The morning of the departure, the air in the Vance living room was so thick you could choke on it. Frank sat at the head of the mahogany table, a pen tapping rhythmically against the wood. Beside him lay a stack of documents thick enough to be a novel.

The Prenuptial Agreement. The Non-Disclosure Agreement. The Waiver of Rights.

"Sign," Frank said. He didn't look up.

I stood by the window, clutching my denim bag. I was wearing the pink dress. It was tight, uncomfortable, and ridiculous for a Tuesday morning.

I walked to the table. I picked up the pen. I hovered it over the signature line.

Then I stopped.

Frank stopped tapping. "What are you doing?"

I looked up at him. My eyes were wide, innocent. I dropped the pen. It clattered loudly on the table.

"I don't read so good, Uncle Frank," I said, my voice pitching up a little and my grammar slipping into the broken cadence I had perfected for them. "But I know numbers. And I don't see my numbers here."

Frank's face turned a shade of purple I hadn't seen before. "Excuse me?"

"I heard you and Aunt Brenda," I said. "In the bathroom. You said two million."

Brenda gasped from the sofa. "You little spy!"

I took a step back, crossing my arms. "I'm not signing. Not until I see the money."

Frank stood up so fast his chair tipped over. "You ungrateful little gutter rat! We are giving you a life! We are giving you a future!"

"You're selling me to a monster!" I screamed back. I let the tears come now. Panic, real and raw, or at least it looked that way. "You said he kills people! If I'm going to die, I want to die rich!"

Kayla marched over and got in my face. "You don't deserve a dime."

"Then go marry him yourself!" I shoved the papers toward her.

Silence. Absolute silence descended on the room. Kayla recoiled as if the papers were radioactive. They all knew the truth. They were terrified of Julian Sterling.

Frank looked at his watch. The Sterling car would be here in twelve minutes. If I wasn't in it, the deal was off. The Vance family bankruptcy would be public by noon.

He was trapped. And he knew it.

"Fine," he snarled. He pulled out his phone. "Give me the account number."

I didn't hesitate. I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my bra. It had a routing number on it.

"What is this?" Frank squinted at it. "This is... Swiss?"

"My friend's account," I lied smoothly. "She works at a bank. Said she could hold it for me so Momma don't steal it."

Frank didn't have time to argue. His fingers flew across the screen, trembling with rage. He authorized the wire transfer.

I waited. My left eye began to itch-the signal from the contact lens I was wearing. A tiny, augmented reality overlay flickered in my vision.

My fingers, hidden behind my back, tapped a sequence on the microscopic keypad embedded in my belt buckle. It was a failsafe. Frank thought he was sending a pending authorization, something he could cancel later. But with a little help from my end, the transfer was instant and irreversible.

Transfer Confirmed: $2,000,000.00 USD.

I smiled. It was a greedy, ugly smile. I grabbed the pen and scribbled my name on the documents. I didn't even read them.

The doorbell rang.

Frank grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. "If you screw this up, Serena, I will find you. And I will make you wish you died in that house."

I pulled my arm away. I grabbed my bag.

"Bye, Uncle Frank. Thanks for the tip."

I walked out the front door.

A stretch limousine was waiting. Standing beside the open door was a man who looked like he had been carved out of granite. He wore a tuxedo that fit him like armor. His hair was grey, cropped close. His eyes were cold, assessing, and utterly unimpressed.

Higgins. The Sterling family's head of security and estate manager.

He looked at my pink dress. He looked at my cheap bag. He didn't say a word. He just gestured for me to get in.

I climbed into the back. The leather here was softer than Frank's car. It smelled of expensive cologne and old money.

Higgins got in the back with me, sitting on the opposite bench. The partition was up. We were alone.

He tapped on a tablet, ignoring me completely.

I leaned back, clutching my bag to my chest. I let out a long, shaky breath.

