Kacie Oliver POV

The air in the hospital room was stifling, a nauseating cocktail of sharp antiseptic and cloying lilies.

In the corner, a cameraman from the Family's PR team stood like a sentinel, recording every frame. Jayden was live-streaming directly to the Outfit's internal network.

"I just want everyone to know I'm okay," Jayden murmured to the camera, her voice trembling with practiced perfection.

She looked small and fragile in the hospital bed, a stark contrast to the pure malice in her eyes when she flickered her gaze toward me.

"It was just an accident. I know... I know Kacie didn't mean for the rumors to start."

She paused, looking at Cedric for validation. He nodded at her, encouraging her performance of benevolence.

"I forgive you, Kacie," she said, turning the camera slightly so I was forced into the frame. "We're sisters now."

I felt bile rise in my throat. It was a masterful trap. If I denied it, I looked like a heartless monster. If I accepted it, I admitted guilt.

"Thank you, Jayden," I said, my voice flat. "I'm glad you're recovering so quickly from such a... traumatic event."

I straightened my spine, seizing the only opening I had.

"We should do a blood test," I added, looking directly at Cedric. "Just to make sure there are no lingering toxins. Given the severity of your reaction."

Jayden's eyes widened in genuine panic. "No! I hate needles. Cedric, please, don't let them stick me."

Cedric stepped forward, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. "No tests. She's been through enough."

He looked at me with heavy disappointment. "Stop pushing, Kacie."

I turned and walked out of the room without another word.

I didn't stop walking until I reached the elevator. I considered letting the doors close and simply walking right out of the hospital, disappearing into the night.

But where would I go? I had no money, no allies, and a heart that could give out if I ran too fast.

That evening, dinner at the Moon Estate was a torture session.

Cedric's parents, Carroll and Burt, sat at the heads of the long mahogany table like statues of judgment. They were the Old Guard-ruthless, traditional, and entirely charmed by Jayden.

"Jayden, darling, you must eat," Carroll cooed, pushing a plate of roast duck toward her. "You need your strength."

She didn't even look at me. To her, I was nothing more than a vessel too cracked to carry a strong heir. A waste of a marriage license.

I picked at my food, my appetite nonexistent.

Under the table, I caught a glimpse of movement. Cedric's hand was resting on Jayden's knee. He was rubbing her leg in slow, soothing circles.

I dropped my fork. It clattered loudly against the china, shattering the polite silence.

"Is something wrong, Kacie?" Burt asked, his voice sharp.

"I'm not hungry," I said quietly.

Cedric didn't remove his hand. He was peeling a shrimp with his other hand, placing the meat delicately onto Jayden's plate. He leaned in, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle.

I felt invisible. I was a ghost haunting my own marriage.

"Oh, Cedric made his special fish soup," Jayden announced, her eyes gleaming. "He only makes it for special occasions. Remember when we were kids? You made it for me when my dad died."

"I remember," Cedric said softly.

"Here, Kacie," Jayden said, standing up. She picked up the tureen. "Let me serve you. It's delicious."

She walked around the table to my side. She leaned down, bringing the heavy bowl close to my face, invading my personal space.

"You know," she whispered, her voice dropping so low that only I could hear the venom, "there was a betrothal contract. Between me and Cedric. Long before you came along with your sob story."

My hand shook. I jerked back instinctively, hitting the ladle.

Hot soup splashed over the rim, scalding my arm.

"Ow!" Jayden screamed, dropping the tureen.

It shattered on the floor. She threw herself backward, clutching her foot dramatically. "She burned me! Cedric, she burned me!"

I stared at the red, blistering skin on my own arm. The pain was sharp, immediate, and real.

But Cedric wasn't looking at me.

He was already out of his chair, scooping Jayden up into his arms.

"It's okay, I've got you," he said, panic in his voice.

He rushed her out of the dining room, stepping over the broken pottery and the soup pooling around my feet.

He didn't look back.

Kacie Oliver POV

"You clumsy, cursed creature!" Carroll shrieked, looming over me. "Look what you've done! You could have scarred her for life!"

My arm was throbbing, the skin turning an angry, blistering crimson. I gritted my teeth, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

"It was an accident," I said.

"You are a liability," Burt muttered, throwing his napkin on the table with a sneer. "Cedric should have married a woman of his own standing, not a charity case."

They left me there, amidst the wreckage of the dinner.

I went to the kitchen alone. I stood at the sink and ran my arm under cold water for twenty minutes, watching the steam rise from my skin.

No one came to check on me. The house was silent, vast, and hollow.

Hours later, the front door opened. I heard Cedric's heavy footsteps, followed by the lighter, uneven tap of Jayden's heels.

They came into the living room. Jayden was wearing Cedric's suit jacket. It swallowed her small frame, drowning her in fabric so she appeared fragile-the perfect image of a victim. Her foot was bandaged.

"How is she?" I asked, staying seated on the sofa. I had wrapped my arm in some spare gauze I found in the pantry.

"Second-degree burn on her toe," Cedric said, his voice clipped. He placed a takeout bag on the table. "I brought food. The soup is ruined."

I looked inside the bag. It was leftover bean soup from the hospital cafeteria.

"I'm allergic to beans," I said quietly, staring at the container. "Anaphylactic."

