Chapter 3

The sedative dragged Eloise into a black pit, but there was no peace there. The nightmares came, vivid and cruel. She was back in the damp, cold basement, the smell of mildew and fear thick in the air.

Her hands were tied to a chair. Eve Mathews stood before her, not the sweet, innocent girl the world saw, but a monster with a beautiful face.

"You're still so proud, aren't you, Eloise?" Eve's voice was soft, melodic, but laced with poison. "Even now."

Eloise tried to speak, to scream, but a gag was stuffed in her mouth. She could only glare at the woman who had stolen her life.

Eve laughed. "Oh, that look. I've seen that look my whole life. The look of the princess for the poor little maid's daughter. You never saw me, did you? I was just part of the furniture."

Eve's mother had been a housekeeper at the Conway estate. A dying confession had revealed the truth: she had swapped the babies at birth. Eve was Denton Conway's biological child. Eloise was the housekeeper's daughter.

"My mother wanted a better life for me," Eve continued, circling the chair. "She gave me to them. But they gave you everything. The name. The money. The power. They even gave you Brigham."

At the mention of his name, a fresh wave of pain hit Eloise.

"Don't worry," Eve purred, leaning close. "I'll take good care of him. He's already mine. The DNA test proved it. I'm the real Conway. You're just... garbage."

The memory of the family meeting played in her head. Her father, Denton, looking at her as if she were a defective product he was returning.

"You are no longer a part of this family, Eloise. You are a thief and a liar. You are nothing to me."

Alicia, her stepmother, had been even crueler. "I always knew there was something wrong with you. You were never grateful. Now we have a real daughter. A daughter who deserves the Conway name."

The words had hurt more than any physical blow. The absolute betrayal from the people who were supposed to love her.

In the basement, Eve picked up a small bottle from a table. "I need to make sure you never come back. That you can never tell anyone the truth."

Eloise's eyes widened in terror as Eve uncapped the bottle. The acrid smell of acid filled the air.

"This will ruin that pretty face of yours," Eve said conversationally. "The face that everyone adored."

She tilted the bottle. The liquid fire hit Eloise's skin. The pain was absolute, unimaginable. It consumed her. She thrashed in the chair, but there was no escape.

Through a haze of agony, she saw Eve smiling.

"Now for this," Eve said, picking up a heavy hammer. She grabbed Eloise's left hand. "You were a painter once, weren't you? So artistic. So talented."

The first blow landed on her knuckles. The sound of bone crunching echoed in the small room. Then another, and another. Eloise screamed into the gag, the sound a muffled agony.

"And that voice," Eve said, her work done. She produced a pair of surgical scissors. "Always so commanding. So sure of yourself. People always listened to you."

She ripped the gag from Eloise's mouth. Eloise gasped for air, her throat raw.

"Please," she rasped. "Don't."

"Begging? How pathetic," Eve sneered. She forced Eloise's mouth open.

The memory became a blur of cold metal and blinding pain. She felt a tearing sensation, a flood of blood. And then, silence. She could no longer make a sound.

Eve had leaned in, her breath hot on Eloise's bleeding face. "I'll tell them you ran off to Europe with the money. Brigham and I are getting married. He'll forget all about you. They all will."

The dream shifted. Eve was gone, and Eloise was in the back of a van, dumped on a pile of rags. They drove for hours, finally stopping in a desolate, poverty-stricken town in the middle of nowhere. Two large men dragged her out and threw her into a ditch on the side of a dirt road.

"Boss says to leave you here," one of them grunted. "Good luck."

They drove off, leaving her broken, disfigured, and mute in a place where no one knew her name.

She woke up in the clinic, gasping, her body drenched in sweat. The stark white room was a shock after the darkness of the dream. A nurse rushed in.

"It's okay, you're safe," the nurse said, her voice gentle.

But Eloise wasn't safe. The memories were always there, waiting for her. She was trapped in the prison of her own mind.

She looked at her mangled hand, the horrible scars on her arm. It wasn't a dream. It was real. All of it.

She closed her eyes, but the images wouldn't go away. Eve's triumphant smile. Brigham's confused, then dismissive face in the alley. Her father's cold rejection.

The emotional pain was a constant, deep throb that was far worse than any of her physical injuries. They hadn't just destroyed her body. They had destroyed her soul.

Her only thought was of Brigham. The boy she had grown up with, the man she had loved. He had looked at her, seen the tattoo that bound them together, and he had still turned away. He had chosen the lie. He had chosen Eve.

That was the deepest cut of all.

A tear escaped her eye and slid down her scarred cheek. It was a tear not of sadness, but of utter, hollow despair.