Chapter 8

I left the hospital, again, just in time for Seraphina’s birthday gala.

The Castell mansion was a blaze of light and sound. As the disgraced but still technically eldest daughter, my presence was mandatory.

I stood in a shadowed alcove, a ghost at my own family’s feast. I watched Marco, his face flushed with pride and expensive champagne, parade Seraphina through the crowd. He stopped before the assembled guests—rival family underbosses, corrupt politicians, business associates with slippery morals.

“To my daughter,” he announced, his voice booming. “The true light of this family! As a token of my faith, I am transferring controlling interest in Castell Shipping and seventy percent of my liquid assets to her name.”

A murmur of approval and envy rippled through the room.

I felt nothing. Just a deep, cold stillness.

My own birthdays had been silent affairs. A small cake ordered by a disinterested housekeeper. Candles blown out in an empty dining room. Wishes that dissolved into the quiet.

The gift-giving began. Marco’s was obscenely generous. But the true showstopper came from Renato.

He produced a black velvet box. Inside, nestled on satin, was a necklace. Not just diamonds. A waterfall of baguette-cut stones, centered by a blood-red ruby the size of my thumbnail. The Caldera family color. He fastened it around Seraphina’s neck himself.

The crowd’s gasp was audible. Seraphina glowed, her eyes darting to my corner with triumphant glee.

I’d had enough. I slipped away to the long bar set up in the conservatory. I bypassed the champagne, poured three fingers of neat Scotch, and swallowed it in one burning gulp.

Peace was not an option.

A cluster of Seraphina’s hangers-on—daughters of minor syndicate figures—swarmed over, their laughter sharp and pointed.

“Look, it’s the Castell ghost,” one sneered. “Why the long face? Jealous that your sister actually deserves her party?”

I set the glass down and turned to leave.

A hand shot out, manicured nails digging into my burned forearm. “We’re talking to you. Where are your manners?”

I snapped.

I wrenched my arm free so violently the girl stumbled. My eyes swept over their smirking faces.

Then I moved.

I didn’t reach for a glass. I grabbed the nearest weapon—a heavy, ice-filled crystal champagne bucket.

“You had your chance to walk away.”

I swung it.

It connected with the first girl’s shoulder and head with a solid, wet thwack. Ice and water sprayed. She went down with a shriek.

Chaos erupted.

I was a whirlwind of cold fury. I used the bucket like a mace, driving it into a stomach, cracking it against an upraised arm. I kicked a knee out from under another. It was brutal, efficient, and utterly without finesse.

Strong hands seized me from behind, pinning my arms. The bucket fell from my grip, clattering on the floor.

Renato spun me around. His face was a mask of icy fury as he surveyed the whimpering, soaked, injured girls. “Aria! What is wrong with you?”

I met his glare, my breathing ragged. “They mouthed off. I shut them up. It’s the language people like us understand.”

“This isn’t ‘shutting them up’! This is unprovoked assault!” His voice was low, dangerous. “They criticized you? Perhaps you should listen. Improve. Apologize to them. Now.”

“Go to hell.”

His patience, always thin where I was concerned, vanished. He knew my fear. The dark. Enclosed spaces. A childhood haunted by punishment rooms.

“If you won’t learn decency, you’ll learn fear.” He nodded to two of his men who had materialized at his side. “Take her to the strong room in the basement. Lock her in. She doesn’t come out until I say so.”

He looked at me, his eyes devoid of any warmth. “Sometimes fear is the only teacher that works.”

I didn’t fight as the guards marched me away. The strong room was exactly as I remembered from childhood: a windowless concrete cube, a single dim bulb behind a wire cage in the ceiling, a drain in the floor. The door was solid steel.

It shut with a final, resonant clang.

Darkness, thick and suffocating, rushed in as they turned the light off from the outside.

The old terror rose like a tide, cold and choking. I sank to the floor in the corner, pulling my knees to my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs. Sweat, cold and clammy, soaked through my clothes.

Time lost meaning. Hunger gnawed. Thirst parched my throat. The dark pressed in, a physical weight. The memories of a little girl locked in a closet for crying too loud whispered from the corners.

On what I thought was the third day, the door clanked open.

Light from the corridor blinded me. Seraphina stood silhouetted in the doorway, a smile playing on her lips.

“I thought Renato would be harsher,” she mused, stepping inside. “A few days in the dark? That’s a vacation.” She clicked her fingers.

Two of my father’s security detail, men with blank faces, entered behind her.

“What are you doing?” My voice was a dry rasp.

“Giving the lesson some… teeth,” she said sweetly. “String her up.”