The car began to move. I watched the Vance house disappear in the rearview mirror. I felt the weight of the two million dollars in the offshore account-funds that Wolf was already converting into cryptocurrency to buy the illegal chelation agents we needed for Julian.

I looked at Higgins. "So," I said, popping a bubble of gum. "Is he really crazy? Or is that just, like, a rumor?"

Higgins looked up. His eyes were dead.

"Ms. Vance," he said, his voice deep and smooth. "In this family, the rumors are usually the polite version of the truth."

The drive took two hours. We left the suburbs and entered a part of the state that wasn't on most maps. The trees grew taller, thicker. The fences became higher, topped with razor wire that glinted in the sunlight.

Sterling Manor wasn't a house. It was a gothic nightmare rising out of the forest. Grey stone, high turrets, windows that looked like unblinking eyes. It was beautiful and terrifying.

The limousine crunched over the gravel driveway and came to a halt in front of the main entrance. A line of staff stood waiting. They weren't smiling.

Higgins opened the door. "Out."

I stumbled out, my heels sinking into the gravel. The air here was colder, damper.

At the top of the stone steps stood a woman. She was impeccable. Her white suit was tailored to within an inch of its life. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a chignon so tight it pulled her face into a permanent expression of disdain.

Victoria Sterling. The stepmother. The Queen.

She didn't come down to greet me. I had to walk up to her.

I stopped two steps below her, forcing myself to look up. "Hi," I said. "I'm Serena."

Victoria didn't answer. She reached out with a gloved hand and grabbed my chin. Her grip was iron. She turned my face left, then right.

"The skin is decent," she said to Higgins, as if I were a horse she was considering buying. "But the hair is atrocious. Burn it off and start over."

"Yes, Madame," Higgins said.

Victoria released me. She wiped her glove on her thigh. "Take her to the West Wing. Do not bring her into the main house. I have guests coming for the gala on Saturday, and I don't want them to see... this."

"But... aren't we having a wedding?" I asked stupidly.

Victoria laughed. It was a cold, dry sound. She snapped her fingers, and a man in a grey suit stepped forward from the shadows of the foyer. He held a leather binder.

"This is Judge Miller," Victoria said, her voice dripping with boredom. "He has already processed the license in your absence. You are legally bound to this family as of twenty minutes ago. The state requires a witness, and Higgins has sufficed."

She looked at me with eyes that promised suffering. "There is no cake. There is no party. There is just you, and your duty."

She turned on her heel and walked into the house. The heavy oak doors slammed shut.

Higgins gestured to the left. "This way."

We walked along the side of the house, down a path that was overgrown with ivy. The West Wing was separated from the main house by a long, glass-enclosed corridor. The windows were barred.

As we walked, the air changed. It smelled of antiseptic and mold. The silence was heavy.

Higgins stopped at a steel door. There was a keypad and a retinal scanner. He leaned in, his eye washed in red light.

"Access Granted."

The door hissed open.

Inside, it looked less like a home and more like a high-security psychiatric ward. The walls were white padding. The floors were linoleum. Cameras were mounted in every corner, their red LEDs blinking.

Higgins turned to me. "Listen carefully, Ms. Vance. Beyond this point, you are on your own. The West Wing is automated. Food comes through the secure slot. Medications are dispensed remotely. The panic button is on the wall by the door. If you press it, security will come, but it will take them three minutes."

"Three minutes?" I squeaked.

"A lot can happen in three minutes," Higgins said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key card. "This opens his room. Do not go in unless he is restrained. Do not turn your back on him. Do not give him anything sharp."

I took the card. My hand was shaking. "Is he... is he in there now?"

Higgins nodded toward the end of the hall.

"Good luck, Ms. Vance. Try not to provoke him. The last one lost an ear."

Higgins turned and walked out. The steel door slammed shut behind him. The lock engaged with a heavy thud that echoed in my bones.

I was alone.

I stood in the hallway, listening.

At first, there was nothing. Then, from the room at the very end of the hall, I heard a sound.

