The study smelled of old paper and new money.

Jericho had escorted her here ten minutes ago. She was still in the maid's uniform, but she had washed the saliva off her hands.

Augustine sat behind a desk that was large enough to land a plane on. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at a computer screen, a headset over one ear.

"...the volatility is temporary," he was saying. "The rumors of my health are exaggerated. A strategic alliance is imminent."

He pulled the headset off and turned the wheelchair to face her.

He didn't waste time on pleasantries. He slid a thick document across the polished mahogany.

"Strategic Alliance Agreement," she read the title upside down.

"I need a wife," he said. "Publicly. For six months."

She laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound. "You're joking. You assaulted me last night, held me prisoner today, and now you want to play house?"

"My stock dropped twelve percent this morning," he said. "The board thinks I'm dying. They think I have no heir, no stability. A wife fixes the stability. A pregnancy fixes the heir."

"I would rather die."

"Would you rather your father die?"

The air left the room.

"His bail is set at three million," Augustine said. "I pay it. I hire the best legal team in New York. He walks free in a week. Or..." He shrugged. "He stays in Rikers. I hear the general population is rough on stroke victims."

She stared at him. "You are a psychopath."

"I am a businessman."

"I have a fiancé," she lied. "Grant. He's coming for me."

Augustine's lip curled. It wasn't a smile. It was a sneer.

"Grant Sterling?" He tapped a key on his keyboard. "Your fiancé hasn't called the police. He hasn't called your lawyer. He's currently in the Hamptons."

"You're lying."

"Call him." He pushed a landline phone toward her.

She grabbed the receiver. She dialed Grant's number. Her fingers shook.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"You've reached Grant. If this is about the Mann bankruptcy, please contact my attorney. If you're a creditor, fuck off."

Click.

The dial tone hummed in her ear. It sounded like mocking laughter.

"He's distancing himself," Augustine said softly. "Rats flee a sinking ship, Aislinn."

Rage, hot and blinding, exploded in her chest. Not at Grant. At the man sitting in front of her, looking so smug, so in control.

"Shut up!"

She grabbed the first thing her hand touched. A blue and white porcelain vase on the corner of his desk. Her appraiser's eye registered it instantly. A clumsy imitation, probably from the late 20th century, trying to pass as Ming Dynasty. The cobalt blue was too flat, the glaze too perfect. A fake.

She held it up, her hand steady.

Augustine didn't flinch. He didn't dodge. He just watched.

"You surround yourself with fakes, Augustine," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "This vase, your staff's loyalty, your own health... it's all a lie."

CRASH.

She shattered the vase against the marble floor at his feet.

Blood sprayed instantly, dark red against his pale skin. No, not blood. A shard of porcelain had ricocheted, slicing a thin line across his temple.

His head snapped back. The wheelchair spun slightly from the impact. He slumped forward onto the desk, groaning.

She didn't wait to see if he was dead.

She saw the keycard sitting on the edge of the desk.

She snatched it.

She ran.

She was barefoot. The marble floor of the hallway was ice cold. The alarm began to blare-a high-pitched, rhythmic shriek that pierced her eardrums.

"Security breach! Sector 4!"

She sprinted. She didn't know where she was going. She just followed the scent of salt air.

She burst through a side door.

Wind hit her like a physical blow. It was still storming, rain lashing sideways.

She ran across the wet grass, toward the sound of the waves.

She stopped.

The ground ended.

She stood on the edge of a cliff. Fifty feet below, the ocean smashed against jagged black rocks. White foam churned like boiling milk.

There was nothing else. No dock. No boathouse. Just water. Endless, hopeless water.

"Miss Mann."

She spun around.

Jericho and three other guards stood in a semi-circle, blocking her path back to the house. They didn't have guns drawn, but they looked like walls of meat.

The crowd parted.

Augustine rolled through.

He held a white handkerchief to his temple. It was soaked red. Blood trickled down his cheek, staining his white collar.

He didn't look angry. He looked... exhilarated.

He stopped the chair ten feet from her.

"Jump," he said.

She stepped back, her heel catching on a loose stone. It tumbled over the edge. She didn't hear it hit the water.

"What?"

"Jump," he repeated. He lowered the handkerchief. The cut on his forehead was deep, jagged. "If you want to leave so badly, that's the exit. Take it."

