Chapter 4

I didn't go to the lake house. Instead, I drove back to the estate.

I needed to say goodbye to the mausoleum I had built before I burned my entire life to the ground.

It stood perched on a cliff overlooking the churning Atlantic.

Gray stone, massive windows, sharp, unforgiving angles.

It was beautiful, imposing, and cold. Just like my marriage.

I walked along the precipice.

The wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my skin.

My ribs still throbbed-a dull, persistent ache from the fall at the casino.

My phone rang, vibrating against my hip.

It was a blocked number.

I answered, bracing myself.

"You're still here?"

It was Hayden. Her voice was sugary sweet, an affectation that barely masked the poison beneath.

"Enjoying the house?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.

"It's a bit... drafty," she laughed lightly. "Emilio says we can remodel. He wants a playroom for Leo."

"He can build it on my grave," I snapped.

"That's the plan, honey," she purred.

The line went dead.

I frowned, lowering the phone.

Then, I heard the distinct crunch of gravel behind me.

I turned around.

Two men were striding toward me.

They wore ill-fitting black suits and bore no family crests.

They weren't Emilio's personal guard.

They were freelancers. Cheap muscle.

"Mrs. Thomas," one of them said. A jagged scar ran down his cheek, pulling his lip into a permanent sneer.

"Who sent you?" I asked, though the answer was already cold in my gut.

"Hayden sends her regards," the other one said.

They didn't draw guns.

They just kept walking toward me, their steady pace forcing me back toward the jagged edge.

"Emilio will kill you," I warned. It was a bluff. I wasn't sure if he would even care.

"The Don is busy," Scarface grinned, his eyes dead. "He thinks you're unstable. Depressed about the baby."

"A tragic suicide," the other one mocked. "Very romantic."

I took a step back.

My heel caught on a protruding root.

I stumbled, my balance failing.

They lunged.

Rough hands shoved my chest.

Hard.

The sensation was a violent echo of the casino.

But this time, there was no glass wall to stop me.

There was only air.

I fell backward into the void.

The sky spun dizzyingly above me.

I saw their faces peering over the edge, shrinking away.

I didn't scream.

I thought of Emilio.

I thought of the moment his hands had been on me.

He pushed me away then, and his mistress was pushing me away now.

It was poetic. Cruel, but poetic.

I hit the water.

It was like slamming into concrete.

Cold darkness swallowed me instantly.

The current seized me, dragging me down, smashing my body against the submerged rocks.

Pain flared white-hot in my shoulder, my leg.

I held my breath until my lungs burned.

I let the current take me.

I didn't fight.

I needed them to think I was dead.

I washed up a mile down the coast.

I coughed up saltwater and blood, shivering violently.

My leg was broken. Agony shot through me as I dragged myself across the sharp rocks.

A truck was parked near the treeline.

A Park Ranger logo was emblazoned on the door.

An old man and a young woman were sitting on the tailgate, eating sandwiches.

They saw me.

They dropped their food and sprinted over.

"Help," I croaked, my throat raw.

"Call an ambulance!" the woman shouted to her father.

"No," I gasped, grabbing her wrist. My grip was weak, trembling. "No police. No hospitals."

The old man looked at my mottled bruises. He looked at the expensive, torn ruins of my dress.

He knew trouble when he saw it.

"Please," I whispered, darkness encroaching on my vision. "I'm already dead."

Blackness took me again.

When I woke up, I was in a cabin.

It smelled of pine needles and woodsmoke.

My leg was splinted and elevated.

The young woman was wiping my forehead with a cool cloth.

"You were out for two days," she said.

"Did you call anyone?" I asked, panic rising.

"No. My dad said you looked like you were running from the devil."

"Something like that," I murmured.

I borrowed her phone.

I dialed a number I had memorized long ago.

Ayla picked up on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"It's me," I said.

Silence.

Then, a choked sob. "Elana? They found a shoe. They said... Emilio is burying an empty casket tomorrow."

"Let him bury it," I said, my voice void of emotion.

"I need cash, Ayla. And I need a passport."

"Where are you going?"

"Zurich," I said. "I'm going to take back the life I left behind."

"Emilio is tearing the city apart looking for answers," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He killed the men Hayden hired. He... he looks broken, Elana."

"Good," I said, letting the ice fill my veins.

"Let him break."