Chapter 3

After Derek left the snake room, he didn't go back to Viola's room.

He sat in his car while a cigarette burned down to nothing between his fingers. He never took a single drag.

The image of Sylvia kneeling behind the glass and calling his name kept replaying in his mind.

Irritated, Derek stubbed out the cigarette with his thumb and called his right-hand man, Nico Russo.

"Get Sylvia a temporary access card."

"What level, Don?"

"High enough to get into the family's placement records."

The line went quiet for a moment.

"Does this mean you're letting her look for Mia?"

Derek's voice went cold. "Just do what I said."

The next day, when the casino manager handed me the card, it took me a long time to realize what it meant.

With it, I could access the family archives and search the records of every child, patient, and missing person the Shelby family had ever taken in.

Maybe I could finally find Mia!

I clutched the card and went straight to the records building without even stopping to tend to my injuries.

It housed the Shelby family's old paper records.

The guard on duty looked at the card, frowned, and let me through.

I searched rows of moldy filing cabinets until night fell. At last, I found Mia's name.

But the file read:

"Mia Loren. Placed with a foster family on the South Side ten years ago. Lost contact three months later."

Lost contact...

The room spun. I nearly passed out.

Derek had told me she was being raised at a school the Shelby family funded.

He said he'd pay for her education. She'd have a place to live, a doctor, even bodyguards.

He said as long as I did what I was told, she'd be safe.

But the file offered only those cold words: lost contact.

I grabbed the page and ran out of the records building. Just as I got to the door, a red sports car rolled to a stop.

Viola lowered the window and smiled at me.

"Finally figured it out?"

I went rigid.

"Did you do this?"

She got out of the car and walked over in her heels.

"Don't look at me like that. Derek's the one who handed her over to me.

"He only told me to keep an eye on her. He never said I had to treat her like a princess."

My fingers slowly curled into fists.

"Where's Mia?"

Viola looked at me like I'd said something hilarious.

"You really think she spent ten years waiting for you?"

She took a voice recorder out of her bag and hit play.

After a burst of static, a girl's shaky voice came through. "Is my sister still alive?"

My breath caught.

It was Mia's voice. Then another woman laughed softly.

"Of course she is. But she's living in filth now, like the lowest of the low.

"People beat her and stomp on her every day. Do you know why?"

After a moment of dead silence, Mia choked out, "Is it because of me?"

Viola's voice was gentle and cruel. "That's right. It's because of you."

The recording cut off there.

My head spun. I could barely stand.

Viola put the recorder away and savored the look on my face.

"That kid was something. After she heard it, she didn't say a word all night.

"The next day, she vanished from her foster home."

I lunged at her and grabbed her by the collar.

"Where did she go?!"

The force of my grip made her stumble back half a step, but she kept smiling.

"Who knows? In a place like the South Side, girls go missing every day.

"Maybe she got sold. Maybe she died on the street. But most likely, she killed herself."

At those last words, something inside me that had been stretched tight for ten years finally snapped.

My eyes were bloodshot as I wrapped both hands around Viola's throat.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

But I'd barely touched her when someone grabbed my wrist from behind, squeezing so hard my bones nearly cracked.

Derek loomed over me, his expression terrifyingly cold.

"Sylvia."

He glanced at Viola, who'd gone white, then back at me. I was wild with rage.

"Have you lost your mind?"

I slowly turned to look at him and smiled coldly.

"Yeah. I should've lost it ten years ago."