Chapter 6

Olivia POV

Numbness wasn't just a lack of feeling. It was a physical weight, a heavy, suffocating blanket that smelled of dust and stale, recycled air.

I was holed up in a small, forgotten cabin-a temporary safe house my father had arranged before the final move. It was quiet here. Too quiet. The silence didn't soothe me; it only amplified the screaming inside my head.

Day after day, I didn't live. I merely existed.

I woke up. I drank black coffee that tasted like ash against my tongue. I stared at the unpainted walls until my vision blurred. I hadn't eaten a real meal in days, my body running on adrenaline and grief. The physical pain of the Ice Cellar had faded from my skin, but the cold had burrowed deeper, settling into my marrow.

My father, David, sent terse updates through a burner phone.

*They stopped searching the perimeter. Keep your head down. You leave for the ranch in two days.*

Two days.

Two days until this life-the life of Olivia Hayes, the mafia princess-would be dead and buried.

But the calendar on the wall mocked me. It was today. The date of the Family Gala. The anniversary of the first time Marcus had ever smiled at me.

My stomach twisted violently-a phantom ache of longing I despised.

I needed to move. I needed to purge.

I scrambled up and started cleaning, moving with a frantic, manic energy. I grabbed a cardboard box and began hurling things inside. The silk scarf I'd bought in Milan. The perfume Marcus once said smelled "tolerable."

I was scrubbing my soul clean with bleach and resentment.

Then, I found it.

It had rolled under the baseboard near the fireplace, glinting in the shadows. A silver pendant. *O.H.*

My initials.

Marcus had given it to me for my sixteenth birthday. There had been no velvet box, no ribbon, no ceremony. He hadn't even looked up from his desk.

He had just tossed it onto my lap while reading a dossier, as if he were flicking away a fly.

*Here. Don't lose it.*

I sank to the floor, the cold wood biting into my bare legs. I clutched the silver against my palm. It grew warm against my skin. Too warm.

It didn't feel like a gift. It felt like a shackle.

"I have to burn it," I whispered, the words scratching my throat.

I forced myself to walk to the fireplace. The flames licked at the iron grate, hungry and orange, offering the only warmth in this godforsaken purgatory.

I held the pendant over the fire. My hand trembled, betraying me. This was it. The last link to him.

"You are free," I told the fire, my voice breaking. "And I am free."

I dropped it.

The silver clinked against the metal grate, a tiny death knell, before vanishing into the red heart of the coals. I watched it darken, imagining the metal melting, losing its shape, just like my foolish love for him.

But as the silver disappeared, the room tilted.

Dizziness hit me like a physical blow, the days of starvation finally claiming their toll. The edges of my vision went black, swarming with spots.

I swayed, reaching blindly for the mantle to steady myself, but my hand grasped only air.

CRASH.

The door to the cabin burst open, slamming against the wall with the force of a gunshot.

The wind howled into the room, instantly extinguishing the candles. A silhouette filled the frame, blocking out the dying light. Broad shoulders. A suit that cost more than this entire structure.

Marcus.

His eyes were shards of glacial ice, sharp enough to cut glass. He didn't look at the room. He looked only at me.

"You thought you could hide?"

The voice was low, dangerous-a rumble of thunder.

I tried to speak, to scream, to run, but my legs turned to water. I crumpled toward the floor.

I never hit the wood.

Strong arms caught me. Cold, hard arms that felt like iron bands.

The scent of rich tobacco and expensive scotch filled my nose, overwhelming my senses. It was the intoxicating smell of my destruction.

His breath brushed my ear, sending a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

"Got you," he whispered.

Then darkness swallowed me whole.