She looked down at the swirling death below. Then back at him.

"Or," he said, his voice dropping an octave, cutting through the wind, "you come back inside. You sign the paper. And you pay for the vase."

"I can't pay for that," she whispered. "It was a fake."

"No," he agreed, a cruel smile touching his lips. "But the insurance report will say it was a three-million-dollar antique. Coincidentally, the exact amount of your father's bail."

He held out a hand. It was covered in his own blood.

"Your choice, Aislinn. Death or debt."

She looked at the water one last time. She thought of her father, alone in a cell, unable to speak properly. She thought of Leo, who would have no one if she died.

She stepped away from the edge.

She walked toward Augustine.

She didn't take his hand. She fell to her knees in the wet grass in front of his wheelchair. Defeated.

He looked down at her. He reached out and gripped her chin, tilting her face up to the rain.

"Good girl," he whispered. "Now we go to the mainland. You have a dress to try on."

She woke up screaming.

A hand clamped over her mouth, stifling the sound.

"Quiet."

She thrashed, her back hitting the headboard. She was back in the bedroom. The monster's room.

Augustine was sitting on the edge of the bed.

She scrambled backward, curling into a ball in the corner. "Don't touch me."

He held up a small jar. "It's arnica. For the bruises."

He reached out. She tried to kick him, but he caught her ankle. His grip was firm, inescapable. He dragged her leg toward him.

He scooped a dollop of the clear gel and smeared it on her shin, right where she had hit the floor yesterday. His fingers were cool. He massaged the gel into her skin with efficient, circular motions.

It was confusing. His touch was clinical, yet possessive. He was tending to the damage he had caused.

"Is this part of the inventory check?" she asked, her voice trembling with rage. "Polishing the merchandise?"

He didn't look up. "Damaged packaging lowers the asset value."

He moved to her wrist. He rubbed the gel over the purple marks left by his fingers.

"We have a schedule," he said. "Tomorrow night is the Sterling Foundation Gala. We are attending."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Sterling? Grant's family foundation?"

"Yes."

"Grant will be there," she said. Hope, foolish and bright, flared in her chest. "He'll see me. He'll help me."

Augustine stopped rubbing. He looked at her then. His eyes were filled with a terrible mix of pity and amusement.

"You still think he cares."

"We've been together for four years," she said. "He loves me."

Augustine pulled a tablet from the bedside table. He tapped the screen and held it up.

It was a video. A news interview. Grant was standing on the steps of a courthouse, microphones shoved in his face.

"Mr. Sterling, do you have any comment on the charges against your fiancée's father?"

Grant looked handsome. And completely unbothered.

"Let me be clear," Grant said, his voice smooth. "I was unaware of Mr. Mann's illegal activities. The Sterling family does not condone fraud. As for Aislinn... our engagement is effectively terminated. I cannot be associated with a criminal enterprise."

She stared at the screen. The world tilted.

"It's fake," she whispered. "It's AI. You made it."

Augustine tossed the tablet onto the duvet. "Your life has been liquidated, Aislinn. You are bankrupt. Emotionally and financially."

He leaned in, his face inches from hers. She could smell the antiseptic from his head wound.

"Your only asset left is the title of Mrs. Hoover."

"I don't believe you," she said, tears hot in her eyes. "I need to see him."

"Fine." Augustine sat back. "I'll let you see him. I'll let you watch him ignore you."

He snapped his fingers.

Marta entered carrying a garment bag. She unzipped it.

A dress spilled out. It was black silk, backless, with a slit that went up to the hip. It was beautiful. And it looked like armor.

"Wear it," Augustine ordered. "Don't embarrass me."

An hour later, she stood in front of the mirror.

The dress fit like a second skin. It was designed to distract. To make people look at her body so they wouldn't look at the fear in her eyes.

Augustine rolled up behind her. He was wearing a tuxedo. He looked like the devil dressed for dinner.

He held up a diamond necklace. A choker.

"Lift your hair."

She obeyed.

He fastened the clasp. The metal was ice cold against her neck. It felt heavy. Like a collar.

"Remember," he whispered, his breath ghosting over her ear. "Tonight, you belong to me."

A low thrumming sound vibrated through the floorboards.

"The helicopter is waiting," he said.

Jericho came in and pushed the wheelchair. She followed, walking in her high heels like a doll on a string.

