Chapter 4

Izzy awoke in unfamiliar luxury.

Clean sheets, a soft mattress.

Her burns had been treated, bandaged.

She recognized the room, her childhood bedroom in the Beaumont mansion, now Jax's opulent lair.

Memories flooded her, her father laughing here, her mother brushing her hair. Painful ghosts.

Jax entered, a dark bowl in his hand.

He forced her head up, poured a bitter herbal tonic down her throat.

"For blood strength," he said, his voice flat. "Don't look at me like that, Izzy. Even if you didn't personally pull the trigger on my kin, being a Beaumont makes you guilty by blood."

He had been systematic, eliminating every Beaumont.

Even the child she had carried, his child.

Aborted on his direct order shortly after the takeover, a tiny life extinguished before it could draw breath.

He had spared only her.

For love? For hate?

Pure, unadulterated hatred, she had long concluded.

That's why he later forced her into those ice baths, laced with chemicals the backwoods medics swore would ensure she could never conceive again.

Her bloodline, he'd said, was tainted, an affront.

A Gator burst into the room, breathless.

"Boss! Clara... the doc, he says she's pregnant!"

Jax's face transformed.

The cold cruelty vanished, replaced by a raw, unbridled joy, the light of a father-to-be.

Izzy watched, and the curse inside her seemed to writhe, to tighten its grip at the sight of his happiness.

She had planned to die alone, in her squalid outbuilding.

But Jax had other plans, crueler plans.

He ordered her to attend to Clara.

To serve the woman who had taken her place, the woman carrying the child he celebrated while their own was buried unceremoniously in the backwoods, no headstone, no name.

It was the ultimate torture, and he knew it.

Clara, radiant and smug, relished her new power over Izzy.

Her first task for Izzy: sweep the fallen magnolia blossoms in the main courtyard.

A simple chore, yet Clara knew Izzy suffered from a severe, debilitating allergy to magnolias.

The other household staff, loyal to their new queen, snickered as Izzy began her work, her hands already starting to itch.

Within minutes, Izzy's skin erupted in angry, red rashes.

Her eyes watered, her breath grew short.

Then her nose began to bleed, a steady drip onto the white petals.

Clara, who had been watching from a shaded veranda, shrieked at the sight of the blood.

"Blood! She's bleeding! Get her away from me!"

Jax rushed into the courtyard, his face a thundercloud.

He saw the blood, saw Clara's distress, and backhanded Izzy across the face, sending her sprawling.

"Clara can't be around blood! Are you trying to harm her and my baby, you bitch?"

He sneered down at her. "Just because your kid is dead, you want to hurt others? Did you forget what happens when you disobey me?"

Izzy, choking on sobs, the metallic taste of her own blood mixing with the overwhelming scent of magnolias, could only plead.

"Momma's grave... Daddy and Beau's... you've desecrated them enough... I have nothing left... please..."

Jax crouched, grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.

His eyes were chips of ice.

"Who says you have nothing left?" he whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "There's still that little bastard buried out back, isn't there? The one without a name."