Daria POV:
I woke up screaming, though no sound escaped my lips.
My throat felt raw, flayed of its lining.
The darkness of the room pressed against my eyelids, heavy and suffocating.
For a fleeting, desperate moment, I hallucinated that I was back in our penthouse.
I imagined that if I rolled over, I would find the solid warmth of Kaeden's chest, the steady rhythm of his heart that used to lull me to sleep.
Memory dragged me back to the day he gave me the ring.
It was a sapphire, dark as the midnight ocean, haloed by diamonds.
"Blood washes away," he had told me, sliding the cold metal onto my finger. "But loyalty is forever. You are my loyalty, Daria."
And I believed him.
I was the corporate girl, the outsider who organized charity galas and sipped wine on patios.
He was the Prince of the City, the dangerous bad boy who swept me into a world of private jets and silent dinners.
I thought I was his sanctuary.
I didn't realize I was merely a placeholder.
Then came Clemmie.
Clementine Odonnell.
She wasn't just a friend; she was a fixture.
The daughter of a fallen soldier, raised alongside Kaeden in the brutal nursery of the Mafia.
She was "fragile."
She was "damaged."
She needed constant saving.
"She has no one else, Daria," Kaeden would insist when he left our bed at 2:00 AM to answer her frantic calls. "I owe her my life. I pulled her out of the ice when we were sixteen. You have to understand the bond."
I tried.
I swallowed my jealousy like bitter pills.
I invited her to dinners where she picked at her food and stared at Kaeden with wide, watery eyes.
I ignored the way her hand lingered on his arm, the way she knew his coffee order better than I did.
I thought I had finally won the war when the test stick turned pink.
A baby.
An heir.
In the Mafia, bloodline is everything.
Kaeden had cried.
Actual tears.
He held me like I was made of spun glass.
"A son," he had whispered against my stomach, reverent. "We'll build an empire for him."
I was so happy, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.
So I posted the photo.
Just a pair of tiny, knitted booties.
No location. No names. Just pure joy.
Two hours later, Clemmie was at our door, hyperventilating.
She claimed a rival family had DM'd her threats because of my post.
She claimed I had put a target on Kaeden's back.
She threw herself into his arms, shaking, sobbing, playing the victim with a performance that deserved an Oscar.
And Kaeden... he changed.
The love in his eyes curdled into suspicion.
The protector became the prosecutor.
"You don't understand this world," he had spat at me. "You're reckless."
He brought me here for "safety."
That's what he said.
He lied.
Voices drifted in from the hallway now, cutting through my reverie.
The heavy steel door muffled them, but I knew that cadence.
"Is she ready?" Clemmie's voice. Impatient. Hungry.
"She's barely conscious," a male voice replied. Not Kaeden. Clinical. Detached. "Her heart rate is erratic. The shocks..."
"It doesn't matter," Clemmie snapped. "The organs need to be fresh. Kaeden signed the release. He thinks she's brain dead from the stress. He thinks it's a mercy."
My blood ran cold.
Organs.
She didn't want to teach me a lesson.
She wanted my heart.
She wanted my kidneys.
She wanted the parts of me that worked, to replace the parts of her that were failing.
And Kaeden... my husband, the father of the child inside me... he signed the paper.
He gave me to the butcher.
