Chapter 1

Pain wasn't just a feeling, it was a rusted, serrated blade dragging inch by excruciating inch from my gut to my sternum.

I forced my eyes open against the harsh, unforgiving fluorescents of the ICU. Gauze. So much gauze, heavy and soaked with my own blood.

"Recipient's heart is stable. No signs of rejection."

The nurse’s hushed voice bled through the crack in the door.

"But bed one... the delay was too long. Her uterus was necrotic. We had to remove it."

I bit down on my cracked lip until I tasted copper.

So this was it.

The grand finale my beloved family had orchestrated for me.

"Take my soul when I flatline," I bargained with the shadows pooling in the sterile corners of the room. "Just promise me you'll drag them to hell. Make them choke on it."

A dark, phantom hum vibrated beneath the rhythmic beep of the monitors. "Deal."

The demon's whisper snapped me back to my living nightmare.

Until I was twenty, I was the untouchable princess of the Corsican syndicate. The doting parents, the fiercely protective older brother, none of it was a lie. I just... expired. I lost my value.

Damian, my lethal fiancé, once took three hollow-points to the chest for me, his blood ruining my dress. When he proposed, he didn't just give me a diamond; he handed me the keys to the East Coast arms cartel.

Then came Lilia.

The sweet, frail, fifteen-year-old charity case with a failing heart. She didn't just steal my family's devotion. I didn't realize until today that they were literally grooming me for spare parts.

The memory of target practice flashed behind my eyelids.

Lilia raising the Glock that was supposed to be loaded with blanks. Aiming dead center at my stomach. Her doe-eyed smile right before she pulled the trigger. Her eyes were pure, unadulterated venom.

Bang.

I remembered bleeding out on the grass, watching my family sprint right past my convulsing body to catch Lilia, who had conveniently "fainted" from the noise.

I was conscious when they wheeled me into the trauma bay. I heard my mother, New York’s most ruthless cardiothoracic surgeon, give the order that signed my death warrant.

"Prep Lilia for the transplant first. Alice's gunshot wound isn't immediately fatal. Let her wait."

I thought the blood loss was making me hallucinate. Now I knew better.

If this butchered, hollowed-out shell of a body was useless to them now, I was calling curtains on this sick fucking show.

With a violent jerk, I ripped the oxygen mask off my face.

My lungs screamed.

I held my breath, letting my vision turn fuzzy and black at the edges.

I thrashed on the bed, intentionally tearing the fresh sutures across my abdomen. Hot blood spilled over my skin, staining the sterile sheets crimson.

BEEEEEEEP.

The heart monitor flatlined into one long, deafening shriek.

The ICU doors banged open.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

My mother reached me first. Her usually icy, aristocratic mask was gone, replaced by stark-white panic as she slammed the oxygen mask back over my mouth.

My older brother, Luca, was right behind her. The syndicate’s cold-blooded cleaner completely lost his composure, pressing his hands frantically over my bleeding chest to staunch the flow.

My father, Vito, blocked the doorway, barking into his burner phone. "Get the whole fucking surgical team up here! Now!"

And Damian. My brutal, untouchable underboss. He dropped heavily to his knees by the bed, gripping my freezing hand like a lifeline. His eyes were bloodshot, completely feral.

If I hadn't heard the words 'Prep Lilia first', I might have bought the performance.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind, Alice?" my mother hissed, her eyes red-rimmed but still dripping with that condescending authority. "Your surgery was delayed. We couldn't save your uterus. And now you pull this stunt? Do you want to die?"

I stared dead at her through the fogged plastic of the mask.

"Couldn't save it?" I rasped, my voice raw like shattered glass. "Or did you just never plan on saving it, Mom?"

She froze. Her pupils blew wide.

Smack.

Damian backhanded himself across the jaw. Hard. Then again.

"Alice, look at me. It's my fault," he choked out, pressing my palm against his rough cheek. "I wasn't fast enough. I didn't take the bullet. The stomach wound ruptured your organs... it compromised your heart."

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a sick, obsessive whisper. "The hitman who took the shot? He’s already in pieces at the bottom of the Atlantic. Your mother is the best surgeon in the state. She’ll fix this. You just stay alive for me. Understand?"

"Listen to him, principessa," my father rasped, stepping closer. "I've locked down the hospital. The best specialists on the seaboard are out in the hall."

Luca smoothed my hair, his touch deceptively gentle. "I've got the best post-op team waiting. Don't think. Just rest."

The gaslighting was almost impressive.

Framing a point-blank shooting by their darling adopted daughter as a rival hit. Writing off my stolen heart as a "complication." Brushing past my butchered womb like it was collateral damage.

Slowly, deliberately, I ripped my hand out of Damian's iron grip.

They all went completely rigid. I pushed the oxygen mask off my face.

"A hitman?" I whispered. The silence in the room was deafening. "Cut the bullshit, Damian. Whose body did you really dump in the Atlantic?"

The air in the room turned to absolute ice.

I locked eyes with my mother, watching the blood drain completely from her face.

"Where's Lilia?" I rasped.

I soaked in their absolute, paralyzed horror.

"Tell me..." My gaze flicked between my mother, my father, and Luca. "Did the surgery work? How's my heart beating in her chest?"