The Eighth and Final Call

My name is Aurelia. I died at twenty-two, murdered by my husband, Carlos Sterling.

To seal a family alliance, my parents forced me to take the place of their adored adopted daughter, Bianca, and marry the most handsome—and most brutal—man in New York.

As I lay dying from his torture, I used the last of my strength to make my eighth call for help. My family's impatience was the only answer I got.

My brother, Connor, roared at me to just go and die. In the end, I did as he wished.

After my death, my three-year-old daughter, Stella, used her children's tablet to live-stream the video of my frost-covered head in a walk-in freezer to my mother.

Now, my soul is tethered to the ceiling, a cold observer watching them spiral, one by one, toward their breaking points.

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1

I knew I was dying. The wound in my abdomen bled relentlessly. The air grew thick with the warm, metallic scent of my own blood, so strong it was nauseating.

"Mom... I'm not going to make it," I whispered. "Can you please come get Stella?"

Stella was only three, asleep upstairs, oblivious to the nightmare unfolding in the living room.

The blood flowed faster. Shards of a crystal decanter that once held expensive whiskey were scattered around me, glittering like malevolent stars.

My husband, Carlos Sterling, was slumped on the sofa, snoring heavily in the stupor that followed his latest bout of violent rage.

My mother, trying on a new pair of diamond earrings in her Chicago mansion, sounded muffled and distinctly irritated. "What is it now, Aurelia?"

"I'm dying—"

The phone was snatched away. Connor's voice cut in, sharp and cold with fury.

"Every time you call, it's 'I want a divorce' or 'He's going to kill me.' Must you always be so dramatic?"

I fell silent.

Maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe I was just numb, but a profound exhaustion seeped into my bones. A familiar, bone-deep weariness.

Ever since I was a child, I was forced to give up my toys, my snacks, my parents' affection—all for Bianca, the clever, cunning orphan my parents adored.

I learned to muffle my own voice, to become smaller, quieter, less visible, so that she could shine.

At eighteen, I was traded like a lamb to the slaughter to Carlos Sterling—heir to Manhattan's most powerful syndicate. A political marriage.

I had tried to be a good wife, to soothe the demons inside him. I had failed.

Every day became a careful calculation—how to hide the bruises, how to make them fade faster before the next public appearance, how to survive just one more night.

At twenty, the darkness in my mind had grown into a forest, denser than any I had ever navigated.

Only Stella's smile kept me from getting lost in it forever.

And now, at twenty-two, a shard from Carlos's favorite decanter had sliced deep into my abdomen, tearing an artery.

Strangely… the exhaustion was gone.

For the first time in years, I felt something close to peace.

"This isn't an act, Connor," I whispered, my voice wet and weak. "I'm really dying. Please... just this once. I don't want Stella to find me."

In the seven years since they chose Bianca over their own daughter, I had only called seven times.

Three times to ask them to get me out of this marriage.

Four times because I was injured.

This was the eighth.

Only seven times. This was the eighth. Not so many, were they?

"Then just go die!" Connor snarled, his voice a final, callous roar.

"If you die, we'll come for the child. It's as simple as that."