01

Chapter 01

The marble floors of the Alegre mansion gleamed under Hilda's careful ministrations, each stroke of her cloth removing another speck of dust from the imported Italian tiles. The second-floor hallway stretched before her like an endless corridor of servitude, its walls adorned with oil paintings worth more than she'd see in a lifetime. Despite the distance, the raised voices from the ground floor cut through the mansion's opulent silence like knives through silk.

"HILDA!"

The thunderous roar of Hector Alegre's voice made her freeze mid-stroke. The wet cloth slipped from her trembling fingers, landing with a soft splat on the freshly cleaned floor. Her heart hammered against her ribs— that tone never meant anything good.

She scrambled to her feet, gathering the hem of her black maid's uniform as she rushed toward the grand staircase. The fabric was worn thin from years of use, a hand-me-down from servants who'd long since moved on to better lives. Her bare feet slapped against the cold marble as she descended, each step echoing her mounting dread.

The main foyer was a chaos of designer shopping bags—Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton—being unloaded by the family driver. The logos mocked her poverty, each bag worth more than her nonexistent salary.

"Get those shopping bags and take them all upstairs!" Hector barked, not even bothering to look at her. He stood there in his imported suit, every inch the successful businessman, every fiber radiating the contempt he held for his firstborn.

Hilda bowed deeply, the gesture automatic after years of conditioning. "Yes, Mr. Alegre," she whispered, never 'Father,' never 'Papa.' Those words had been beaten out of her long ago.

She knelt beside the mountain of bags, trying to arrange them in a way that would allow her to carry them all in one trip. The last thing she needed was to make multiple journeys and risk his wrath for being 'slow and useless,' as he often called her.

"What do you mean by this, honey? You're just going to let the company fail?"

Mrs. Alegre's shrill voice carried from the living room. Hilda caught a glimpse of her stepmother through the doorway—dripping in gold and pearls, her fingers adorned with enough diamonds to feed a small village for a year. The woman who'd taken her mother's place and turned her life into a living hell.

"It's not possible. I won't allow it," Hector responded, settling his bulk onto the Italian leather sofa that cost more than most people's cars.

"Don't tell me you're actually considering Mr. Truson's proposal to marry our daughter to him. For God's sake, Hector!"

The click of designer heels on marble announced another presence. Alicia Alegre descended the staircase like a princess in a fairy tale, her beauty undeniable, her designer dress hugging her perfect figure. The beloved second daughter, the one who'd never known a day of hardship in her twenty-two years of life.

"What marriage? What do you mean, Mom?" Alicia's voice pitched high with alarm, her perfectly manicured hands flying to her throat.

"The stocks have crashed, and your father here"—Mrs. Alegre fanned herself dramatically with a hand fan worth more than Hilda's entire wardrobe—"borrowed from his Italian friend. Mr. Truson's deadline is approaching. It's impossible to pay back 11 billion pesos in one month. He's furious and says if we can't pay the 11 billion, Hector must give him his daughter as one of his wives."

Hilda's hands stilled on the shopping bags. Eleven billion pesos. The number was so astronomical it might as well have been in a foreign language. And Mr. Truson—even servants whispered his name with fear. The old man with his collection of young wives, his connections to the underworld, his appetites that knew no bounds.

"What, Dad! No way! Don't tell me you're really going to give me to that old man!" Alicia shrieked, her beautiful face contorting with horror.

Karma works fast, Hilda thought bitterly, remembering all the times Alicia had tormented her, had 'accidentally' spilled wine on her clean uniform, had laughed when her father struck her.

"Who said anything about giving YOU away?" Hector's voice was dangerously quiet.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Hilda felt the weight of three pairs of eyes boring into her back. Slowly, as if in a nightmare, she turned to face them.

Hector Alegre stared at her with cold calculation, the look a businessman might give when evaluating livestock. The truth crashed over her like a tidal wave, stealing the breath from her lungs.

She was the daughter he meant to sacrifice.

"No." The word escaped before she could stop it. Twenty-four years of silence, of obedience, shattered with that single syllable. "I won't marry him. I'll leave this house. I'll—"

She'd stayed all these years because she had nowhere else to go. The mansion had been her prison and her shelter. She'd never set foot outside its gates without supervision, never learned how to navigate the world beyond these walls. The thought of leaving terrified her, but not as much as the thought of becoming Mr. Truson's plaything.

Hilda stood, her legs shaking, and turned toward the stairs. She would pack her few belongings—the worn clothes, the small photo of her mother hidden beneath her mattress, the—

Pain exploded across her scalp as Hector's hand twisted in her long black hair, yanking her backward. "Ahhh!"

Tears sprang to her eyes as she clutched at his hand, trying to ease the burning pain. She looked up at him through her tears, seeing not her father but a monster wearing a human face.

