Chapter 3

I shook my head and backed away on instinct, caught my foot on the table, and went down hard onto the floor.

The sedative still had me, and I couldn't summon a scrap of fight. All I could do was watch him come on, knife raised, step by step, looking like something out of hell.

"You can't do this, Adrian!"

My eyes were red, my voice hard. "If you finish these hands today, I swear I will never let you go."

He didn't hear a word of the threat. He just looked at me, then raised a shaking hand to cover my eyes, and said it low.

"Don't be scared, Vera. It'll be over in a second. Don't be scared."

The world went black. Then came the sound of a blade opening flesh. The tendons in my wrist were severed clean through, and the pain drowned me whole, a wave I couldn't get out from under.

I bit down on my lip, my throat filling with the taste of blood. The pain came in waves, one after another, and cold sweat beaded on my forehead and soaked into my hair.

I don't know how long it lasted. When the dark finally cleared, the knife, slick with my blood, was already tossed aside.

He held me hard against him, saying sorry over and over against my ear, like that could undo what he'd just done.

He brought bandages and ointment and wrapped me up, careful, his hands shaking so badly you'd never think he was the one who'd done it.

I let him work and gave him nothing back. My eyes were full of contempt.

"Ruin my hands, lock me in your backyard for life so anyone can grind me under their heel. That's you being good to me?"

"Let me tell you, I don't want it."

I said it one word at a time. "One day I'm going to kill you myself, and settle this."

Adrian's hands stopped, and a chill crossed his face. He bit out, "Kill me? You're going to kill me?"

"That's right. And not just you. The princess you're marrying, the Marlowes you serve, I won't let a single one of them walk."

"Watch your mouth."

His voice was full of anger now. He let me go and rose slowly to his feet. "Maybe I've been too good to you, Vera."

"There's a limit to throwing a tantrum. You think you can say things that'll get your head taken off?"

"This street is crawling with eyes. Somebody hears that, it's not just you in the coffin. It's me too."

"You don't know what's good for you. I'm done being disappointed in you."

"You hate me that much, then I'm through. Let's see what a cripple with two dead hands does to come after me for anything."

"You're on your own now."

He turned and walked out, leaving the place in ruins behind him.

Tendons cut, both hands finished, I couldn't manage something as simple as climbing onto the bed. All I could do was curl up on the floor.

The old wound on my back throbbed like it had gone bad again, and my head burned with it, fever rising and breaking and rising again. Two days passed before that door opened a second time.

Footsteps came up and hauled me roughly to my feet. I forced my eyes up and met the gaze of a woman seated at the table.

She was painted up and dressed in finery, the air around her sharp enough to cut. On her ring finger was a band stamped with a family crest, the Don's mark.

"So you're the wild girl Adrian's been keeping. Not bad to look at. No wonder he lost his head over you."

She glanced at the bandages still seeping blood at my wrists, and her lips curved. "Looks like he really did break you. Don't hold it against me. A woman spending all day shooting and brawling, there's no decency in that."

"You didn't know your place before, that's fine. Once you're inside, you live by my rules. So I came myself today, to teach you."

"Someone show her how to pour the lady of the house her wine."

A few of her men dragged me down in front of Camilla and forced me onto my knees. I tried to push myself up, and a foot came down hard on the cut wrist, the pain nearly putting me on my face.

The wound started bleeding again, and I gulped for air, cold sweat sliding down from my temple.

A cup was shoved into my hand. Before I could move, an old woman at Camilla's side lifted a pot of scalding wine and poured it straight over the back of my hand.

I flinched at the burn. The skin went red in an instant, and the cup hit the floor.

"You filthy thing, you can't even hold a cup steady. If you'd splashed Miss Camilla, ten lives wouldn't cover it."

The old woman cursed and went at me with a whip, every stroke drawing blood. New wounds layered over old, and my whole back was a ruin, not one patch of it left whole.

I clenched my jaw and didn't make a sound. I stayed up on my knees, straight, staring right at Camilla. I would not bow my head.

"What, not convinced?" She leaned down and tipped my chin up, taking her time. "But I'm the Don's daughter, and you're a gutter stray that'll never be anything more. Born to it."

"I could play with you until you're dead and no one would say a word. Amusing me is the best luck a wild thing like you will ever have."

She drew her hand back and said, careless, "Again."

Cup after cup of hot wine went over the backs of my hands until they were swollen and red, blistered past looking at.

Only then was Camilla satisfied. She left me half-dead on the floor and swept out.