Chapter 1
Tessa's POV
My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.
"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."
I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.
He answers with a kick to the stomach.
For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.
His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.
"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."
Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.
"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."
No one answers him.
He has no idea. I already am.
The moment death takes me, I feel weightless. I look down and see my own corpse, soaked in blood, hanging from the chains at the center of the cistern like a rag. Looking at what's left of me, I don't feel that old, gutting pain anymore. Just a strange, hollow calm.
So this is what happens after you die. Even love and hate get stripped away.
Something yanks my soul out of there, and I drift into Grayson's office.
He's in his chair, casually wiping down a gun.
A knock at the door. Cole steps in and drops to one knee. "Boss, she's been in the cistern three days now. Her body can't take much more of this. Delilah's poison is under control since the transfusion. Maybe it's time we let the doctor take a look at her—"
Grayson slams the gun down on the desk. His eyes go dark. "Cole, since when did you become Tessa's dog?"
Cole flinches and presses his forehead to the floor. "It's just, the Donna's put in a lot of years for this family—"
"Done what, exactly?" Grayson cuts him off, laughing coldly. "She's done nothing but ride my name and live off this family's money. That woman's rotten to the core. Delilah's the sweetest person you'll ever meet, and Tessa tried to take her out. She wants to act tough, wants to keep denying it? Fine. Let her rot in there."
"But Boss—" Cole tries again.
"Shut up." Grayson stands. "Tell the men — nobody feeds her, nobody treats her wounds. If she thinks she's dying, she can crawl to me and beg. Crawl to Delilah and apologize. Hand over the antidote. Otherwise she can spend the rest of her life down there thinking about what she did."
I float near the ceiling, staring at the man I once loved more than anything. His profile is still so perfect, but what comes out of his mouth is uglier than the water I drowned in.
The first day they threw me in there, I screamed his name until my throat gave out, hoping he'd check the cameras, hoping he'd find out the truth.
Nobody came.
It's almost funny. I loved that man enough to die for him. And all it took to send me to hell was Delilah saying, "The coffee Tessa brought me tasted a little off."
The second day, the leeches covered my whole lower body.
Through the pain, I felt something warm running out of me. My baby. Only two months along. Gone, dissolved into that stinking water.
The third day, my vocal cords tore completely. Breathing felt like swallowing glass.
I could feel my body temperature dropping, my vision blurring, my breath fading to almost nothing.
In my last moment, what flashed through my mind, of all things, was Grayson sliding a ring onto my finger five years ago.
He'd said, "Tessa, put this on. Once family, always family — till death."
Grayson. You got your wish.
I'm dead.
Cole backs out of the room, still shaking.
Grayson pulls out a cigar, lights it, and blows out a slow ring of smoke, irritation flickering across his face. He picks up his phone and calls the guard on duty at the cistern.
"How's she doing?"
The guard clearly hasn't gone to check. He stammers, "Boss, she's just hanging there. Head down, not making a sound. Probably passed out."
Grayson scoffs. "She's always been good at this little act of hers. Don't touch her. If she's still not talking by morning, give her ten more with the belt."
