Chapter 1 No.1

Isabelle POV

The air in the Cameron family's private clinic didn't smell like healing; it smelled like expensive lemon polish and impending death. I sat on the edge of the leather examination table, my fingers digging into the paper sheet beneath me, waiting for Dr. Alistair Finch to stop polishing his glasses and look at me.

He was the family's Consigliere of medicine, a man whose loyalty to the Cameron bloodline outweighed any Hippocratic Oath.

"Isabelle," he finally said, his voice devoid of inflection. He didn't call me Mrs. Cameron. To the family, I was just a vessel that had failed its purpose. "The ultrasound confirms our fears. There is no heartbeat."

The world tilted on its axis. My hand flew to my flat stomach, to the only thing that had made the last three years of this cold, forced marriage bearable.

"And," Finch continued, ruthless in his efficiency, "the reason for the fetal demise is your body's inability to sustain it. The tests came back, Isabelle. It's Stage IV gastric cancer. It's terminal."

A double death sentence.

I didn't cry. Tears were a luxury for women who had a future. Instead, I reached for my phone with trembling fingers, needing a distraction from the hollow ache spreading in my chest. The screen lit up, and the first notification was a news alert from The Milan Gazette.

"Power and Beauty Reunited: Kade Cameron and Carla Shaw spotted at Malpensa Airport."

I swiped it open. There he was. Kade. My husband. The Underboss of the New York outfit. He looked devastatingly handsome in his black suit, a dark god walking among mortals. And clinging to his arm, smiling like she owned him, was Carla Shaw-the daughter of our rival family, the woman his mother always said he should have married.

The caption read: A love that defies family lines.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in my throat, tasting like bile. While I sat here dying, carrying his dead child, he was parading his mistress across Europe.

"We need to perform a D&C immediately to remove the... tissue," Dr. Finch said, handing me a clipboard. "Sign here."

I signed my name. I signed away my motherhood, my hope, and my life.

The operating room was a freezer. I lay on the narrow table, staring up at the blinding surgical lights. Through the thin walls, I could hear two nurses whispering.

"Did you see the photos of Kade and Carla? God, they look perfect together," one giggled. "Audie says Kade has been waiting three years to get rid of the 'burden' so he can be with his true love."

The burden. That was me.

Dr. Finch loomed over me with a syringe. "I'm going to administer the anesthesia now. You'll wake up in recovery."

"No," I whispered.

Finch paused, his brows knitting together. "Excuse me?"

"No anesthesia," I said, my voice gaining a terrifying clarity. "I want to feel it."

"Isabelle, that is madness. The pain will be-"

"Do it," I commanded, channeling the authority of a Mafia Queen I had never been allowed to be.

I needed the pain. I needed to scour the love for Kade out of my veins with fire and steel. I wanted to remember this moment, every scrape, every cramp, so that I would never, ever be foolish enough to love him again.

The next twenty minutes were an eternity of white-hot agony. I bit through my lip, tasting copper, but I didn't scream. I let the physical torture kill the girl who used to wait up for Kade's car to come up the driveway. By the time it was over, I was hollowed out, sweating and shivering, but my mind was crystal clear.

Thirty minutes later, I stumbled out into the marble corridor. My legs felt like lead, and the hospital gown offered no protection against the chill. I needed to get back to the estate, to curl up and die in peace.

But peace was not something granted to women in this life.

The elevator doors at the end of the hall slid open with a soft ding, and a storm stepped out.

Kade.

He was still wearing the same suit from the photos, but the air around him crackled with violence. He saw me instantly. His eyes, usually the color of cold steel, were burning with a rage so intense it nearly knocked the breath out of me.

He crossed the distance in three long strides, grabbing my shoulders. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into my flesh like talons.

"Who gave you the balls to kill my child?" he roared, shaking me.

My head snapped back, dizziness swamping me. He thought I had done this on purpose. He thought I had aborted a healthy heir. Of course he did. Why would he assume anything else of the woman he despised?

"Kade, you're hurting her," a soft, melodic voice chimed in.

I looked past Kade's shoulder. Carla Shaw stood there, pristine in a white dress that cost more than my life was worth. She looked at me with faux pity, her hand resting possessively on Kade's arm.

The tableau was perfect. The King, his Queen, and the broken, discarded vessel.

Something inside me snapped. The last tether of loyalty, of fear, of love-it all disintegrated.

I looked up at my husband, meeting his murderous gaze. I was dying. I had nothing left to lose.

A broken, bloody smile stretched across my lips.

"Looks like I made the right choice," I whispered.

Kade's face contorted, the veins in his neck bulging as his grip tightened enough to snap bone. I welcomed his hatred. It was the only honest thing he had ever given me.