CHAPTER 3

Viola stood in front of the small mirror in her bedroom, her fingers gently touching her jaw.

Yesterday, right after her mother's hand had cracked across her face, she had run to the bathroom and desperately covered the angry red mark with cheap foundation. Now, with the makeup washed off, a faint, yellowish-blue bruise stained her pale skin.

A quiet, sad laugh left her lips. Her mother went to church every single day, praying to God to keep sinners and filth away from their family, yet she never hesitated to strike her youngest daughter.

Viola had never worn a short dress in her life. But the exact second Vanessa said she had found that cheap red dress in Viola's closet, her mother believed it blindly. No questions. No chance to speak. Vanessa could parade around the house in short, tight dresses all day and be called flawless. Viola was always the filthy sinner.

It was always like that. So she had learned to avoid them all, whenever avoiding was possible.

She dropped her hand and pulled the collar of her oversized grey sweater higher.

Her tiny room was freezing in the early morning, but the chill on her skin wasn't just from the temperature. Every time her mind drifted back to the terrace last night, a fresh wave of goosebumps prickled along her arms.

Her stepbrother.

When her mother had first married Rafael, bringing a twelve-year-old Viola to this massive estate, a small, naive part of her had hoped. An older stepbrother might mean someone who would protect her. But Sebastian had never visited. Or maybe he had, and she just never knew. Vanessa had met him before. Viola had never seen him in person until yesterday.

She only knew him through the whispers of the staff.

They called him a monster. A cartel king who answered to no one, who had built his own kingdom in the dark instead of sitting in his father's chair. A butcher, one of the maids had said once, and then immediately crossed herself, as if the word alone could summon him.

And then there was the other story. The one Viola had overheard last winter, her hands buried in dishwater at the kitchen sink, so invisible that the maids forgot she was there at all.

Rafael had gotten tired of waiting for his son to come home. So he sent six of his own men to fetch him. To drag the young king back to this estate whether he wanted to come or not.

None of them ever made it past Sebastian's gates.

A week later, a delivery arrived at the house. A gift box, addressed to Rafael personally. Inside, packed neatly in ice, were six heads. And a note, written in Sebastian's own hand.

Stop sending people to fetch me. It gets messy.

One of the maids had known one of the six. She didn't come back to work for a month. And Rafael, they said, hadn't raged when he opened the box. He had just closed the lid and lit a cigar, like a man who finally understood what his son had become.

Viola had told herself it was just a story. Servants exaggerated. Stories grew in the telling.

Then last night, he had looked at her in the dark, and she had believed every word.

Because his cartel made people disappear and made entire families suffer, and the men who stood against him didn't get graves, and everyone in this house knew it, and no one ever said it out loud.

She shook the thought off, grabbed a worn paperback from her nightstand, and slipped out of her room.

She kept her head down, navigating the massive, quiet corridors. She just wanted somewhere to hide before Vanessa woke up and the daily torment began.

She slipped into the library.

It was a massive, two-story room smelling of old paper and dark wood. Viola found a large, high-backed leather chair tucked into the farthest corner, curled her legs up underneath her, and opened her book.

For a little while, it was peaceful.

Then the heavy oak doors clicked open.

Viola froze. Her fingers gripped the edges of her book.

Heavy, unhurried footsteps crossed the hardwood floor. Not the sharp click of Vanessa's heels.

"Tell Mateo to handle it," a rough voice commanded.

Sebastian.

Viola stopped breathing. She sank deeper into the leather chair, praying the high back hid her completely.

"No," Sebastian continued, cold and flat, into his phone. "I don't care what excuse he gave. Excuses don't bring my goods back."

A pause. She could almost hear the silence on the other end, the fear in it.

"Listen to me," Sebastian said, his voice dropping lower, quieter, and somehow that was worse. "He can give me my goods, or he can give me his life. He has until sunrise. Enoch will collect whichever one he chooses."

The phone clicked shut.

Viola sat perfectly still in her chair, her heart hammering. He had just ordered a man's death the way other men ordered coffee. No heat. No anger. Just a morning task.

Silence fell over the library. She waited for his footsteps to leave. Instead, she heard the soft clink of glass against crystal. He was pouring a drink.

"If you're going to hide in my house, dulzura," his rough voice drifted through the quiet room, sounding completely bored, "you need to learn how to breathe quieter."

