Chapter 7

Declan was gone for days. I knew he was with Christie because she made sure I knew. Her social media was a triumphant display of their time together. Pictures of them at fancy restaurants, on a private yacht, her wearing a new diamond bracelet he' d bought her. The captions were sickeningly sweet. "So grateful for a man who knows how to treat a woman right."

I ignored it all. I spent my days on the phone with my father, finalizing the details of our escape. Holt' s people were incredible. They had arranged everything. New identities, new passports, a flight to Australia. The plan was to fake our deaths in a house fire at my father's home. It was extreme, but it was the only way.

On the last day, just before we were supposed to leave, I went to my father' s house to retrieve the one thing I couldn' t leave behind: my mother' s ashes. They were in a small, carved wooden box on the mantle.

When I walked into the living room, my blood ran cold.

Christie was standing there, holding the box in her hands.

A cold sense of dread washed over me. "Put that down, Christie," I said, my voice dangerously low.

She smiled, a slow, cruel stretching of her lips. "My, my. You' re a tough one, Emily. I thought for sure that little incident in the basement would have broken you."

The casual way she said it, the lack of remorse, confirmed what I already knew. She was a sociopath.

"That knife attack at the auction," I said, the pieces clicking into place. "That was you, wasn' t it? You hired that man."

She laughed, a high, tinkling sound that grated on my nerves. "Of course, it was me. I was so disappointed when you survived. Declan using you as a shield was an unexpected, but welcome, surprise."

My hands clenched into fists. I took a deep, steadying breath. "Give me the box, Christie."

I didn' t want a confrontation. Not now. Not when freedom was so close.

"Why are you so weak?" she taunted, her eyes gleaming with malice. "He treats you like garbage, and you just take it. You don' t deserve him."

She held the box up.

"You know, I was thinking this room could use a little redecorating."

And with a flick of her wrist, she threw the box against the wall.

It shattered on impact. The wood splintered, and my mother' s ashes, a fine gray dust, rained down onto the carpet.

Something inside me snapped.

The world went red. I lunged at her, a scream of pure rage ripping from my throat. I grabbed her by the hair and slapped her face, hard. The sound echoed in the silent room.

"I' ll kill you!" I shrieked, my voice unrecognizable. "I' ll kill you, you bitch!"

She stumbled back, a hand to her cheek, her eyes wide with shock and then narrowing with cold fury.

"You dare hit me?"

Just then, we heard footsteps. Declan' s heavy tread in the hallway.

Christie' s expression changed in an instant. With a speed that was terrifying, she grabbed a heavy glass paperweight from a side table and slammed it against her own forehead.

Blood welled up instantly, trickling down her temple. She staggered back, her eyes wide with fake terror, pointing a trembling finger at me.

"Declan!" she wailed, just as he burst into the room. "She tried to kill me! She hit me with the paperweight!"

Declan' s eyes took in the scene: Christie with blood on her face, me standing over her with my hands raised, my face a mask of fury. He didn' t hesitate.

He lunged at me, grabbing my arms and shoving me back so hard I stumbled and fell.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" he roared, his face purple with rage. He knelt by Christie, cradling her as if she were a precious, broken doll.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and furious. "She smashed my mother' s ashes, Declan!" I screamed, pointing at the gray dust on the floor. "Look!"

He glanced at the floor, then back at Christie' s bleeding head. His expression was cold, dismissive.

"It' s just ashes, Emily. Christie is alive. She' s hurt."

The casual cruelty of his words stole the air from my lungs. My mother had loved him like a son. She' d nursed him back to health after his childhood illnesses, celebrated his every success. And this is how he honored her memory. By choosing her desecrator over her daughter.

"Do you even remember her?" I whispered, my voice thick with a pain so deep it felt like it was tearing me apart from the inside. "Do you remember anything, Declan?"

He flinched, but his jaw remained set. The monster was firmly in control.