Chapter 2

The next day, I went to a high-end men’s boutique.

If I was going to marry the man they called “The Viper,” I should bring a gift.

It was good manners. It was also a sign of good faith.

I stood at the tie counter and pointed to a dark green silk tie.

“This one. Wrap it up.”

Just as the sales associate reached for it, a hand with tacky pink nails slammed down on the glass.

“That color is so drab. It wouldn’t suit Marco at all.”

Sandra’s voice, dripping with superiority, came from behind me.

I turned.

Marco had his arm around her waist, stroking her hair like she was a prize. The moment he saw me, the warmth in his eyes turned to ice.

“Odessa, are you following us?”

He glanced at the tie I’d picked and sneered. “I know you rejected my offer the other day to drive up the price. Regret it now? Trying to buy me a birthday gift, begging me to take you in? With a cheap tie that costs, what, a few grand?”

Trash? It was the most expensive limited-edition tie in the store. Fifty thousand dollars.

“It’s not for you,” I said, taking the box back. I motioned for the associate to wrap it. My voice was flat. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It’s for the monster?” Sandra giggled, raising her voice on purpose. “Oh, sister, how thoughtful. But I hear a man like Jude doesn’t bother with ties. Too restrictive when you’re killing someone. You sure he won’t just use it to strangle you?”

Other customers started staring, whispering.

Sandra loved the attention.

She leaned in close, pulling down her collar to show off the bruises on her skin. Then she whispered, so only I could hear:

“So what if I stole your design? Marco believes me, not you. You’re just a useless cripple. You and that monster Jude deserve each other. But… what if that monster, like Marco, believes you spent your year in Switzerland getting an abortion? How do you think he’ll torture you then?”

My pupils shrank. It felt like a giant hand was crushing my heart.

“What did you say?”

“The truth, according to Marco,” she hissed, her smile turning nasty. “While he was badly hurt, you pretended to be recovering in Switzerland, but you were really taking his money to shack up with some other guy. You even got pregnant and had it scraped out… Tsk, tsk. Marco was so disgusted he threw up.”

A chill crawled up my spine.

So that was it.

That was why he’d changed. Vacation. Cheating. Abortion.

She had taken my year of hell—of fighting to survive, of passing out from the pain of physical therapy—and smeared it with her filthy lies.

“Sandra, shut your mouth!” I clenched my fist. The rage sent my right hand into a violent, uncontrollable spasm.

“What? Hit a nerve?” she cackled, then casually picked up a hot coffee from the counter. “Don’t be mad, sister, I just feel so bad for—AH!”

A scream.

I hadn’t touched her, but the coffee in her hand suddenly went flying.

Not onto the floor.

It splashed directly onto my spasming right hand.

“Hiss—!”

The searing liquid hit my skin. Pain shot through my nerves like a lightning bolt.

I cried out, the tie box falling to the floor.

For a hand that had been through four nerve-stripping surgeries, a hand this sensitive, the heat was like a red-hot poker twisting into the old wound.

The boutique dissolved around me. I was back in the warehouse. Fire and smoke. The cold, sterile steel of the operating table. My PTSD slammed into me like a freight train.

I curled up, clutching my hand, breaking out in a cold sweat, too much in pain to make a sound.

“Odessa! Are you insane?!”

Marco’s roar exploded above me.

He didn’t even glance my way. He grabbed Sandra’s perfectly fine hand, fussing over it, his voice laced with panic. “Baby, are you burned? Does it hurt?”

“It hurts… she pushed me…” Sandra squeezed out a few tears, shrinking into Marco’s arms. “I was just trying to get her a coffee, why would she do that to me?”

“Is this your revenge?” Marco spun on me, his eyes blazing with fury.

He strode over to where I was curled on the floor, my right hand twitching and turning an angry red.

“Marco… my hand…” I tried to explain, to beg for just a shred of pity.

This was the hand I had ruined to save his life.

But he lifted his foot. His expensive, handmade Italian leather shoe came down hard on my right hand.

“AGHH!”

A raw scream tore from my throat. I thought my bones would crack.

He ground his heel into my hand. The expensive leather twisted against scorched skin, crushing the delicate nerves beneath.

“Wasn’t hiding in Switzerland for a year enough for you? Stop playing the victim and trying to frame Sandra! I thought your hand was useless? How’d you push her so hard?”

Marco looked down at me like I was a piece of trash.

“This useless, filthy hand isn’t even fit to polish Sandra’s shoes.”

Pain.

A pain that bored right through me.

Worse than when they first cut the nerves.

But I didn’t scream again. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.

Through a blur of sweat and tears, I stared up at the man I once loved, the man I once saved.

His foot was still pressing down.

“If you got her dress dirty,” Marco leaned down, his voice cold as a stranger’s, “I will snap this useless hand in two.”

Suddenly, the shop’s front door didn’t just open—it shattered. A murderous chill ripped through the store.