The ballroom dissolved into pandemonium.
I didn't stay to watch Dante attempt to salvage the wreckage.
Instead, I shoved my way through the press of bodies, blindly heading for the sanctuary of the powder room. I needed air. I needed silence.
My heart battered against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that threatened to crack the bone.
I slammed the heavy oak door shut and twisted the lock, collapsing against the cold marble sink.
My reflection was a stranger. Skin the color of parchment, lips stained a violent red, and eyes that looked hollowed out by exhaustion.
Then, the sharp *snick* of the lock turning froze the blood in my veins.
I spun around.
Lucia stood there.
She held a brass key in her hand. Of course she did. She had been the mistress of this manor for three months; she owned every door.
"You bitch," she hissed.
Her mask of demure elegance had shattered. Her face was contorted, twisted into a grimace of ugly, unfiltered rage.
"You ruined everything."
"I told the truth," I managed to say, my voice trembling. "A concept you and Dante seem to have forgotten."
She stepped into my space, one hand resting protectively—or perhaps possessively—over her stomach. It was a gesture meant to be both a shield and a weapon.
"He will never let you go," she spat. "You think embarrassing him in public frees you? It only makes him dangerous."
"I'm already dead, Lucia," I whispered. "You can't kill a ghost."
She laughed. It was a cruel, brittle sound that grated against the tiled walls.
"You think you suffered? The Russians were gentle compared to what Dante will do now. And do you know what the best part is? Maria came to the gate."
I froze.
The air left my lungs.
Maria. My foster mother. The only soul who had ever loved me without condition before I was dragged back into this hell.
"She came begging," Lucia whispered, leaning in close enough for me to smell the champagne on her breath. "While you were gone. She wanted to pay your ransom. She had her life savings in a plastic grocery bag."
"Where is she?" I demanded, my hands gripping Lucia's shoulders before I could stop myself.
"Dante told the guards to handle it," Lucia smiled, her eyes gleaming with malice. "She was making a scene. So they silenced her. Permanently."
The world tilted on its axis.
A red haze bled into my vision.
Maria. Dead.
Because of me. Because of him.
A scream tore from my throat, raw and animalistic. I shoved Lucia—not to hurt the baby, but because I needed her away from me, needed to breathe without her poison in the air.
She stumbled back. She hit the wall with a thud, but she didn't fall.
Then, her eyes shifted.
She saw the door handle jiggle. She saw the wood strain as someone threw their weight against it.
Dante was breaking in.
In a split second, calculation replaced her rage.
She threw herself forward, crashing deliberately into the large glass display of perfumes on the vanity.
The crash was deafening.
Bottles shattered, sending shards of crystal flying. The room was instantly choked with the overpowering, cloying scent of gardenias and blood.
Lucia landed on the floor amidst the wreckage, screaming.
"My baby! She pushed me! She's trying to kill the heir!"
The door burst open with a splintering crack.
Dante stood in the threshold, his face a mask of lethal fury. He took in the scene instantly: Lucia on the floor, surrounded by broken glass; me standing over her, hands shaking violently.
He didn't ask for an explanation.
He didn't notice the lack of blood on Lucia's dress.
"Take her," he commanded to the guards swarming in behind him.
Two men seized my arms in a vice grip. I struggled, kicking out, my voice breaking.
"She's lying! Dante, she killed Maria!"
He didn't look at me.
He knelt beside Lucia, checking her pulse with clinical precision. When he finally looked up, his eyes were voids, stripped of all humanity.
"Take her to the roof," he said.