Cedric paused. He looked at the bag, then at me. A flicker of something-annoyance? Indifference?-crossed his face.

"I forgot," he said. "You're always so difficult with food."

"I'm not being difficult, Cedric. I'm trying not to die."

"Just order something else," he said dismissively, turning his attention back to Jayden. "Jayden needs rest. You'll stay home tomorrow and help her. She can't walk up the stairs."

"No," I said.

The word hung in the air, heavy and absolute.

"Excuse me?" Cedric turned slowly.

"I said no. I am not her nursemaid. And I am not your servant." I stood up, cradling my burnt arm against my chest. "I want a separation, Cedric. We haven't filed the civil papers yet. It's just the church ceremony. We can annul it."

Cedric crossed the room in two long strides. He towered over me, his presence sucking the air out of the room.

"There is no separation in this life, Kacie. You belong to me."

"She told me about the betrothal contract," I said, my voice trembling but loud. "She told me you were supposed to marry her."

Cedric's face hardened into stone. "That is a lie. There was never a contract."

"She whispered it to me right before she dropped the soup! She provoked me!"

"Stop lying!" Jayden cried from the sofa, tears instantly springing to her eyes. "Why do you hate me so much? I just wanted to be friends!"

Cedric looked at her tears, then back at me. His expression shut down completely.

"Jayden doesn't lie," he said coldly. "You are paranoid. And you are cruel."

"I'm cruel?" I laughed, a broken, jagged sound. "Look at my arm, Cedric! Look at the burn!"

He barely glanced at it. "You did that to yourself."

Jayden let out a sob and ran toward the stairs, limping with exaggerated theatricality.

"Jayden, wait!" Cedric called out.

He looked at me one last time. "Fix your attitude. Or I will fix it for you."

He turned and chased after her.

The door to the guest room slammed shut upstairs.

The sound echoed in the empty hallway like a gunshot. It sounded like a gavel coming down. A sentence passed.

I touched the bandage on my arm. The physical pain was dull compared to the gaping hole in my chest.

I was done. I wasn't going to spend my last three years fighting a ghost.

Kacie Oliver POV

The silence in the house the next morning was heavy, almost suffocating.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The nebula projector was still there, a cheap, plastic mockery of the stars I would never see with him.

Cedric came in around 8:00 AM. He didn't look at me. He strode straight to the closet and pulled out a suitcase.

"Pack a bag," he said.

"Where are we going?"

"You are going to the Old Family House in the countryside," he corrected, his voice flat. "Just for a few weeks."

I sat up. "You're kicking me out."

"I'm separating you two," he said, throwing shirts into the suitcase with efficient, dismissive motions. "The tension is bad for Jayden's recovery. And I need to stay here to handle business. She needs care."

"So you're choosing her."

He stopped. He turned to me, his face softening with that manipulative tenderness I used to mistake for love. He sat on the bed and reached for my hand.

"I'm doing this to fix us, Kacie. You need space. You're stressed. The country air will be good for your heart."

It was textbook gaslighting. He was exiling his wife so he could play house with his ward without the inconvenience of my presence.

"Okay," I said.

He blinked, surprised by my sudden surrender. "Okay?"

"I'll go."

I lied. I wasn't going to the Old House. I was going to disappear.

I went downstairs. Jayden was in the kitchen, cooking eggs. She was wearing an apron over her pajamas, playing the part of the domestic goddess.

"Good morning," she chirped, her voice sickeningly sweet. "I made breakfast."

Cedric came down behind me. "Smells good."

"You like them runny, right?" she asked, smiling at him. "Just like I used to make when we were teenagers."

"Perfect," Cedric said. He sat down at the table.

Jayden placed a plate in front of him. She leaned over, fixing his tie. Her fingers lingered on the knot, smoothing the silk against his chest. It was an intimate, wife-like gesture that made my stomach turn.

"You know," she said, glancing at me, "Cedric only married you because he felt guilty. About the neurotoxin. He told me. He said he felt like he owed you a life."

I looked at Cedric. He didn't deny it. He just ate his eggs.

His silence was the loudest thing in the room.

"We have the Gala tonight," Cedric said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, oblivious or indifferent to the carnage. He stood up and kissed my forehead. It felt like a brand. "You have to attend. Family Business. After the Gala, the driver will take you to the country."

"I understand," I said.

He left. Jayden smirked at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

I walked to the living room. Our engagement photo was on the mantle. We looked happy in it. Fake happy.

I picked up the frame and dropped it into the trash can.

I went upstairs and packed my bag. Not clothes for the country. I packed cash. I packed my medical records. I packed the fake ID I had bought from a forger in the Lower East Side weeks ago, just in case.

I put on the blue custom gown Cedric had bought me for the Gala. It was the color of the deep ocean, dark and abyssal.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a queen. A dying queen.

Tonight, I would walk into that Gala on the arm of the Don.

And then, I would vanish into the shadows, leaving Cedric Moon with nothing but his guilt and the snake he chose to keep.

My heart beat a steady, final rhythm against my ribs.

One. Two. Three.

Time to go.

Kacie Oliver POV: I stared at the reflection in the mirror one last time. The woman staring back wasn't the fragile rose Cedric thought he bought. She was a thorn. And tonight, I was going to draw blood.