It was the sound of chains dragging across the floor. And then, a low, guttural growl that didn't sound human at all.

I walked down the hallway. My heels clicked loudly on the linoleum, a rhythm that felt too cheerful for this place. I stopped outside the last door.

It wasn't a door. It was a wall of reinforced glass.

I looked inside.

The room was sparse. A bed bolted to the floor. A toilet in the corner. No windows to the outside, only high vents.

And there, in the center of the room, was Julian Sterling.

He was kneeling on the floor, his back to me. He was wearing a straitjacket, the heavy canvas straps pulled tight across his broad shoulders. Chains connected his ankles to a bolt in the floor.

He wasn't the monster Brenda had described. He was a tragedy. Even through the jacket, I could see the sharp angles of his shoulder blades. He was tall, his frame massive, but he was skeletal now, the muscle wasted away to wiry, desperate cords. He looked like a famine victim, not a killer.

His hair was long, matted, hanging over his face.

I swiped the key card. The glass door hissed and slid open.

Julian spun around.

I stopped breathing.

His face was gaunt, pale as death. But beneath the grime and the hollow cheeks, the bone structure was devastating. High cheekbones, a strong jaw. But it was his eyes that froze me. They were a piercing, unnatural blue, but the pupils were blown wide, swallowing the iris. The whites were veined with red.

He looked at me, and he didn't see a person. He saw a threat.

He roared. It was a raw, animalistic sound of pure rage. He lunged at me.

The chains snapped taut. He stopped three feet from where I stood.

I let out a scream-a theatrical, terrified shriek-and scrambled backward, falling onto my butt.

"Please!" I cried, covering my face. "Don't hurt me!"

I peeked through my fingers. The camera in the corner was tracking us. I had to sell it.

Julian pulled at the chains, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was sweating profusely. Diaphoresis. A symptom of the toxin.

"Get out!" he rasped. His voice was like gravel grinding together. "They sent another one? Get out before I kill you!"

I crawled into the corner of the room, curling into a ball. I stayed there for an hour, trembling, while he paced the length of his chain, muttering to himself. He was hallucinating. Fighting invisible demons.

Eventually, exhaustion took him. He slumped against the padded wall, his eyes closing.

I waited ten more minutes. Then, I sat up.

I checked the camera. It was a high-end model, covering every inch of the room. There were no blind spots.

I reached into the hem of my dress. Sewn into the fabric was a thin, metallic disc. A signal jammer modified with a looping algorithm. I pressed it between my fingers, activating it. For the next twenty minutes, the security monitors would show a seamless loop of me cowering in the corner while Julian slept.

I stood up and moved silently toward him. I stripped off the pink dress. Underneath, I was wearing a black tank top and leggings I had worn under the dress.

I moved toward him.

He smelled of sweat and fear, but underneath that, there was a scent I remembered. Cedar and rain.

I knelt beside him.

"Julian?" I whispered.

His eyes snapped open. He snarled, trying to bite me.

I didn't flinch. I moved with a speed he couldn't track. My hand shot out and clamped onto his jaw, my thumb pressing into the pressure point behind his ear.

He froze, his eyes widening in shock. His body went limp, paralyzed for a moment by the nerve pinch.

"Shh," I hissed. My voice was no longer the scared girl's. It was low, commanding. "Look at me."

He looked. He saw the focus in my eyes. He saw the intelligence.

I pulled a small penlight from my bra and shined it into his eyes. No pupillary constriction.

"Toxic encephalopathy," I muttered. "Induced by scopolamine and... something else. Synthetic."

I ran my hands over his neck. I felt it. A small, hard lump at the base of his skull.

A neural implant. They were stimulating his amygdala, keeping him in a permanent state of fight-or-flight.

"You're not crazy, Julian," I whispered. "You're being piloted."

He stared at me, confusion warring with the madness in his gaze. "Who... who are you?"

"I'm the wife you didn't ask for," I said. I turned off the penlight. "And tonight, I'm going to perform surgery."