Chapter 3 3

Isabella POV

While Cressie was gone, the suffocating silence of the bedroom pressed in on me. I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I wasn't standing in the lavish Riggs mansion anymore. I was pulled violently back to the drafty, herb-scented shadows of the Vaughn family estate.

I could almost see my mother, Sofia Cantrell Vaughn, lying on her deathbed, her skin as thin and translucent as parchment. Outside her door, the shrill, triumphant laughter of my father's *comare*(mistress), Carie, had echoed through the halls. Carie had been relentless, scheming to marry me off to a disgraced, brutal family just to clear the path for her own daughter's ascension.

To save me from that nightmare, my mother had played her final, desperate hand. She had summoned Angelo Riggs-a young, seemingly loyal soldier whose family had once survived on Cantrell charity. I remembered the metallic scent of blood filling the room as the knife sliced their palms. A Blood Vow. My mother had weaponized half the Cantrell fortune to buy Angelo's absolute loyalty, forging an impenetrable fortress for me out of money and sacred oaths.

Angelo hadn't just broken a marriage vow today. He had spat on a dying woman's sacrifice. The realization didn't bring tears; it brought a cold, clarifying ice to my veins.

The click of the door brought me back to the present. Cressie hurried in, clutching the heavy mahogany box bearing the Cantrell family crest. She set it on the vanity, her breath hitching.

I unlocked it and pulled out the heavy, leather-bound ledgers. Together, we began to trace the ink. It didn't take long to see the rot.

"Look at this, Miss Isabella," Cressie whispered, her finger trembling over a column of red ink.

The Riggs family's joint accounts were completely hollowed out. Angelo's father had hemorrhaged thousands into a botched bootlegging operation on the South Side, using my dowry to cover his catastrophic failures. But it was the most recent entry that made my stomach turn.

*$20,000.00 - Maestro Bellini original painting.*

"He bought a painting," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "With my money. To impress Cecelia's father, the judge."

They weren't just using me. They were a family of vultures, systematically cannibalizing my mother's legacy to fund their own pathetic climb up the social ladder. The sheer, unadulterated greed of it severed whatever lingering thread of obligation I felt toward the Riggs name.

I closed the ledger with a sharp, definitive snap.

"Leave it on the desk, Cressie," I ordered, my voice eerily calm. "Along with the keys to the estate safe and the household accounts."

Cressie's eyes widened in horror. "But Miss! If you leave them, you're giving them exactly what they want! You're letting that... that woman win!"

I stood up, smoothing the crimson silk of my skirt. "I am not surrendering, Cressie. I am declaring war."

I stepped closer to her, lowering my voice to a deadly murmur. "They were so blinded by the cash that they never looked deeper into the dowry lists. The commercial properties in downtown Chicago-the storefronts, the warehouses-they are still entirely in my name. They have been managed in secret by my grandfather's loyal man, Mr. Garrett, since the day I wed."

Cressie gasped, a glimmer of fierce hope replacing the tears in her eyes.

"The Riggs took the leaves," I said, staring at the closed door, "but I still own the roots. My younger brother and sister need a shield, and I am going to forge one out of steel, not the fragile promises of a traitor."

I picked up my purse, ready to walk out of this gilded cage and leave them with the bankrupt ruins of their own making. Before I could take a step, a sharp, hesitant knock echoed against the heavy oak door.