"Sarah Winfield!"

Sarah was still deep in sleep when someone yanked her up by the collar and slammed her to the floor.

"What did you do? Do you hate Jocelyn that much? She was only messing around with you, and you'd take her life for it?"

Sarah's whole body burned. Feverish and hazy, she pieced the truth together out of Ralph's words.

Jocelyn had been kidnapped.

A pack of thugs had dumped her in an abandoned warehouse and tormented her for a full day and night. When she was rescued, her clothes were in tatters and she was covered in blood.

"You still dare say it wasn't you?" Fury blazed in Ralph's eyes. "My people looked into it. That gang lives right there in the slums where you spent more than ten years. Sarah, you all crawled out of the same slums. You're going to tell me you don't know them?"

"You're the wife I married in front of everyone, the rightful Mrs. Sanchez. We won't press charges against you. But you owe Jocelyn an explanation. You may be the true eldest daughter of the Winfields, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse her however you please."

Sarah nearly laughed. The whip wounds on her back scraped against the icy tile, the pain washing her vision white, but she didn't cry out. She only turned her head a fraction to look at Ralph.

"Who exactly has been abusing whom this whole time?"

From the moment the Winfields took her back, Jocelyn had loathed her to the bone. Fragile and pitiful in front of others, she mocked and humiliated Sarah every way she could when no one was watching.

But because Mr. and Mrs. Winfield had raised Jocelyn since she was small, and because Ralph had grown up alongside Jocelyn, they all assumed Jocelyn could do no wrong. The one at fault had to be her, the girl raised for more than ten years in the slums.

Sarah laughed, badly timed as it was. She lifted her chin and, past all caring, said, "So what do you want me to do?"

Looking at her indifference, Ralph felt a sudden flicker of unease. But the image of Jocelyn covered in blood came back to him, and his expression went cold again. "Whatever Jocelyn went through, you'll go through the same."

Sarah agreed without any expression at all.

"Fine."

The instant Ralph came storming in, she'd pressed the auto-dial on her phone to call the police. They were probably already on their way.

There was no point reasoning with a man like Ralph. Better to let the law do the talking.

This time it was Ralph who was caught off guard. He'd expected Sarah to beg, to cry, to plead. He hadn't expected this kind of calm.

An anger he couldn't name surged up in him, and his face turned to ice.

The bodyguards dragged Sarah to the mountain retreat. Jocelyn lay in bed weeping, Mr. and Mrs. Winfield keeping watch at her side, their eyes full of tenderness.

"I don't understand why my sister still won't let me go. She's right to hate me. After all, I stole more than ten years of her life."

The choked voice, paired with Jocelyn's innocent, pale face, made it impossible not to ache for her.

Ralph tucked the blanket in around her and said gently, "It isn't your fault either. Don't cry. I'll have Sarah apologize to you."

Sarah dredged up a sneer. "I'm sorry."

Jocelyn turned her face aside and let the tears fall. "I suppose an apology is all I deserve. What can I expect, being nothing but a fake heiress. My sister could ask for my death and it would be fine, let alone a kidnapping."

Ralph lowered his eyes and soothed her softly. "It won't stop at an apology, Jocelyn. To make up for it, whatever you went through, she'll go through too."

He turned back, and his brow furrowed when he took in Sarah's thin clothes and bloodless face.

Jocelyn caught the shift in his expression at once and said softly, "Ralph, I suddenly have a craving for that old duck soup place on the west side. Would you go get some for me?"

Ralph nodded and glanced at the pack of thugs. "Get to work."

With that he left without a backward glance, off to buy Jocelyn her soup.

He didn't necessarily mean to torture Sarah. He only wanted the gang to give her a scare.

Sarah was dumped in the empty lot behind the retreat. She switched on her voice recorder.

The thugs closed in, sneering. They'd done enough dirty work in their time that a few slaps came easy.

"Sarah Winfield, now that you've flown up the branch and turned into a phoenix, don't forget your old acquaintances. Us boys were your loyal admirers back in the day. If that rabid dog Wilfred Vance hadn't stood in the way, you'd have been mine long ago."

"But it's not too late even now. If that Miss Winfield hadn't paid us to help her put on a little show, I don't think I'd ever have gotten the chance to touch you in this life. What do you say?"

Slick, sickening hands roamed over her body, mixed with words she couldn't bear to hear. Sarah's head spun, but she forced herself to stay calm.

