Chapter 1

Isabella POV

The heavy iron door of the underground cell groaned open, the harsh scrape of metal echoing like a death knell. Maid Helaine stood in the narrow doorway, a cruel smirk playing on her lips as she balanced a tray of moldy scraps. Even down here, buried in the damp, lightless bowels of the Velasquez estate, I could feel the muffled, rhythmic bass of music vibrating through the concrete ceiling.

A wedding. A *Blood Wedding*.

"Enjoy your meal, dead girl," Helaine sneered, her eyes gleaming with the malice she inherited from her mistress, Kiana Velasquez. "Don Javier is marrying Caitlin Cross today. The whole estate is celebrating in the main hall."

I didn't care about Javier Velasquez. Three years ago, at eighteen, I was dragged into this gilded cage as collateral for my father's debts. Javier, then just a scheming heir, had used me as a pathetic shield to blind his stepmother, Elzada, parading his mistresses while leaving me to rot in the forgotten wing. When he finally seized the title of Don with an iron fist, he didn't set me free. He threw me into this lightless cell and invoked *Omertà*. To the world, Isabella Santiago had died of a sudden illness.

But Helaine wasn't finished. She leaned in, her voice dripping with venom, delivering the final, fatal blow. "Oh, and Princess Kiana wanted you to know a little secret... your mother, Annabel? She received your 'belongings' a few weeks ago. The grief broke her fragile mind. She died half a month ago, weeping for a daughter who was already a ghost."

*Mother is dead.*

The words didn't just break my heart; they incinerated my soul. Helaine tossed the tray onto the filthy floor and locked the door, plunging me back into the suffocating dark.

For three years, I had survived the starvation, the beatings, and the endless humiliation, clinging to the fragile hope of seeing my mother and my little sister, Abby, again. I had endured the unendurable just to breathe the same air as them. But Javier's web of lies had killed the only woman who truly loved me.

There was no fear left in me. No tears. Only a hollow, bottomless void demanding one absolute law of our world: *Vendetta*.

I dragged my emaciated body toward the far corner of the cell, where crates of highly flammable smuggled liquor were stacked-forgotten contraband from Javier's early days. My fingers, bruised and trembling, found a jagged piece of broken glass and an exposed, frayed electrical wire protruding from the damp wall.

I smashed the bottles one by one. The sharp, pungent stench of alcohol flooded the cramped space, soaking into the moldy mattress, pooling around my bare, freezing feet.

"May you all burn in hell," I whispered, my voice a raspy phantom in the dark.

I struck the frayed wire against a damp metal pipe. A spark jumped.

The ignition was instantaneous. A roaring wave of orange and blue flames erupted, devouring the alcohol in a hungry frenzy. The fire crawled up the walls, feeding on the dry rot and shooting straight toward the ventilation shafts that connected directly to the opulent main hall above.

Let the Don have his wedding. Let Caitlin Cross choke on her vows. Let Kiana and Helaine scream as the floorboards melt beneath their designer heels. I would turn this entire estate into their funeral pyre.

I didn't run. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I simply sat on the stone floor, pulling my knees to my chest as the inferno raged around me. The heat was blinding, blistering my pale skin, turning the air into toxic, thick smoke.

My lungs burned, and my vision began to blur into a hazy crimson. Yet, as the flames licked closer, threatening to consume me entirely, the agonizing heat paradoxically began to fade. As my consciousness slipped away, a phantom chill seeped deep into my bones.

The roaring fire around me dissolved, replaced by the howling wind of a blizzard. My mind, detaching from the agony of the present, drifted back to the coldest day of my life. Three years ago. Standing outside the towering iron gates of the Hobbs estate, holding Abby's freezing hand in the unforgiving snow.