Chapter 3

I spent hours in the garden, my hands digging into the soil, my lungs burning. The flowers, beautiful and deadly to me, released their pollen into the air. My skin broke out in angry, red welts. My throat started to close, each breath a painful, ragged gasp.

By the time I finished, the sun had set. The maid, Clara, was nowhere to be seen. She had likely been dismissed, a small, meaningless gesture on Julian's part that did nothing to erase the pain.

I stumbled back to my room, my vision blurring. I fumbled for the emergency EpiPen I always kept with me, a necessity for surviving life in Julian's world. The medicine shot into my thigh, providing a small measure of relief, but I knew I needed a real doctor.

Before I could even think about what to do next, my door burst open.

Julian stormed in, his face a mask of fury. He lunged at me, his hands closing around my throat, slamming me against the wall.

"You went crying to my grandfather!" he snarled, his fingers tightening. "You told him I forced you to work in the garden!"

Black spots danced in my vision. I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. I shook my head frantically. I hadn't spoken to Arden since our first call.

"Don't lie to me!" he roared. "Cassandra was just humiliated by him! He called her a whore and threw her out of his house! All because of you!"

I clawed at his hands, my lungs screaming for air. I was dying. Here, in this room, at the hands of the man I had sacrificed everything to save.

Just as my consciousness began to fade, he let go.

I collapsed to the floor, coughing and gasping, tears streaming down my face.

He didn't give me a moment to recover. He grabbed me by the hair, hauling me to my feet.

"Get up," he hissed. "You're going to pay for this."

"Where are you taking me?" I choked out.

"You're going to go to Cassandra's house, and you're going to kneel at her door and beg for her forgiveness."

My blood ran cold. "No."

He dragged me out of the room and down to the garage, throwing me into the passenger seat of his car.

"You don't have a choice," he said, his voice dangerously low as the car sped through the city streets. "You're going to apologize, or I will send that video to every member of your family. Your sick mother will be the first to see it."

The mention of my mother, whose heart condition was fragile, was his final, unbeatable weapon. He knew my weakness.

It was almost funny. He thought he was punishing me, but all he was doing was solidifying my decision to leave. This was the final nail in the coffin of my old life.

He pulled up in front of a lavish Upper East Side townhouse. It was pouring rain.

He dragged me out of the car and shoved me to my knees on the cold, wet pavement in front of Cassandra's door.

"You will stay here," he commanded, "and you will kowtow one hundred times. Maybe then, she'll consider forgiving you."

"I didn't do anything wrong," I said, my voice a broken whisper.

"Do it," he threatened, his phone in his hand, my mother's contact information on the screen.

My will broke. I couldn't let him hurt my family.

I pressed my forehead to the wet ground. Once. Twice. The rain soaked through my clothes, chilling me to the bone. The pain in my throat returned, mixed with the sharp sting of gravel against my skin.

I could hear the faint sound of people whispering from nearby windows, their voices full of pity and scorn.

My body grew heavy, my movements sluggish. The world began to spin.

Through the rain and the haze of pain, I thought I heard his voice, sharp with an unfamiliar panic. "Bailey?"

It must be a hallucination. He wanted me dead. He had made that perfectly clear.

As I collapsed onto the pavement, the darkness finally taking me, my last thought was one of bitter acceptance. So this is how it ends.