The sound of fabric tearing cut deep into her. A cramp knotted low in her belly, and she pushed the words out through sheer will.

"I've already called the police."

At the mention of the police they finally pulled back. By the time they realized something was wrong, a large pool of blood had already spread out beneath her.

"Boss, she's bleeding!"

Panic-stricken and scattered, they instinctively bolted.

"Sarah!"

Just before she lost consciousness completely, Sarah thought she heard a familiar voice, low and hoarse, a little like Ralph's.

Probably just her imagination. Wasn't this whole gang acting on Ralph's orders?

In that last thread of awareness, she knew with perfect clarity: hiring men to hurt someone, deliberate assault, that was more than enough to make Jocelyn and Ralph choke on the consequences.

Sarah closed her eyes. Five years was time enough for her to grow.

Sarah woke to the pain. It felt like someone was smashing her lower belly to pulp with something blunt, over and over, until she was shaking cold all over.

Inside the operating room a nurse's voice came fast and sharp:

"Massive hemorrhage! Her pressure's still dropping! Where's the blood bank? Someone call the blood bank, now!"

Another voice answered her, taut with panic:

"I already called. They said all the blood's been transferred out!"

"What?"

"There's a Miss Winfield over in obstetrics with some light bleeding, and Mr. Sanchez had the entire blood supply diverted to her. He said Miss Winfield comes first."

Sarah lay on the operating table, her mind sinking and surfacing in slow waves. She wasn't surprised. She was only very tired.

Beside her ear, that frantic, trembling voice: "How can they do this? This patient is critical!"

"Nothing we can do. Everyone knows how precious that one in obstetrics is. We don't have the pull to get blood released right now."

Sarah didn't even have the strength left to cry out. The world went black in front of her. With the last thread of strength she had, she found the nurse's hand.

"Please, call the emergency contact on my phone. He can get blood."

Her emergency contact was her assistant. With her connections on the north side of the Capital, getting blood was something they could manage.

She didn't need Ralph Sanchez to survive. But this debt, she would remember.

When she woke again it was the following afternoon. A nurse gently slowed her IV drip. "The surgery went reasonably well. Rest properly and there won't be any lasting damage."

"Creak."

The door swung open. Jocelyn Winfield walked in and mildly saw the nurse out.

"Sorry to trouble you. I'm just here to see my sister."

She leaned against the door, her lower belly slightly rounded, tilting her head as she looked at Sarah. Her voice was sweet. "Sister, how are you still not dead?"

Her expression didn't change, still pretty and coy, as if she were asking after Sarah's health. "The whole blood supply was with me. I really thought you wouldn't pull through."

"Are you waiting for Ralph? He's not coming. Calling the police already set him off. Sister, you really are naive. No proof, no evidence. Who's going to believe those men were hired by me?"

Sarah lay back against the pillow, her face pale to the point of near translucence, but her expression was cold.

She picked up the voice recorder and pressed play.

The thug's voice came, low. "The second Miss Winfield paid me to put on a show with her."

Sarah smiled, calm. "Care to provoke me again?"

Jocelyn's grip tightened on the door handle. "You wouldn't dare... and even if you release it, no one will believe you!"

"Heh." Sarah gave a small, unhurried laugh. "Then let's try."

Jocelyn's face went white. She spun around and ran out.

Sarah leaned back against the pillow and closed her eyes for a while. Ten minutes later, Ralph came.

He looked exhausted. "Sarah, Jocelyn told me everything."

"The kidnapping." Ralph paused. "She hired those men herself."

Sarah shot back, "And? What are you trying to say?"

Ralph was silent for a long time, so long that Sarah thought he wouldn't answer at all.

"She's only an adopted daughter. If this gets out, if Mr. and Mrs. Winfield hear of it, if outsiders hear of it, she won't be able to stay in the Winfield family, or on the north side of the Capital, at all."

Sarah nodded. "So you're going to keep covering for her."

Ralph lifted his eyes to her, his gaze tangled with something she couldn't read. "Sarah, Jocelyn didn't mean it. She was just too scared, scared we'd stop looking out for her. She's young, so couldn't you just—"

"Ralph." Sarah cut him off, her tone flat. "This recording, I'm willing not to release it."

"But you'll have to sign something."

The day before, she'd had Lawyer Simmons draft a share transfer agreement overnight. She wanted five percent of the Sanchez Group shares held in Ralph's name.