They went up to the roof. The helicopter was a black insect against the grey sky.

As they lifted off, she looked down at the island. It was shrinking, disappearing into the mist.

She put on the headset. The noise of the rotors was deafening.

Augustine's voice came through the headphones, clear and distorted by the static.

"Try to run," he said, "and your father has an accident in the shower block at Rikers."

She looked at him across the small cabin. She clenched her hands in her lap until her knuckles turned white.

"I hate you," she said into the microphone.

He looked out the window at the approaching skyline of Manhattan.

"Good," he said. "Hate is a motivator."

The helicopter didn't land at the gala. It landed on a helipad atop a glass needle in Midtown.

"This isn't the hotel," she said as the rotors slowed.

"This is the penthouse," Augustine said. "We have a stop to make."

The apartment was a fortress of glass and steel. It was cold, modern, and lifeless.

"I'm not hungry," she said as Marta set a plate of food on the dining table.

"You haven't eaten in twenty-four hours," Augustine said. He was already eating, cutting a steak with precise, surgical movements.

"I'm on a hunger strike," she announced. "Until you let me call my lawyer."

He didn't even look up. "Starve then."

She sat on the sofa, watching him eat. Her stomach cramped. The smell of the seared meat was torture.

He finished his meal. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.

Then he pulled out his phone.

"Come here."

She didn't move.

"Jericho."

The bodyguard stepped forward. He grabbed her arm and hauled her off the sofa. He dragged her to the table and forced her into the chair next to Augustine.

Augustine held the phone in front of her face.

It was a grainy video feed. Security footage. A prison cafeteria.

An old man sat alone at a table. Her father. He looked frail, his hand shaking as he tried to lift a spoon.

Two younger inmates walked up to him. One knocked the tray off the table. The other shoved him. Her father fell out of his chair.

She gasped. "Dad!"

The inmates started kicking him.

"Stop it!" she screamed at the phone. "Stop it!"

Augustine paused the video.

"He needs protection," Augustine said. "Protection costs money. Money comes from the commissary fund. I control the fund."

He picked up a spoon. He scooped up some mashed potatoes.

He held it to her lips.

"Eat," he said. "Fuel the body that's going to save him."

She looked at the spoon. Then at the frozen image of her father on the floor.

She opened her mouth.

He fed her. It was humiliating. It was intimate. It was a violation.

She swallowed, tears streaming down her face. She choked on the food, coughing.

"Good," he said softly. He wiped a smudge of gravy from her lip with his thumb. "Now you have the strength to face reality."

The limousine ride to the Plaza Hotel was silent.

She stared out the tinted window. New York flashed by in streaks of neon.

Her stomach churned, a mix of the forced food and nerves.

"Stop shaking," Augustine said. He reached over and took her hand. His palm was warm. "Prey shakes. Predators don't."

"I am prey," she whispered.

"Not tonight. Tonight you are Mrs. Hoover."

The car slowed. They were at the back of the line for the red carpet. Flashbulbs popped like strobe lights.

She looked through the window at the couple ahead of them.

Her breath hitched.

It was Grant. He looked dashing in a velvet tux.

But he wasn't alone.

A woman was hanging on his arm. She was wearing a red dress. A dress she recognized. It was a custom Valentino. Her custom Valentino. The one she had ordered for their engagement party.

She turned her head, laughing at something Grant said.

Yvonne. Her stepsister.

The world stopped.

Her stepsister. The one who had cried with her when Dad was arrested. The one who said she would talk to Grant for her.

She was wearing her dress. She was holding her fiancé.

"No," she breathed. "No, no, no."

Her vision tunneled.

She reached for the door handle.

"Don't," Augustine said.

"Let me out!" she shrieked. "That bitch! That's my dress!"

She clawed at the lock.

Augustine hit the central lock button.

"Look at yourself," he hissed. "You're hysterical. You go out there now, you look like the crazy ex. You validate everything Grant said in the press."

"I don't care!" She was sobbing now, hitting the window. Grant looked toward the car, frowning.

"He sees us," she panicked. "Let me out!"

Augustine grabbed her shoulders. He yanked her away from the window, pinning her against the leather seat.

"Shut up, Aislinn."

"Let me-"

He lowered his head and crushed his mouth to hers.