Chapter 2

Scarlett’s POV

The heavy oak slammed shut behind him, the deafening echo bouncing off the walls like a gunshot, sealing my fate.

I slumped sideways onto the floor, my gaze locking numbly onto the cold wood grain beneath me as the reality of my defeat washed over me in waves.

Aiden can’t just snatch my daughter from me. She’s all I got left in this cruel world. She’s meant to be mine, wrapped in my arms, safe from men like him.

I was the one who went through hell to get that girl, shielding her from the dark. She was mine. Mine. Not his. Never his.

A dull, agonizing ache slipped its way into my chest as vivid pictures of my little girl flashed relentlessly behind my eyelids—her bright, infectious laughter, the way her tiny hands used to wrap around my finger, how happy we were before he finally traced us down to this very room. How could I let him take that away?

I shouldn’t have let her leave my sight. She should have been right here with me now, safe in my arms.

Hot, heavy tears fell from my face in a continuous stream, a raw, choking sob escaping my lips, tearing open the wounds in my soul.

Suddenly, thick, choking smoke began to fill the room, blurring my vision and merging with the agonizing, yawning void in my chest, until the edges of the world darkened, and everything finally went black.

*

I forced my eyelids open, a sharp, white-hot spike of agony driving straight through my skull as I tried to sit up.

Every muscle in my body felt like lead—heavy, dead, and entirely uncooperative. Forcing myself up on shaking, trembling elbows, I scanned my surroundings.

Everywhere around me was just more of that suffocating, sterile white.

Fragments of my nightmare flooded back, colliding with reality. Images flashed through my mind of how I had been dragged away, sentenced to a silent, inescapable prison without a trial, without a voice.

The heavy blows rained down on me the exact minute I was shoved into that cold cell, as if the universe itself wanted to make sure I was completely broken.

I let out a cracked, ragged sob, burying my face in my kneecaps as hot, scalding tears fell freely from my eyes.

I didn't care about the pain anymore. I didn't care about the bruises painting my skin in shades of purple and black. I just wanted her back. I wanted my Aurelia back.

The soft click of the door opening made me jolt. I raised my head, blinking through a haze of tears to see a plus-sized nurse standing near the foot of the bed.

She walked toward me, her lips moving, but whatever she was saying was completely swallowed by the roaring static in my brain.

I tore my gaze away from her, sitting fully upright and letting out a sharp, involuntary wince as a fresh wave of agony radiated from my battered back.

“You’ll be fine,” she offered with a hollow, practiced encouragement.

Fine?

“I doubt you know the meaning behind that word,” I mumbled, licking my dry, cracked lower lips as I stared blankly into the void of the white wall.

“Here.” A plastic bottle of water was extended toward my face.

I blinked, taking it from her with trembling fingers, ripping the cap off, and downing the contents in desperate swallows that barely quenched the fire in my throat.

Dropping the bottle, I locked my gaze on it. Do I have anyone who could possibly get me out of this living hell?

Someone who could actually stand up and fight against a titan like Aiden Cole?

I highly doubt it.

Men like him owned the air we breathed, the ground we walked on. But then... my daughter was trapped in that tiger’s cage.

Yes, he’s her father by blood. By a miserable, legally binding piece of paper signed in a courtroom I was never invited to.

But he has no real claim to her heart. To her soul. He wasn’t there when relentless morning sickness kept me bedridden and throwing up my own bile.

He wasn’t there through the grueling, agonizing hours of labor where I screamed with no one to hold my hand. And he sure as hell wasn’t there for any of her firsts—not her first step, not her first spoken word, not the first time she smiled at the sunrise.

He was never there.

Not once.

And now, after years of absolute radio silence while I bled and starved in the shadows, he thinks he can just waltz back into our lives like a god and snatch her right out of my arms? Throwing me into a prison cell like a common criminal?

I swear on my very life, the exact minute I get my miserable ass out of this hellhole, I’m hunting down my daughter. I’d tear the world apart brick by brick if I had to.

“Are you even listening to me?” The nurse voice snapped me out of my trance.

Muttering a few more empty words, she finally turned and left, the heavy door clicking shut behind her.

I remained laid out on the bed, my mind trapped in a relentless, agonizing loop of how Aurelia must be faring right now.

The last time she had to stay even two weeks away from me for a brief holiday, my sensitive little girl had grown feverish and sick from sheer separation anxiety.

Just what condition would she be in now, locked away in that cold, towering mansion with a stranger?

It’s been two whole months since I last laid my eyes on her sweet face. Would she be fine? Or would she be crying herself to sleep, clutching a pillow that doesn't smell like me?

Would she have forgotten about me already, now that she’s surrounded by luxury and her biological dad?

Just how is my precious little girl fairing in that gilded cage?

I wiped away the fresh river of tears cascading down my face, throwing my legs over the side of the bed and standing up.

A heavy, dizzying wave of nausea hit me, and I heaved a breath, feeling my bladder painfully pressed to the limit.

I scanned the room frantically for any door, any exit, but found nothing save for the main entrance.

I limped heavily toward the door, my bare feet dragging across the cold floor, and rattled the handle, but it was locked tight from the outside.

I let out a shaky sigh and knocked twice against the solid wood. A small sliding slot near the top of the door opened a few seconds later, revealing a pair of cold eyes staring back at me.

“Wanna pee,” I muttered, my voice hoarse and dead.