Chapter 3 Chapter 3

Tabloid photos of Alex Hilton and Susan Charles flash across my phone like a strobe.

His pupils are slitted in every image, a detail the paparazzi mistake for camera glare but I recognize as the telltale sign of his wolf .​

He buys her full-page spreads in Vogue, where she poses in threadbare cotton dresses, ponytail swishing like a flag.

Socialites who once sneered at my thrift-store clothes now clamor for "Susan-core"-designers stitch fake ragged patches onto silk gowns, as if poverty were a chic accessory.

The trending that turns my stomach: "Hilton Heir Splurges Millions on Visually Impaired Muse."

He flies in ophthalmologists from six continents, their reports piled like a pyramid, then shatters the table when they confirm her congenital vision loss is irreversible.

In the leaked security footage, his eyes glow molten gold as he pins a healer by the throat: "I'll rip out my own retinas to match hers!"

I know that look-the mania of a werewolf desperate to bind his mate.​

So his brand of madness isn't exclusive.

Those once-sacred gestures-canceling board meetings to tune my flute, tattooing my name over his heart-were just his playbook for seduction, rewritten for each new obsession.

I was naive to think I was different.

At the hospital, my brother's hand is cadaverous.

Three years ago, Alex summoned a private air ambulance with a trauma team, yanking him back from the brink.

Now I press his cold fingers to my cheek: "I'm taking you somewhere we can start over."

Tears fall like ash on his hospital gown.

I thought he'd rescued me from the streets, but he'd only built a gilded cage .

I should have known his kindness came with a price.​

At the registry office, the clerk studies my ID-she remembers the tabloid story of the beggar who became Mrs. Hilton.

The auction house is flooded with his gifts: diamond chokers that once graced my neck, jade bangles that matched his mother's.

Under the auction lights, they gleam like the false promises in his eyes.

Back at the villa, I feed my old keepsakes to the fire: a half-knitted scarf, charcoal sketches of his sleeping face, a patchwork cushion made from his discarded shirts.

Flames curl around the fabric, and I see eighteen-year-old Alex kneeling on the floor, carefully folding these "trash" into a cigar box: "These mean more than all my trust fund."

Now I know he was just playing the part of the smitten lovers.​

Now he stands in the doorway, Susan tucked under his arm: "What's burning?"

His nostrils flare as he catches the scent of wolfsbane ash.​

"Memories," I say, not looking up.​

"Fetch the emerald bracelet for Susan."

That heirloom piece, pressed onto my wrist on our wedding eve: "This links you to the Hiltons-forever."

Now he dangles it before another woman.

As I climb the stairs, Susan trails me, fingernails clicking on the banister.

Her eyes rake over my walk-in closet, jealousy pooling in her gaze:

"Yuki Smith, still lurking? How desperate."

I place the velvet box in her hand, missing the predatory glint in her eye.

She smashes the bracelet on the floor, then shoves me hard.

The staircase railing slams into my spine; my forehead splits on a marble step, blood dripping onto the carpet like rubies.

When I look up, Alex is cupping Susan's scraped knee, his pupils slitted: "Did she attack you?"

Susan buries her face in his chest, voice vibrating: "She said I wasn't fit to wear Hilton jewels, then threw me down the stairs!"

Alex's stare bores into me like ice picks.

His guards drag me to the drawing room, where a silver-tipped cane whistles through the air. Each lash splits my skin.