Alina Phillips POV
I returned to the Estate like a ghost haunting her own life.
The Fortress loomed atop the cliffs overlooking the Hudson, a sprawling expanse of grey stone and imposing iron gates.
It had once been my sanctuary. Now, it was just stone.
I punched the access code into the keypad at the side gate.
The light blinked green. It still worked.
The ease of it felt like a trap.
I moved through the gardens, my eyes instinctively seeking the soft purple of my irises by the fountain.
They were gone.
Rows of pristine white roses stood in their place, stiff, thorny, and flawlessly sterile.
They looked like funeral flowers waiting for a casket.
I entered the main house through the kitchen entrance.
The chatter of the staff died instantly. Silverware clattered against porcelain as they froze.
Their eyes went wide, tracking me as if I were a corpse that had clawed its way out of the grave.
I ignored the heavy silence and ascended the grand staircase, heading straight for the east wing.
My room.
Or what used to be my room.
I pushed the door open and halted.
The walls were no longer a soft, welcoming blue. They had been painted a stark, clinical white.
My easel was gone. My canvases, my paints, the charcoal sketches of my father-everything had been purged.
In their place stood abstract sculptures of twisted, jagged metal.
Cold. Sharp. Soulless.
A polished brass plaque beneath one piece read: Works by Krystal Gomez-Francis.
She hadn't just moved in.
She had erased me.
Bile rose in my throat, hot and acidic. I turned on my heel, needing air, needing to scream until my lungs burned.
I stumbled out the front door, my vision blurring as I ran down the driveway.
The aggressive roar of an engine cut through the air before I saw the car.
A cherry-red sports car careened around the curve of the driveway, tires squealing.
It was moving far too fast.
I froze.
The driver saw me. Through the windshield, our eyes locked.
Dark eyes, lined with heavy makeup, widened with instant recognition.
She didn't brake.
The engine revved. She accelerated.
I threw myself to the side, but the fender clipped my hip with the force of a sledgehammer.
The impact spun me around, slamming me onto the pavement.
My leg twisted beneath me with a sickening, wet crunch.
Pain exploded up my thigh-blinding, white-hot, and absolute.
I screamed.
The car screeched to a halt only a few yards away.
The driver's door flew open.
A woman stepped out. She was beautiful in a terrifying way, vibrant and deadly like a poisonous flower.
Krystal.
She stared at me writhing on the ground, clutching my shattered leg.
She didn't look scared.
She looked annoyed.
Then, the front door of the mansion burst open. Jaxon came running out.
"Alina?" he shouted, his voice rough.
He looked at me, broken on the asphalt, and then at Krystal.
He didn't run to me.
He ran to her.
"Are you okay?" he demanded, grabbing Krystal's shoulders, scanning her for injuries that didn't exist. "Did the brakes fail?"
I gasped for air, the agony making black spots dance across my vision.
"She hit me," I choked out, the words tasting like copper. "Jaxon, she hit me on purpose."
Jaxon turned his gaze to me then.
His eyes were hard, devoid of the warmth I remembered.
"Don't be dramatic, Alina," he said coldly. "It was an accident. Krystal isn't used to the handling of the car yet."
Krystal immediately buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking.
"I didn't see her!" she sobbed, the sound shrill and performative. "She just jumped out! Is she crazy? Oh god, Jaxon, you said she was sick."
"I'm not sick," I gritted out through clenched teeth. "Call the police."
The air around us went still.
Jaxon released Krystal and walked over to me.
He crouched down, close enough for me to smell his cologne, but he didn't touch me.
"We do not call the police, Alina," he stated, his voice dropping to the low, dangerous timbre of the Don. "We handle things in the Family."
"She tried to kill me," I whispered, tears leaking from my eyes.
"She is my wife," he said.
The word hung in the air like a guillotine blade, severing the last thread of my hope.
Wife.
He stood up, dusting off his pants, and signaled to his guards waiting by the entrance.
"Take her to the private wing," he ordered, his tone bored. "Get the leg set. And keep her quiet."
He turned his back on me, wrapping a protective arm around Krystal's waist.
"Come inside, tesoro," he cooed softly. "You're shaking."
He guided her toward the house.
He didn't look back.
As the guards lifted me onto the stretcher, ignoring my gasp of pain, I watched the heavy oak door close.
He left me bleeding on the asphalt to comfort the woman who had put me there.
