Chapter 1

"Celine? Are you still there? What's happening? Talk to me!"

In the damp, dark alley, muddy water had soaked through my shoes. My phone lay at my feet, its screen glowing as my brother Micah Holloway's voice crackling through the speaker.

But I couldn't make a sound. Two burly bodyguards had me pinned against rough brick, crumbling mortar scraping my cheek.

Three steps away stood my husband of three years, Damian Spencer, a cigarette between his fingers, watching it all with cold detachment.

In the flickering glow of his cigarette, he glanced at me once. His eyes were empty. Cold.

He stepped forward. Black leather shoes splashed through a puddle. He bent down, picked up my phone, and ended the call.

"Damian..." I stared at him through the rain, searching for something—anything—in those eyes I'd kissed a thousand times.

What I got instead was a brutal kick to my knees from the guard beside me.

I let out a strangled gasp as my knees slammed into the filthy water.

"Shut up." The man grabbed my chin, forcing my head back.

He studied my face with a smirk. "Look at that. You really do look a bit like Miss Selene Ellison. No wonder Mr. Spencer kept you around for three years—a cheap replacement."

He yanked my hair, jerking my face up to meet Damian's emotionless gaze.

Even in this moment, it all felt unreal.

We'd shared a bed, shared everything. How could he possibly do this to me? There had to be some mistake.

Through tangled, wet hair, I stared at him, my voice hoarse. "Damian... there's been some mistake. There has to be—"

Damian didn't even flinch. He simply raised his hand and ground his cigarette into the brick.

The bodyguard beside me let out a cold laugh, as if he'd heard the funniest joke.

"Mistake? You hurt Miss Ellison's hand. And you're calling it a mistake?"

His fist twisted in my collar, dragging me closer. "Those are the hands that perform at Royal Hall next week. Even a scratch is unforgivable. Who the hell are you to lay a finger on her?"

He patted my pale face, each word a knife. "Even if we broke both your worthless hands a hundred times, it wouldn't make up for what you did to her."

The ground dropped out from under me.

So this was it.

In the dead of night, pressed against this wall like garbage—all because a few days ago in the dressing room, I'd accidentally knocked over a door frame and left a scratch on her hand that barely even bled?

Because of one insignificant scratch, my husband of three years was willing to degrade me like this.

Three years of marriage, and I'd never mattered at all. Only Selene. Always Selene.

Damian slowly approached and crouched down before me. His tall frame loomed over mine as he took my trembling right hand in his, his warm fingertips tracing my knuckles with almost tender care.

But every word that left his mouth was torture.

"I can't let you become a problem for her."

He looked at me and delivered my sentence. "Selene belongs on stage. In the spotlight. And you—" He paused. "You can't be allowed to threaten that."

His eyes were full of arrogant cruelty. "Give up the violin. Be a good Mrs. Spencer. From now on, you won't be needing your hands for anything important anyway."

I stared at him, my breath coming in broken gasps.

Because Selene was his sacred obsession, born for concert halls and applause, he was willing to destroy me to clear her path?

I was supposed to just accept it? Let him crush my hand? Spend the rest of my life locked away in that house, nothing more than her shadow?

"Get away from me!" Something broke loose inside. I tore free from the bodyguard's grip and screamed, struggling wildly, trying to draw the attention of anyone on the street beyond.

But I was a fool. If Damian wanted privacy, he'd have it. No one was coming.

And my resistance only brought more brutal suppression.

In the struggle, the bodyguard ripped the violin case from my back and hurled it against the pavement.

"No—!"

A sharp crack split the air.

The case burst open, and the wooden violin inside tumbled out, breaking cleanly in two right before my eyes.

The world seemed to plunge into cruel silence.

Today was my birthday.

And that violin was the last birthday gift my mother had given me before she died.

Staring at the wreckage scattered across the ground, something flickered across Damian's face—so brief I might have imagined it.

But he only stood up, brushing off his coat. "It's just a broken violin. It's gone now. As long as you behave from now on, I'll buy you jewelry."

I bit down on my lip until I tasted copper. Tears mixed with rain, running hot down my face.

That violin was the only thing my mother had left me in this world. And he'd just destroyed it like nothing.

Damian's patience finally ran out. He adjusted his coat sleeves and gestured coldly to the bodyguard.

The man holding me slammed me to the ground. A mud-caked boot stomped down hard on my right wrist, pinning my palm flat against cold stone.

A steel pipe rose into the air, blotting out what little light remained.

Even in that second, trembling all over, I looked at his back, clinging to one last shred of desperate hope in my dying fear.

"Damian, you can't do this to me! Please—"

My voice shattered into a scream.

But he didn't turn around. He didn't say a word to stop it.

The pipe came down with a whistling rush of air, crushing the bones in my right hand—the hand that had held a bow since I was six years old.