Damian's eyes snapped open. The blinding white light of a private hospital room in Manhattan stabbed his retinas.
He ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. Blood dripped onto the pristine white sheets. The private doctor standing nearby let out a panicked gasp.
Mark, Damian's executive assistant, stepped forward, his face pale. He held out a tablet. "Sir, the extraction team found you in the cave just in time."
Damian ignored the tablet. His jaw was locked tight. "Did you find the girl? Jane."
Mark swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead. "Sir, we ran the name through every database in West Virginia. There is no Jane Smith in that region that matches her physical description."
Damian snatched the tablet from Mark's hands and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. "It's a fake name," he snarled, his chest heaving.
He touched his chest. The strange, burning heat in his scar was gone, replaced by a dull ache. His eyes darkened with a violent mix of anger and obsession.
"Find her," Damian ordered, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Tear the state apart. I want that woman."
Four hundred miles away, outside a rusting trailer park in West Virginia, a black Maybach idled in the dirt.
Arthur, a man in a stiff suit, handed Helen a thick manila envelope. "The DNA results are conclusive," he said, his tone dripping with condescension. "You are a blood member of the Gallagher family of New York."
Helen stared at the name 'Fredy Gallagher' printed on the lab report. A cold, sharp smile cut across her face.
She didn't say a word. She turned around, walked into her cramped trailer, and grabbed a faded canvas duffel bag.
Hours later, the Maybach pulled through the massive wrought-iron gates of the Gallagher estate in Long Island.
Helen stepped out of the car. She wore cheap, faded jeans and a plain black t-shirt. She walked into the cavernous, marble-floored living room.
Eleanor, the matriarch of the family, sat rigidly on a velvet sofa. Her eyes raked over Helen with undisguised disgust.
"You smell like poverty," Eleanor said, her voice echoing in the quiet room. "It's practically baked into your skin."
Sylvia, Helen's stepmother, offered a tight, fake smile. Her eyes were hard and defensive.
Candice, her half-sister, stood by the fireplace in a custom couture dress, covering her mouth to hide a vicious smirk.
Helen didn't blink. She didn't look down at her clothes. She walked straight toward the sofa and stopped two feet from Eleanor, looking down at the older woman.
"I'm not here to beg for scraps," Helen said. Her voice was ice. "So drop the aristocratic act."
Eleanor's face turned a mottled purple. She gripped her pearl necklace. "You lack basic breeding!" she spat.
Helen let out a short, hollow laugh. She turned to the head butler standing frozen by the stairs. "Take me to my room."
The butler felt a sudden, terrifying pressure in his chest. Helen's eyes held a deadliness that made his knees weak. He bowed his head instantly and hurried up the stairs.
Behind her, Candice stomped her foot. "Mom, she's a feral animal! How can you let her talk to Grandma like that?"
Helen walked into the small, dusty guest room at the end of the hall. She shut the heavy oak door and locked it.
She walked to the window and stared down at the manicured lawns. Her eyes were pitch black.
"Everything you took from my mother," Helen whispered to the glass, her fingernails digging into her palms. "I'm going to rip it right back out of your hands."
