Chapter 1 1

"If you don't let me marry Erick, I will die right here. Tomorrow, the Wyatt family will be the biggest joke in the country."

Hayden Larson pressed the jagged edge of the broken champagne flute harder against her left wrist.

The sharp glass pierced her pale skin.

A thick drop of dark red blood welled up, sliding down her forearm before dripping onto the priceless Persian rug beneath her bare feet.

Her chest heaved. She dragged in shallow, ragged breaths, her eyes locked on the man sitting on the leather sofa opposite her.

Alois Wyatt sat entirely in the shadows.

The harsh overhead lights of the VIP club room barely caught the sharp, rigid lines of his jaw.

His large hands gripped the armrests of the sofa. The knuckles were stark white. The thick blue veins on the backs of his hands bulged against his skin.

The air in the room felt like solid concrete.

Barnett Stephens stood a few feet away, his mouth slightly open, holding his breath. He didn't dare make a single sound.

Alois stared at the blood dripping from Hayden's wrist. A violent spasm of pain and raw, suppressed rage flashed through his dark eyes.

He closed his eyes hard. His Adam's apple bobbed as he forced a swallow down his dry throat.

The room was dead silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the air conditioning vent above them.

Alois opened his eyes.

"Fine," he said. His voice was a harsh, gravelly scrape, like sandpaper against raw wood. "I agree."

Those three words hit Hayden's ears.

They were supposed to be her victory. They were supposed to mean she finally got what she wanted.

Instead, a high-pitched ringing exploded in her eardrums.

Her vision blurred. The expensive wood paneling and the leather sofas began to twist and spin, like a warped reel of old film.

A freezing chill shot up from the soles of her feet, straight into her skull.

Suddenly, her nostrils flared.

She smelled it. The thick, choking stench of gasoline. The sickening odor of burning flesh.

The phantom agony of jagged metal crushing her ribs and tearing into her internal organs slammed into her body without a single second of warning.

Her lungs stopped working.

Erick's cold, mocking laughter echoed in her head. She could physically feel the bite of the freezing leather restraints cutting into her wrists, and the sickening stench of bleach and rotting despair that had choked her in that European asylum for three long years flooded her senses.

Hayden's entire body began to shake violently.

Her fingers went numb. The bloody shard of glass slipped from her grip.

It hit the crystal coffee table with a sharp, shattering crack.

Alois's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He thought she was about to drive the glass deeper into her vein. His massive frame lunged forward off the sofa.

Barnett shouted a curse, stepping forward to kick the glass away.

Hayden snapped her head up.

The hostile, rebellious glare she had worn just seconds ago was entirely gone. Her eyes were wide, overflowing with a thick, suffocating terror and absolute despair.

She gasped for air, her mouth open like a drowning victim finally breaking the surface of the water.

She looked at Alois.

The image of an older, broken Alois kneeling in front of her gravestone with snow-white hair violently collided with the man standing in front of her now. The man in the immaculate bespoke suit. The man who was alive.

A crushing weight of guilt and the hysterical joy of finding something she thought was lost forever completely shattered her sanity.

Hayden didn't care about her bleeding wrist.

She stumbled forward, her bare feet crunching over the tiny shards of broken glass.

Under the shocked stares of Barnett and the bodyguards by the door, she threw herself directly at the sofa.

Alois hadn't even fully stood up before a soft, trembling body slammed hard into his chest.

The heavy scent of copper and blood hit his nose.

Hayden locked her arms around his neck. She buried her face deep into the crook of his neck, inhaling the cold, sharp scent of cedar that clung to his skin.

Hot, wet tears instantly soaked into the collar of Alois's silk shirt.

Hayden squeezed her eyes shut and let out a loud, gut-wrenching sob. She cried like a wounded animal, the sound tearing out of her throat and echoing off the walls, completely destroying everyone's expectation that she was about to celebrate her victory.