"You're the reason your mother is dead," he snarled, his face inches from hers, his breath reeking of expensive whiskey. "You should be grateful I didn't throw you out when you were a baby, that I let you live here at all. It's time you paid me back for all the trouble you've caused, for what you did to your mother. You WILL marry Mr. Truson, and if you try to run—I'll break your legs myself."

He threw her to the floor with such force that she skidded across the polished marble. Her elbow connected with the bottom step of the staircase with a sickening crack. Pain shot up her arm like lightning, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

Through her tears, she looked at the man she'd been forced to call father. The man who blamed her for her mother's death in childbirth, who'd remarried within a year and relegated her to servant status in her own home. How many nights had she prayed to be sent to an orphanage, to die and join her mother—anything to escape this hell?

From the moment she could understand words, he'd made her life misery. The arrival of his new family had only made things worse. Now it wasn't just him—it was his wife who delighted in humiliating her, his daughter who treated her worse than a dog, his son who pretended she didn't exist.

Hilda kept her head down, her hands clenched into fists so tight her nails drew blood from her palms.

"Maria!" Mrs. Alegre's voice cut through the tension. "Take this... girl to the vacant room. Give her some of Alicia's old clothes. Make sure she's presentable when she meets Mr. Truson. We can't have her embarrassing the family name."

One of the senior maids grabbed Hilda's arm, hauling her to her feet with unnecessary roughness. Even the servants, who should have been her equals, treated her with contempt. In the hierarchy of the Alegre household, she ranked below everyone—the unwanted daughter, the living reminder of the first Mrs. Alegre.

The vacant room was on the third floor, a small space that had once been a storage closet. Maria threw a bundle of clothes at Hilda's face—Alicia's castoffs from seasons past, designer pieces with small stains or minor tears that made them unsuitable for the precious daughter.

"Take a bath immediately and wear these clothes! And clean this room properly. Mr. Truson will be here tomorrow afternoon."

The door slammed shut, leaving Hilda alone with her terror. She sank onto the narrow bed, clutching a silk nightgown that probably cost more than most people's monthly salary. It was beautiful, deep blue like the ocean she'd only seen in pictures, with delicate lace that felt like cobwebs against her work-rough hands.

She was an Alegre too. The thought burned like acid in her chest. She had more right to this mansion than any of them—she was the firstborn, the legitimate heir. But legitimacy meant nothing when your father wished you'd died instead of your mother.

Her fingers tightened on the expensive fabric until her knuckles turned white. She didn't notice the tears falling until they spotted the silk, leaving dark stains that spread like her despair.

"No, you can't cry, Hilda," she whispered fiercely, swiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. She sat up straight, forcing herself to meet her own gaze in the cracked full-length mirror propped against the wall.

The girl looking back at her was a stranger—thin from years of eating scraps, her hair limp and lifeless, her skin pale from rarely seeing sunlight. But her eyes... her eyes burned with something that twenty-four years of abuse hadn't managed to extinguish.

"I won't agree to what Hector wants. I won't marry him," she vowed to her reflection.

Instead of sleeping that night, she sat by the small window, staring out at the world beyond the mansion's walls. The city lights twinkled in the distance like stars she could never reach. Her mind raced with plans, each more desperate than the last.

She might have been sheltered, but she wasn't completely ignorant. The maids gossiped when they thought no one was listening. She knew about the Trusons—the wealthiest family in their province, their patriarch's collection of young wives, the scandal from two years ago involving rape and prostitution that had been hushed up with money and threats.

Mr. Truson was in his sixties, older than her father, with appetites that would make even hardened criminals squeamish. His first wife had died under 'mysterious circumstances.' His second had thrown herself from a balcony. The others... no one spoke of what happened to the others.

"I need to escape," Hilda whispered into the darkness, her breath fogging the window glass.

But how? She had no money, no identification documents, no friends outside these walls. She didn't even know how to ride public transportation or where she would go if she managed to leave. The world beyond the mansion was as foreign to her as another planet.

The clock on the wall ticked away the hours, each second bringing her closer to a fate worse than death. Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Truson would come to inspect his new acquisition. He would look at her like a piece of meat, evaluate her worth, decide if she was young and pretty enough to add to his collection.

Hilda pressed her forehead against the cool glass, watching a plane's lights blink across the night sky. Somewhere out there, people were living normal lives, falling in love by choice, building futures that belonged to them.

"Mother," she whispered to the darkness, "what should I do? How do I escape this cage?"

But the dead couldn't answer, and the living didn't care. She was alone, as she'd always been, with nothing but her desperation and the wild, impossible hope that somehow, someway, she could change her fate before tomorrow's sun condemned her to a monster's bed.