Chapter 4

He freed one hand, reached into his trench coat, and pulled something out, dangling it before my eyes.

It was a tarnished silver crucifix. My mother's—the only thing she'd left me before she died.

"Give it back!" I lunged for it.

Nelson easily hoisted his hand out of reach, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "You want it? Then you'll stay in this house like a good girl. You'll sit there and watch Ivy carry my heir. If you don't, I'll drop this into the Atlantic and let the salt eat it."

That crucifix became the final chain around my neck.

Over the next three days, the Pierce manor became my personal purgatory. Nelson paraded his affection for Ivy with a cruel, calculated lack of restraint. Every time I demanded my mother's necklace, I was met with the same biting taunt.

"Learn how to please me again, Scarlett. The way you used to."

He would pull Ivy into his lap and kiss her deeply while I stood there, watching them. I stopped fighting. I stopped arguing. I drifted through the estate like a ghost, counting the seconds until my opening.

Then came the fourth night.

It was the syndicate's monthly high-level dinner.

The wine glass slipped from Ivy's hand, exploding against the floor.

"Ah—!" She let out a piercing cry and slid from her chair.

"Ivy!" Nelson bolted upright, rushing to her side.

I watched the scene unfold with a cold, clinical eye. Ivy collapsed into his arms, her face turning a ghostly grey as her body convulsed. Within seconds, a dark, heavy stain began blooming across the skirt of her dress.

"Blood! Nelson, I'm bleeding!" Ivy shrieked, her voice thin with terror.

"Medic! Now!" Nelson drew his piece and fired a round into the ceiling.

The family physician scrambled into the hall, his face ashen before he even touched her. After a frantic examination, he sank to his knees, trembling. "Boss... Miss Ivy has miscarried."

"What the hell did you just say?" Nelson seized the doctor's collar, the veins in his neck bulging like whipcords.

"The miscarriage... it wasn't an accident," the doctor stammered. "I found traces of a toxin in her prenatal supplements. It's restricted, Boss. You can't buy this on the street. Only a Chief Attending with high-level clearance could pull it from a hospital's vault."

The room went tomb-silent.

A hundred pairs of eyes snapped toward me, locking on like spotlights.

Ivy, leaning weakly against Nelson's chest, raised a trembling finger and pointed it at my heart. "It was her... Nelson, she was the only one in the kitchen this morning. She was jealous... she killed our baby!"

Nelson turned his head toward me. His eyes were pure, bloodshot rage.

"It wasn't me," I said. My voice was flat, devoid of a single tremor. "Take the bowl to the lab. Run the prints."

"You're really going to look me in the eye and lie?" Nelson kicked the heavy dining table. "Who else in this house has access to that kind of poison?"

He lunged. His hand clamped around my throat, hoisting me out of my chair and slamming me against the stone wall.

"I didn't... do it," I wheezed, staring straight into his soul.

"Get her out of my sight!" Nelson threw me to the floor like a piece of meat. "Strip her of her status. Throw her in the hole."

Marco was waiting for me in the basement.

The dungeon smelled of old copper and damp earth. I was strung up on the rack, my wrists raw against the iron manacles. Marco walked circles around me, idly snapping a barbed leather whip against his boot.

"Dr. Cole, the Boss gave the word," he said with a low, jagged laugh. "Just confess. Save us both the trouble."

"Go to hell," I spat.

The whip tore through the air and bit into my back. A white-hot surge of agony shot through my spine, vibrating in my teeth. I bit my lip until I tasted my own blood, refusing to give him a scream.

Another strike, this one flaying the skin of my thigh.

"Admit you poisoned her!" Marco roared.

"I... didn't." I swallowed the copper pooling in my mouth.

I lost track of time. I hung there as my body was methodically broken, my mind fraying at the edges of consciousness.

But I held onto my denial like a lifeline. In the Mafia, killing an heir was a death sentence. If I confessed, Nelson would put a bullet in my brain, and I wasn't ready to die. Not yet.

Just as the world started to go grey, I heard muffled sobbing through the iron door.

"Nelson, let it go. My baby is gone... I just want this to be over."

"She won't confess. I'm not letting her off that easy!" Nelson's voice was pure ice.

"But," Ivy choked out, "she was with you for ten years. What if you go soft? What if you let her carry your child again..."

Silence hung in the hall for two agonizing seconds.

"You're overthinking it, Ivy," Nelson said, his voice dropping into a cold, hollow laugh. "Only a woman with a clean slate is fit to carry a Pierce heir. Not someone like her."

"Again?" Suspended from the rack, covered in my own blood, my heart stopped.

Six months ago.

I had stared at two pink lines on a plastic stick, my heart soaring. I thought it was a miracle.

But that afternoon, a maid had "tripped" at the top of the stairs, sending me tumbling down twenty steps.

I lost the baby.

I remembered crying in that hospital bed until my lungs burned. Nelson had held me, his own eyes red, his voice thick with grief. He'd kissed my forehead and whispered, "It's okay, baby. We'll have another. I promise."

It was a lie. It was all a goddamn lie.

I coughed, a spray of dark blood hitting the stone floor.

Footsteps thundered down the corridor.

"Mr. Pierce!" It was the doctor. "The lab results... the only prints on the bowl belonged to the maid. There's nothing from Miss Scarlett. Nothing!"

"What?" Nelson's voice cracked.

"Miss Ivy's miscarriage... it wasn't her."

A chaotic murmur rose outside, followed by the heavy thud of the door being thrown open.

Nelson walked in. He stopped dead when he saw me—hanging from the chains, my skin a map of raw, bleeding welts. Even he hadn't expected Marco to go this far.

"Scarlett." He rushed forward, fumbling with the keys to the manacles. As the iron gave way, I collapsed into his arms.

"Why didn't you explain? Why were you so stubborn?" He pulled me against his chest, his voice actually shaking.

Disgusting.

I went limp, burying my face into the crook of his neck like a wounded animal seeking warmth.

"Nelson," I whispered, my voice a thread of silk. "I told you... you just didn't believe me."

"I'm sorry," he breathed, squeezing me tighter.

In my feebleness, my blood-slicked fingers slipped into the inner pocket of his coat. My skin met cold, hard metal.

The crucifix.

I palmed it, hiding it against my skin.

"I was wrong," Nelson whispered into my hair.

I closed my eyes, letting one last, freezing tear escape. It was the final tribute to my murdered child.

It's over, Nelson. And I'm going to make you bleed for every drop I lost.