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Naomi’s POV

The sound of my stepmother’s voice cut through the house like a blade, it was sharp enough to make the walls themselves want to break down and disappear.

“Naomi!”

I was already moving before my name finished echoing through the corridors. 

Five years of living under Verena’s roof had taught me that hesitation meant pain, and I have learned to swallow pain to survive.

My bare feet hit the cold marble stairs two at a time, each step sending a fresh wave of agony through my ribs. 

The punishment for not completing my work of cooking, cleaning, washing the house, and tidying the car before they got home. And now, I had nothing but a broken rib to show for it.

It felt like broken glass shifting under my skin. 

“Yes, Mother!” I called out, my voice was steady despite the fire in my chest.

She stood in the main hallway with her arms crossed, her perfectly manicured nails drumming against her silk blouse. Everything about Verena Hale was evil…her cheekbones, her smile, the way she looked at me like I was nothing but dirt under her shoe. 

“Why,” she said slowly, “did you let your precious sister go into the kitchen alone?”

The world tilted.

Sofia stood behind her mother, cradling her left hand against her chest. Even from across the room, I could see the angry red mark blooming across her pale skin…there was a burn, it was fresh and blistering.

My stomach dropped to my feet. “Mother, I didn’t know—”

“Shut your mouth.”She shouted, grabbing Sofia’s injured hand and thrusting it toward my face, close enough that I could smell the scent of burned flesh. “Look what you have done.”

“I was applying balm to my wounds,” I whispered, the words tumbling out before I could stop them. “I didn’t hear her call. I swear, I didn’t…”

“You are lying.” Sofia’s voice was thick with tears, but her expression was smug. “I called for you three times. Three times, Naomi. You just… ignored me.”

“That’s not true.” The words escaped before I could catch them. “Ask Cassian, he was there. He heard…”

“So now you are calling my daughter a liar?” Verena stepped closer, her perfume filled my nose like poison. “You think you can turn my own son against his sister?”

I took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. The wall pressed against my spine.

“No, I would never—”

“You’re jealous.” Verena’s eyes glittered with cruel delight. “You have always been jealous of Sofia’s beauty, her grace. You can’t stand that she’s everything you’ll never be.”

She was right, and we both knew it. Sofia was as beautiful as a doll, with her soft curves and doe eyes. Next to her, I was nothing.

“You wanted her to get hurt,” Verena continued, circling me like a predator. “Didn’t you? You wanted to see her suffer.”

“No.” My voice broke on the word. “Please, I would never hurt Sofia. Never.”

But even as I said it, I wondered if she was right. Had there been a moment, just a heartbeat, where I felt something dark and ugly when I saw Sofia’s perfect skin burnt? Had I wanted someone else to know what it felt like to be in pain?

The thought made me sick.

“I just…I didn’t hear her, I swear. I wasn’t ignoring her .”

“Liar!” she screamed, stomping her foot. “You always act like you’re the victim! You hate me, and now you want to make me look bad in front of Mom!”

My stepmom's hand moved faster than I thought, connecting with my cheek in a sharp crack that sent my head snapping to the side. Stars exploded behind my eyelids. The taste of blood flooded my mouth.

“Next time you pull something like this,” she hissed, leaning close enough that her breath tickled my ear, “I’ll break more than just your ribs, you rotten pig.”

“No food for a week. Maybe hunger will teach you to be a better sister.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream that I had already lost ten pounds this month, that sometimes I caught myself staring at Sofia’s dinner plates like a starving animal.

Instead, I nodded. “Yes, Mother.”

“Get out of my sight.”

 Biting my lips, I rushed up the stairs to the tiny store which has been my room since my mother died.

The room wasn’t much, with only a single narrow window that looked out onto the servants’ quarters. A thin mattress lay on the floor, covered by a gray sheet that had seen better decades. 

My few possessions …three dresses, a pair of worn shoes, and my mother’s locket …fit easily into a cardboard box tucked into the corner.

I sank onto the mattress, finally allowing myself to touch my ribs. It was definitely broken.

Days like this, I couldn’t help but think about my mother.

My mother, Elena Hale, was once beautiful. I saw the photographs hidden in the back of my father’s desk … She was a young woman with dark hair and gentle eyes.

She was sold to my father at seventeen, as payment for her family’s debts.

That’s how it worked in mafia families like ours. Women were currency. Bargaining chips. We were meant to be quiet, obedient, and disposable.

My father wanted sons. Heirs to carry on the hale name and expand the family’s reach into new territories. Instead, he got me …a daughter who looked too much like her mother and carried too much of her gentleness.

For years, he tried to beat that gentleness out of both of us.

I remembered the sounds that used to drift through the walls late at night. The sound of my mother’s muffled sobs. The heavy thud of flesh hitting flesh. 

In the morning, she would make breakfast and pretend everything was alright.

“There’s good in everyone, bambina,” she used to whisper to me when she thought no one was listening. “Even in the darkness, there’s always a little light. You just have to look for it.”

I tried so hard to find that light in my father, but I never did.

The official story was that my mother died of pneumonia. A sudden illness, they said. 

The truth was simpler and more brutal.

Vin Hale beat his wife to death on a Tuesday morning in March, three days after I turned thirteen. I found her in their bedroom, her body was twisted at an unnatural angle, with her gentle eyes staring at nothing.

He buried her in an unmarked grave behind the estate and married Verena within the month.

Verena came with a five-year-old son named Cassian, who was the opposite of my mother.

Two years later, Sofia was born, and suddenly I became even more unnecessary. Another mouth to feed, another reminder of the wife who had been disposed of.

The only person who showed me any kindness was Cassian.

At first, it felt strange…how it was always him, showing up after the worst moments. But the more he came to me, night after night, doing nothing but holding me close, whispering things that made my heart feel warm… the more I started to believe him.

He would slip into my room after the house had gone quiet, careful not to make the floorboards creak. He would never speak, just hold me while I shook from pain or fear or the crushing weight of being unwanted. His hands would trace the edges of my injuries with a tenderness that made me believe, for a few precious hours, that I was worth saving.

“I’ll get you out of here someday,” he would whisper against my hair. “I promise, Naomi. I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

And I believed him. God help me, but I believed every word.

Until the night he stopped coming.

It had been gradual at first. He skipped a night here and there, claiming he was too tired or that the risks were too great. Then the skipped nights became weeks. Then months.

By the time I realized he wasn’t coming back, it was too late I pressed my face into my thin pillow, breathing in the scent of must and desperation. Tomorrow would bring fresh pain. New humiliations. The endless cycle of survival had become my existence.

But tonight, in the darkness of my closet-room, I allowed myself one dangerous thought.

Maybe it would have been better if I had never been born.