Chapter 4

It took two days for the lock to turn.

The heavy door swung open.

"Dinner," a guard grunted.

I knew immediately-I wasn't being fed.

I was being summoned.

I walked up the stairs, my legs trembling beneath me.

My hand was wrapped in gauze, throbbing in time with my erratic heartbeat. The cut on my cheek had scabbed over, leaving an ugly red line marring my skin.

I walked into the dining room.

The chandelier glittered overhead, casting a harsh, beautiful light on the nightmare before me.

The table was set for three.

Brennan sat at the head.

Debbi sat at his right hand-in my seat.

Breann sat across from her.

There was a place setting for me at the far end of the table, an ocean away from them.

"Sit," Brennan said without looking up from his steak.

I sat.

Debbi stood up.

She was wearing my dress.

It was a vintage emerald silk gown I had bought in Paris. It hung loose on her slender frame, but she wore it with possessive pride.

"I made soup," she announced. "Tomato basil. Brennan's favorite."

She picked up the tureen.

She walked around the table, serving Brennan, then Breann.

Finally, she came to me.

She leaned over, the scent of her perfume cloying and sweet.

"Oops," she whispered.

The tureen tipped.

Scalding, thick red liquid poured over my shoulder, down my arm, soaking instantly into the bandage on my hand.

The heat was searing.

I cried out, jumping up from the chair as the pain registered.

"You clumsy bitch!" I screamed.

Debbi dropped the tureen.

It shattered against the hardwood.

"I'm sorry!" she wailed, backing away with feigned terror. "She scared me! She looked at me with those crazy eyes!"

Brennan was on his feet.

He didn't ask if I was burned.

He looked at the mess on the floor.

"Alyssa," he warned. "Stop making scenes."

"She poured boiling soup on me!" I yelled, clutching my arm. The skin was already blistering beneath the silk.

"It was an accident," Brennan said calmly. "Debbi is trying. You are making it difficult."

He walked over to Debbi and kissed her forehead.

"It's okay, piccola," he soothed. "Go change. Alyssa will clean this up."

He looked at me.

"Clean it," he said. "And then apologize to her for yelling."

"I need a doctor," I said, my voice faint. The room was starting to spin. The pain in my hand and arm was consuming me.

"You need to learn humility," Brennan said coldly. "If you don't clean this up, I pull the funding for your mother's care facility."

The threat hit me like a physical blow.

My mother.

She was the only leverage I had left.

I fell to my knees.

I picked up the jagged pieces of the tureen with my good hand.

I wiped the steaming soup from the floor with the napkins.

Brennan watched me.

"Good girl," he said.

Darkness crowded the edges of my vision.

The infection in my hand, the shock, the burn... it was too much.

I collapsed onto the soup-stained rug.

The last thing I heard was Brennan sighing, as if my unconsciousness was just another inconvenience.

Consciousness returned in a slow, white haze.

I woke up in a sterile room.

The rhythmic beep of a monitor was the only sound.

Brennan was sitting in a chair by the window, looking at his phone.

"You're awake," he said, not looking up.

"Water," I croaked.

He poured a glass and brought it to me.

He held the straw to my lips.

For a second, his eyes softened.

"Why do you fight me, Alyssa?" he asked quietly. "Why can't you just accept things?"

"Because I am your wife," I whispered.

He set the glass down.

"I have to go," he said, checking his watch. "Debbi has an art show downtown. I bought a gallery for her."

"You bought her a gallery?" I asked. "You wouldn't let me open a flower shop because it was 'too dangerous' for the Don's wife to work."

"She needs a hobby," he said, adjusting his cufflinks. "Rest. The doctor said you have a systemic infection. You'll be here for a few days."

He walked out.

He left his wife in a hospital bed to go watch his mistress finger-paint.

I waited five minutes.

Then I pressed the call button.

A doctor walked in.

It wasn't just any doctor. It was Dr. Evans, a man who owed my father his life.

"Alyssa," he said, his face pale as he looked at my injuries. "What has he done to you?"

"I need a favor, Evans," I said, my voice steel despite the pain. "I need you to tell him I'm stable. And then I need you to give me access to the hospital's back exit security codes."

"He will kill me," Evans said, his eyes wide.

"He will kill me if I stay," I countered.

Evans looked at my bandaged face, then down at my wrapped arm.

He nodded slowly.

"Tonight," he whispered. "During the shift change."