When Ralph saw the agreement, he let out a breath of relief. He signed quickly, without even reading the terms carefully. In his mind, five percent in exchange for a recording that could ruin Jocelyn was no loss at all.

And more than that, Sarah wanting money set him at ease. What he feared most was her wanting nothing at all.

After he signed, he reached out to touch Sarah's face. She turned her head aside and avoided it.

"Rest well."

Sarah said nothing. She already had what she wanted. This five percent would, one day, deal Ralph a fatal blow.

The next morning, Sarah got an anonymous text: “Want it back? Meet me in the freezer.”

Attached was a photo of a bracelet. A bracelet she knew all too well. Her grandmother's keepsake.

She'd guessed right. Jocelyn really did have it.

Sarah stood up. She knew it was a trap, and she went anyway. Not because she was a fool, but because she needed Jocelyn to take the bait.

Sure enough, the moment she stepped into the walk-in freezer, the door slammed shut behind her.

The cold seeped in through every seam. Sarah wrapped her arms tight around herself. She'd told the assistant before coming in. Half an hour more, and he'd bring people to open the freezer.

What she didn't expect was that the one who came wasn't the assistant. It was Ralph, his face taut with panic.

She heard him calling her name over and over, a raw, frantic edge in his voice she'd never heard before.

Ralph held her close to warm her, his fingers shaking worse than hers.

“She tricked you into coming here, didn't she?”

Sarah's lips were a bruised purple. She couldn't speak.

“I've already punished her.” His voice dropped low. “Jocelyn went too far. I locked her in the storeroom. She's terrified, Sarah. Just forgive her this once, all right?”

Sarah's frozen lashes trembled. So his panic hadn't been for her at all. It was fear that Jocelyn might be punished for this.

She slowly pushed Ralph away, dug her phone out from under the pillow, and pressed three keys.

“Hello, I need to report a crime.”

Ralph froze. “What are you doing?”

Sarah spoke each word slowly and clearly. “Someone deliberately hurt me and locked me in a freezer. I have her IP address.”

She hung up and watched the color drain from Ralph's face, inch by inch.

“Sarah…”

“Ralph.” She let out a soft laugh. “When you do something wrong, you should be punished.”

Jocelyn was still crying when the police took her away. “I was just messing around with my sister!”

Ralph planted himself in the doorway, shielding Jocelyn, but the evidence was airtight. He couldn't stop them.

The next day, to Sarah's surprise, Jocelyn was released. Ralph had hired the best lawyer, had the whole thing reclassified as a family dispute, and with Jocelyn being pregnant, she walked free that same day.

That night, Jocelyn slit her wrist in the bathroom. Not deep, just enough to make the blood look terrifying.

She threw herself into Ralph's arms, her face ghost-white. “The holding cell was so dark, I was so scared. I was only playing a joke on my sister. How could she be so cruel! I'd be better off dead!”

And in the middle of Jocelyn's sobbing, Ralph made his decision.

He looked at Sarah, his expression grave. “Jocelyn's in a fragile state. Two days from now, I want to hold a wedding for her, to help her steady herself.”

“Don't worry, Sarah. I won't register the marriage with her. I just want to make her happy. After all, what you did really was a bit too much.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Sarah's voice was flat.

“I want you to be the bridesmaid at the wedding, to give Jocelyn a good showing. Let everyone see that Mrs. Sanchez herself attended in person, proof that we're not having an affair, that Jocelyn isn't the other woman.”

The hard lines of Ralph's face softened.

“Sarah, you have to help her.”

“You're insane.” A thin ache pricked at Sarah's chest. She couldn't understand it, no matter how she tried, how Ralph could say something like this.

Once she had her emotions under control, Sarah nodded. “Fine.”

She was planning to leave anyway.

Ralph froze. He'd expected Sarah to make a scene, to refuse. He hadn't expected her to agree so readily.

So readily that an uneasiness he couldn't name rose up in him. But the urge to comfort Jocelyn quickly pushed it back down.

Two days later, the wedding went ahead as scheduled. Once the ceremony was over, Sarah and Jocelyn sat together in the dressing room, removing their makeup.

Jocelyn's smile was smug and taunting. “So, sister, how does it feel?”

Sarah had her back to her. Before she could get a word out, she heard a scream.

“Ah!”

The door burst open. A hand clamped over Sarah's mouth and nose, and she blacked out within moments.