Viola's heart dropped into her stomach.

She squeezed her eyes shut, hands shaking, then slowly lowered her legs and stood up from the chair.

Sebastian stood by a dark wooden cart across the room. No suit jacket today. A black button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick veins and old scars. He held a glass of amber liquid in one hand.

He didn't look surprised to see her. He just took a slow sip, his sharp eyes pinning her in place.

"I'm sorry," Viola stammered, clutching her book to her chest. "I didn't mean to intrude. I'll just—"

"Leaving," he finished for her.

She nodded, eyes on the floor, her face heating up. She hurried out from behind the chair, practically hugging the bookshelves, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of his presence.

"Stop."

Viola halted instantly. Her sneakers squeaked against the wood. She didn't turn around.

She heard the soft clink of his glass being set down. Then slow, heavy footsteps approaching. He walked around her until he stood directly in her line of sight, blocking the exit.

Viola kept her chin tucked down, staring at the middle button of his dark shirt.

Sebastian didn't speak at first. He just stood there, tall and imposing, invading her space without even touching her. Then he tilted his head, his gaze dragging over her face in the morning light.

His eyes stopped on her left cheek.

"Look up."

Her breath hitched. Her hands tightened around her book. "I really should—"

"I won't say it twice."

Trembling, she slowly raised her head, her violet eyes meeting his amber ones.

Sebastian stared at the faint, yellowish bruise on her pale skin. His expression didn't change. No pity. No soft concern. He studied it for a long, silent moment, with the cold, clinical precision of a man reading a label. Viola's skin prickled under the weight of his stare. Only then did he speak.

"Who hit you?" he asked, his voice completely flat.

Viola's stomach twisted. She quickly reached up, pulling a thick section of her dark hair forward to hide her jaw. "No one. I... I hit my face on a door."

Sebastian let out a short, humorless scoff. He shoved one hand into his pocket, looking down at her like she was the worst liar he had ever met.

"A door," he repeated dryly. "Right. Because doors leave fingermarks."

Viola flushed, dropping her gaze to his chest. Her throat felt tight. She hated that he saw it. She hated that he knew.

"It's fine," she whispered. "It doesn't hurt."

"I didn't ask if it hurt," he replied carelessly. "I asked who did it."

"It doesn't matter."

"Was it the mother?" His eyes narrowed slightly. "Or the sister?"

"Please," she said, taking a small step back. "Just leave it alone. I'm used to it."

Something moved behind his eyes at that.

He closed the distance she had made with one unhurried step, and his hand came up.

Viola went rigid.

His fingers found her chin, tilting her face up toward the morning light. His grip was firm. Unarguable. The kind of hold that said her face would stay exactly where he put it.

Then his thumb traced the edge of the yellowish mark.

Slowly. Along the fading border of it, never once pressing the tender center. One deliberate pass, and she understood with a small, dizzying shock that he was being careful. Sebastian Hierro, the butcher from the servants' stories, was touching her bruise like he was trying not to hurt her.

Her eyes betrayed her and lifted to his.

He was already watching her. And this time he didn't let the gaze go. He held it while his thumb finished its path along the edge of the mark, dominant and gentle at the same time, and her heart slammed so hard she was sure he could hear it.

"You let them treat you like a stray dog," he finally said, his voice dropping into a rough, cruel murmur. "No wonder you flinch at your own shadow."

The words stung, hitting her right in the chest.

Viola didn't have a response. She knew she was weak. She knew she didn't know how to fight back. She tried to drop her gaze, to hide, but his fingers held her chin exactly where he had put it. She couldn't even look away from him.

So she just stood there, trapped in his grip, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life.

Sebastian watched her for one long moment. Then his thumb left her skin. He let go of her chin and stepped aside, clearing the path to the door.

"Run along," he dismissed her, his tone dropping back into a cold drawl.

Viola didn't look at him again. She hurried past him, practically running out of the library.

She made it ten steps down the hallway before she pressed her back against the cold wall and slid down to the floor. Her cheek was still tingling where his thumb had been. Her breath came in short, shallow pulls.

And in the daylight, with his scars and his cold eyes and his flat voice, the gentleness of his touch had confused her more than cruelty ever could.

It felt like a man counting something.

Like he was memorizing every mark on her skin and filing it away for later.

That thought terrified her more than anything.