she announced. "Tomato basil. Brennan's favorite."

She picked up the tureen.

She walked around the table, serving Brennan, then Breann.

Finally, she came to me.

She leaned over, the scent of her perfume cloying and sweet.

"Oops," she whispered.

The tureen tipped.

Scalding, thick red liquid poured over my shoulder, down my arm, soaking instantly into the bandage on my hand.

The heat was searing.

I cried out, jumping up from the chair as the pain registered.

"You clumsy bitch!" I screamed.

Debbi dropped the tureen.

It shattered against the hardwood.

"I'm sorry!" she wailed, backing away with feigned terror. "She scared me! She looked at me with those crazy eyes!"

Brennan was on his feet.

He didn't ask if I was burned.

He looked at the mess on the floor.

"Alyssa," he warned. "Stop making scenes."

"She poured boiling soup on me!" I yelled, clutching my arm. The skin was already blistering beneath the silk.

"It was an accident," Brennan said calmly. "Debbi is trying. You are making it difficult."

He walked over to Debbi and kissed her forehead.

"It's okay, piccola," he soothed. "Go change. Alyssa will clean this up."

He looked at me.

"Clean it," he said. "And then apologize to her for yelling."

"I need a doctor," I said, my voice faint. The room was starting to spin. The pain in my hand and arm was consuming me.

"You need to learn humility," Brennan said coldly. "If you don't clean this up, I pull the funding for your mother's care facility."

The threat hit me like a physical blow.

My mother.

She was the only leverage I had left.

I fell to my knees.

I picked up the jagged pieces of the tureen with my good hand.

I wiped the steaming soup from the floor with the napkins.

Brennan watched me.

"Good girl," he said.

Darkness crowded the edges of my vision.

The infection in my hand, the shock, the burn... it was too much.

I collapsed onto the soup-stained rug.

The last thing I heard was Brennan sighing, as if my unconsciousness was just another inconvenience.

Consciousness returned in a slow, white haze.

I woke up in a sterile room.

The rhythmic beep of a monitor was the only sound.

Brennan was sitting in a chair by the window, looking at his phone.

"You're awake," he said, not looking up.

"Water," I croaked.

He poured a glass and brought it to me.

He held the straw to my lips.

For a second, his eyes softened.

"Why do you fight me, Alyssa?" he asked quietly. "Why can't you just accept things?"

"Because I am your wife," I whispered.

He set the glass down.

"I have to go," he said, checking his watch. "Debbi has an art show downtown. I bought a gallery for her."

"You bought her a gallery?" I asked. "You wouldn't let me open a flower shop because it was 'too dangerous' for the Don's wife to work."

"She needs a hobby," he said, adjusting his cufflinks. "Rest. The doctor said you have a systemic infection. You'll be here for a few days."

He walked out.

He left his wife in a hospital bed to go watch his mistress finger-paint.

I waited five minutes.

Then I pressed the call button.

A doctor walked in.

It wasn't just any doctor. It was Dr. Evans, a man who owed my father his life.

"Alyssa," he said, his face pale as he looked at my injuries. "What has he done to you?"

"I need a favor, Evans," I said, my voice steel despite the pain. "I need you to tell him I'm stable. And then I need you to give me access to the hospital's back exit security codes."

"He will kill me," Evans said, his eyes wide.

"He will kill me if I stay," I countered.

Evans looked at my bandaged face, then down at my wrapped arm.

He nodded slowly.

"Tonight," he whispered. "During the shift change."