SWEET BLOODY REVENGE

Veronica's POV

Their laughter echoed through the house while I stayed alone in the guest bedroom, the sound of it seeping through the walls like it belonged to someone else's home. When the hunger pangs became too much to ignore, I went downstairs for a snack.

As soon as I passed the dining room on my way to the kitchen, the laughter stopped.

"Happy birthday, Avery." I tried to muster a smile.

She huffed, rolling her eyes without bothering to look up.

"Thanks," she muttered, already reaching for her fork again.

I held out the small, boxed present. She took it, set it on the edge of the table, and went back to her meal without so much as a glance at it.

"Won't you like to know what I got you?" My throat tightened around the words, thinning my voice into something I didn't recognize.

"It's probably some cheap piece of jewelry anyway."

"Avery, you can't talk to your mother that way."

She rolled her eyes again. The same roll she'd been giving me for months now, a fraction sharper every time, like she was practicing for something.

"Veronica, can you just shut up and let the kid eat in peace?" Caleb pressed two fingers to his temple, not even looking at me when he said it.

"Don't take what she says to heart, she's just a kid," Ava said, batting her eyes, the picture of patience.

"This is no place for you to talk." I turned my glare on her.

Under the table, my nails bit into my palm. I'd told myself a hundred times I wouldn't let her get under my skin, and a hundred times I'd been wrong.

"I was just trying to help." Fake tears welled up right on cue. I had to admire the speed of them.

Avery shot up from her chair, shoving the gift box to the floor on her way to wrap her arms around Ava.

"Mummy, you're not allowed to be sad on my birthday," she said, stroking Ava's hair.

"We're sisters. I don't know why she's always so mean to me," Ava wailed, louder now that she had an audience.

"Now you remember we're sisters," I scoffed.

"You may be twins, but you're nothing like Ava." Caleb jabbed a finger at me across the table. "You're bitter and vindictive."

What a hypocrite. Cheating on me with my own twin sister, and somehow I was the bitter one. The vindictive one. The one in the wrong.

Ava curled her hand around Caleb's arm.

"I don't want to be the reason you two argue." She rose halfway out of her seat as if to leave, and Caleb caught her wrist.

"You don't have to go anywhere. If anyone leaves, it's her." He didn't look at me when he said it. He didn't need to.

"Daddy's right, Mummy." Avery turned to Ava, beaming. "I have an idea. Let's go to the amusement park for my birthday. That'll cheer you up."

"I would love that." Ava smiled, sad and small, the kind of smile built for an audience.

Caleb and Avery went upstairs to change. The moment they were out of earshot, Ava wiped her tears clean with the back of one finger and turned to me, dryeyed and smiling.

"When are you going to get the hint and leave?" She stepped closer with every word. "No one wants you here. Not your husband. Not even your own daughter." A pause, deliberate. "Just like Mum and Dad."

She jabbed a finger into my chest to punctuate each sentence. My breath caught somewhere behind my ribs and stayed there.

"What," I said, "you're tired of being the other woman?"

Her eyes narrowed. She lifted her arm, and before it could come down, Caleb and Avery were already on the stairs.

"Mummy, let's go!" Avery bounced on her heels by the door.

"Okay, sweetie." Ava's hand dropped instantly, voice gone soft again. "I was just inviting Vee to come with us."

"No, she's not coming with us." Caleb didn't even slow down on his way past me.

"Wait." I caught up to him at the door, the folder already in my hand. "Just need you to sign this."

"I don't have time for this right now." He pushed the papers aside without looking at them.

"You don't have to read through it, just sign." My pulse hammered so hard at my throat I was sure he could hear it. "It's just a medical form for Avery's school," I added, with a smile I held perfectly still.

He scrawled his name without breaking stride and shoved the papers back into my hands.

I watched the car pull out of the gate and didn't move from the doorway until it was gone, then went back inside without looking at the empty driveway again.

Caleb's office door was unlocked. I went through every drawer, every folder, every file with his name on it, looking for proof of what he'd done to me. Nothing.

I was about to give up when the safe caught my eye. I tried his birthday. Mine. Avery's. Nothing turned the dial. Then I tried the birthdate Ava's adoptive parents had given her, and the lock clicked open.

Of course.

I flipped through the documents one by one, and somewhere in the middle of them, whatever had been left of the ache in my chest turned cold and sharp instead. Mike Gonzalez, the truck driver who'd pleaded guilty to drunk driving in the accident that ended my dance career, had been on Caleb's payroll for ten years.

The next file was worse. Medical consent forms, my signature at the bottom of every one, authorizing donor surgery after donor surgery. For Ava.

My knees gave out before I'd decided to let them. The papers shook in my hands, not from the cold. He hadn't just destroyed my dance career. He'd used my own signature against me, fed me lie after lie while I slowly gave pieces of myself away to save the woman who'd taken everything else.

I took photos of every page with hands that wouldn't quite hold still, then typed three words to Adrian before I could talk myself out of it.

*I'm ready to leave.*

His reply came back in under a minute.

*Say the word and I'll have a car there within the hour. Are you safe right now?*

*Yes. I just need to be gone before they're back.*

*Then get your things. I'll meet you halfway.*

An hour later, a black SUV pulled up to the estate.

I paused at the door, one hand on the frame. Let them think I burned with it. Let them wonder if I made it out—or if the guilt finally swallowed me whole. Either way, Veronica Stanton would be dead by morning.

I stood in the doorway with the one small bag I'd packed, looking back at the house that held every scar of the last several years, and tossed the lighter behind me without checking where it landed.

The flames caught fast, climbing the curtains, eating through the wallpaper, swallowing the dining room where I'd handed my daughter a gift she never opened.

I would burn the rest of Caleb's empire to the ground.