Chapter 2

The light was wrong. It was the cold, blue-white light of dawn filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows, stabbing into her skull like tiny needles.

Edith blinked, trying to force her eyes to adjust. Her body ached. She was still on the marble floor where he had left her. The ruined gown was stiff and cold against her skin. A rhythmic ticking from the grandfather clock in the hall drilled into her consciousness.

She was in a prison of her own making.

She tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea rolled over her, forcing her back down with a groan. Her mouth tasted like copper. Her shoulder, where his fingers had dug in, throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

The door to the master suite opened. A man in a crisp suit, Giovanni's personal assistant, walked in, his expression grave. He was not a doctor.

"Mrs. Baldwin," he said, averting his eyes from her state on the floor. "You're awake."

"Where..." Edith's voice was a dry rasp. "Where is Giovanni?"

The assistant looked up. "Mr. Baldwin had an early flight to Tokyo. He left instructions that you are not to leave the penthouse."

Edith closed her eyes. Of course he left. He had done what he wanted to do. Humiliated her, then caged her.

"I'm Julian," the assistant continued, placing a tray with a glass of water and some painkillers on a low table, pointedly not helping her up. "Mr. Baldwin also instructed me to inform you that all your credit cards have been temporarily suspended. For your... protection."

Edith's hands clenched on the cold floor. He was cutting her off, tightening the leash.

"I need to ask you," Julian said, his voice carefully neutral, his eyes finally meeting hers. "To refrain from any... unusual activities. Mr. Baldwin expects a period of quiet contemplation from you."

Edith's throat tightened. "Unusual activities," she whispered. It was a veiled threat. He was warning her.

Julian's face remained a professional mask. He set a small, velvet box down on the table next to the water. "Mr. Baldwin sends his apologies for the 'accident' last night. He trusts this will suffice."

Edith stared at him. The words didn't make sense. Apologies?

He gave a stiff bow and left the room. After a moment, Edith painfully pushed herself up. Her gaze fell on the velvet box. Inside was a diamond necklace, cold and glittering. A bribe. A gag. A price tag for her silence and submission.

The beeping of the heart monitor accelerated, matching the sudden racing of her pulse. A memory of the notification on her burner phone flashed in her mind. Code Red. The Nightingale contract. A family, a child of her own-the one small, secret hope she had clung to as a reason to survive this marriage-was gone. Ripped away in a single, cold injection.

Her hands began to shake. She pushed the box away, fisting them in the ruined silk of her gown, her nails digging into her palms so hard she felt the skin break.

"It can't be," she breathed, but even as she said it, she knew it was true. Giovanni's face as he held her down flashed in her mind. The cold satisfaction. The deliberate cruelty. He was trying to break her, to isolate her, to make her completely dependent on him.

A sound in the hallway made her look up. The door to the study was slightly ajar. Voices drifted in from the corridor.

It was Julian, on a video call. The voice on the other end was smooth, feminine, and sickeningly familiar. He was on the phone, his tone low and intimate, a sound she hadn't heard directed at her in years.

"Kassandra, don't cry," he murmured, the warmth in his voice a violent contrast to the ice he had shown Edith. "He's handling it. He said there will be no more public embarrassments. No one will be allowed to tarnish Dakota's memory."

Edith felt the blood drain from her face. The cold that washed over her was absolute, freezing her from the inside out. He knew. He had done this on purpose. Not just to hurt her, but to publicly brand her as unworthy. To appease Kassandra and the ghost of Dakota.

The footsteps moved away down the hall. He hadn't even bothered to speak to her himself.

A nurse entered, carrying a plastic bag containing Edith's personal effects. The ruined white gown was inside, the red stain now dried to a rusty brown. Her phone was placed on the bedside table.

The screen was lit up with notifications. Dozens of them.

Edith ignored the necklace, the water, everything. She crawled over to her clutch, her movements desperate. With trembling hands, she retrieved the burner phone from its hidden compartment. She scrolled through the messages, her vision blurring. They were all from Anya, her second-in-command at her secret fashion house, Dreamscape Atelier.

She dialed the number, her finger slipping on the screen.

"Lan? Are you there?" a brisk voice answered, using Edith's codename.

"This is Edith Woods. I'm calling about my mother, Helen Baxter."

"Anya," Edith whispered, her voice cracking. "I'm here. What's the situation?"

"The Nightingale leak was intentional," the voice turned hard, professional. "Someone tipped them off about our Italian silk supplier. It has Giovanni Baldwin's fingerprints all over it. He's acquiring smaller textile companies, and our supplier is next on his list. He doesn't know it's us, but if he acquires them, he'll control our entire production line."

Edith's stomach dropped. "Frozen? By whom?"

"By the account holder, Mr. Alistair Stephenson. Per the terms of the agreement, if payment is not received within twenty-four hours, your mother will be transferred to a state-run public facility."

"No!" Edith gasped, sitting up straight, the dizziness slamming into her again. "He can't do that. He's cornering us. He'll bankrupt us without even knowing he's fighting me."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Snider. Those are the rules. You have until five PM tomorrow."

The line went dead.

Edith dropped the phone onto the rug. She stared at the wall across the room. Her body was broken. Her secret empire, the one thing that was truly hers, was being held hostage. Giovanni had stripped her of everything.

She looked at her reflection in the dark screen of the phone. Pale, hollow-eyed, defeated. But deep in the depths of her own stare, a tiny spark flickered. A spark of pure, unadulterated defiance.

She reached down and grabbed the diamond necklace. It was heavy, cold. A gilded cage.

"Mrs. Stephenson!" Dr. Evans protested, jumping up from his chair.

Edith threw the blanket off and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her knees buckled, but she grabbed the rail and hauled herself upright.

"I'm leaving," she said, her voice hoarse but steady.

"You are in no condition to leave. You need observation-"

"I need to save my company," she snapped. She grabbed the plastic bag with her ruined dress and stumbled toward the bathroom to change into the spare clothes the hospital had provided.

She had no money. No support. No one to turn to. But she had to get that money. She had twenty-four hours.

As she pulled her coat on, her hand brushed against the small, velvet-lined box in her pocket. The Patek Philippe watch. Her mother's last gift to her. The only thing of real value she owned.

She walked out of the hospital room, every step sending a jolt of pain through her body. But her direction was clear. She was going to Fifth Avenue, and she was going to sell her soul to save her mother.