Chapter 3

The rain fell harder, plastering my hair to my face and soaking my clothes to the skin.

I knelt on the wet grass, my fingers trembling as I tried to gather the scattered letters. The ink was running, blurring my father's elegant handwriting into meaningless smudges. Each ruined page was a fresh stab of pain in my heart.

The music box my father gave my mother on their first anniversary lay half-buried in the mud, its delicate melody silenced forever.

I crawled to the front door and banged my fists against the solid oak.

"Elliott! Let me in! Please!"

My cries were swallowed by the storm.

A light switched on in an upstairs window. One of the maids, Mary, peered out.

"Please, Mary! Open the door!" I shouted.

Her face was a mixture of pity and fear. She shook her head. "I can't, Miss Pratt. Mr. Hickman gave orders."

The light went out.

The reality of my situation hit me with the force of a physical blow. I was no longer the lady of this house. I was a prisoner, and my warden had just thrown me out into the cold.

I looked through the living room window. Elliott had his arms around Katarina, comforting her. He was stroking her hair as she sobbed into his chest. A perfect picture of deceit.

A wave of cold, hard anger cut through my grief. I would not let them break me.

I huddled against the wall of the house, trying to find some shelter from the wind and rain. I clutched the broken music box to my chest. It was all I had left.

I remembered when Elliott and I were kids, playing in this very yard. He fell out of the big oak tree and broke his arm. I sat with him for hours, telling him stories until the ambulance came. He told me I was his hero.

He had promised to always protect me.

That promise was a lie, shattered like the photograph of my parents.

The cold seeped into my bones. My body started to shake uncontrollably. Exhaustion, both physical and emotional, washed over me. I leaned my head against the cold stone and closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me.

I don't know how long I was out there. When I came to, the rain had stopped. The moon was high in the sky.

The front door opened.

Elliott stood there, silhouetted against the light from the hall. His face was unreadable in the shadows.

He walked over to me, his footsteps silent on the wet grass. He looked down at me, huddled on the ground, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Pity? Regret?

It was gone as quickly as it appeared.

He tossed a folded umbrella onto the ground next to me.

"Don't catch a cold," he said, his voice flat. "It would be inconvenient."

Then he turned and walked back inside, closing the door behind him. He didn't offer me a hand. He didn't ask if I was okay. He just left me there, with his pathetic, useless gesture of an umbrella.

The next morning, I let myself in with the spare key I kept hidden in the garden. The house was quiet. I took the muddy box of my parents' things to my studio. I spent hours carefully cleaning each item, trying to salvage what I could. The photograph was ruined. The letters were mostly illegible. But the little ballerina from the music box was intact.

I was trying to glue her back onto the lid when I heard them coming down the stairs.

Katarina saw me first. "Oh, look. She's playing with her broken toys."

I ignored her, my focus entirely on the delicate task.

She walked closer. "You know, Elliott feels terrible about what happened. He's just very protective of me."

I didn't respond.

"I'm really good at fixing things," she said, her voice cloying sweet. "Let me help you with that."

She reached for the music box.

"Don't touch it," I said, my voice low and dangerous.

Elliott stepped forward. "Ava, let her help. It was an accident. She's trying to make it right."

"No," I said, clutching the box to my chest.

Katarina's eyes filled with tears. "I just wanted to help... Elliott, she hates me."

"Give it to me, Ava," Elliott commanded.

"No."

I saw the flash of anger in his eyes. He snapped his fingers. Two of his bodyguards appeared from the hallway.

"Get it from her," he ordered.

They moved toward me. I scrambled backward, holding the music box like a shield.

"Don't you dare!" I screamed.

They grabbed my arms. I fought, but they were too strong. I kicked and struggled, my nails digging into their skin. One of them twisted my arm behind my back, forcing me to cry out in pain.

The music box fell from my grasp.

Katarina picked it up. She looked at it, then at me, a look of pure, triumphant malice in her eyes.

"Oops," she said.

And she dropped it.

The fragile wood and metal shattered on the hard floor, the little ballerina rolling under a table.