Chapter 2

Searing pain exploded in my right hand. The scream tore through my throat, but the gag swallowed it whole.

The military boot crushing my wrist eased slightly.

I dragged myself forward through the mud, my ruined arm trailing uselessly behind me. With my only functioning hand, I clutched desperately at Damian's pant leg.

"Damian... please, make them stop... I can't lose the violin..."

Trembling from head to toe, I begged without a shred of dignity.

"I'm sorry. It's all my fault. We can sign the papers right now—tonight, I don't care. I won't bother you anymore. I'll give her back everything—the title, the life, all of it. I'll disappear. I'll go so far you'll never have to see my face again..."

He finally turned around, looking down at me. His eyes were cold, flat. Like I was nothing.

Without a single word, he yanked his leg back. The wet fabric slipped through my fingers.

The steel pipe in the bodyguard's hand came down again.

Once. Twice. The sickening crunch of bone breaking nearly drowned out the rain.

My right hand was completely destroyed—pulverized into a bloody, unrecognizable mess. The pain surged past every limit I thought I had, then went numb.

I watched my right hand get reduced to nothing. And Damian just stood there, backlit by the streetlamp, watching. He didn't move until there was no chance it could ever be fixed.

Only then did he raise his hand. The beating stopped.

He looked down at me, and something flickered in his eyes. Something worse than hatred.

"Don't worry," he said, his voice flat and final. "We're staying married. As long as you stop getting in Selene's way."

I lay there in the gutter, my left hand hovering over the wreckage of my right, too terrified to even touch it.

So that's why he was keeping me around.

Selene had her debut at the Royal Albert Hall next week. She deserved the spotlight. And I was just the broken replacement who'd gotten in the way—something that needed to be dealt with.

He destroyed my hand. Cut off every path forward. So he could keep me locked up like some obedient doll in the prison he called our home.

The despair drained away. All that was left was hate.

Three years of lies, of being used—it all came crashing down in that single moment.

I stared at his back as he turned toward the car. With the last bit of strength I had left, I screamed after him:

"I hope you rot, Damian! I hope she tears you apart the way you destroyed me!"

"I hope loving her ruins you!"

My voice gave out. The rain kept falling. His car door slammed shut, and the engine roared to life.

Blood and muddy water blurred my vision. Right before I blacked out, the cruelest irony of this whole nightmare flashed through my mind—

How it all started. That stupid, pathetic beginning that felt like something out of a bad romance novel.

Three years ago. I was in a practice room at the conservatory, playing violin. He happened to walk by. The melody of Salut d'Amour drifted through the summer air, right into his path.

He stopped outside the door. Sunlight poured through the window, and his gaze landed on my profile.

I don't know why, but I looked up at exactly the same moment.

Our eyes met. The music hung between us.

For a second, it felt like one of those impossible moments—like falling in love on a Paris street corner, all warmth and serendipity.

The distraction in his eyes, that brief hesitation—I thought it was love at first sight.

And just like that, Damian forced his way into my life.

Those early days, he was so good to me it didn't seem real.

Every time I practiced until my fingers ached and my joints locked up, he'd pull me into his lap and massage my right hand carefully.

I thought it meant he treasured me.

So when the rumors started making the rounds at every gala, every charity dinner, I refused to believe them at first.

"Oh my God, did you hear? Selene Ellison's back in town."

I was standing near the coat check at some fundraiser when I overheard them—a cluster of women in designer gowns, champagne flutes in hand, not bothering to lower their voices.

"Celine and Selene. God, who do you think he'll pick?"

"Please. That's not even a question. You know Selene complained once about how cold the rain was in Paris? Damian literally chartered a jet to fly her favorite tea overseas. Overnight."

"She's an Ellison—old money, real legacy. She's the one he actually loves."

The girl closest to me shot a glance in my direction and smirked at her friend.

"That Celine? She's nobody. Just a cheap knockoff he kept around to fill the gap. I mean, even the name's a ripoff. Can't wait to see her get tossed out on her ass."

The whispers followed me everywhere after that. The anxiety was suffocating. I couldn't think. Couldn't sleep.

A few days ago, I was backstage at the concert hall, distracted and exhausted. I shoved open the dressing room door without thinking.

The old wooden handle came loose and fell. It grazed the back of a woman's hand as she stood just outside.

A scratch. Barely anything. It didn't even bleed much—just a faint red line across her skin.

A wound that didn't need a bandage. Barely worth noticing.

But because of that scratch, tonight Damian ordered the hand he used to kiss, finger by finger, to be beaten into a shapeless, ruined mess.

That was also the day I actually saw her up close for the first time.

Selene.

We stared at each other. The resemblance was eerie. Especially in profile—we could've been mirrors.

And she played violin too. Even the little things—like the way she absently rubbed her right index finger before picking up the bow. Exactly like me.

No wonder he always knew exactly how to massage my hands. He'd done it a thousand times before.

For someone else.

Tonight, the bodyguard's sneering words finally made it all click into place.

Lying there in the freezing rain, I started laughing. A horrible, broken sound that barely made it past my teeth.

For three years, Damian loved holding me from behind. He'd bury his face in my neck and whisper my name, over and over, like it meant something.

"Celine... my Celine..."

There was always this low, drawn-out softness to the way he said it. I used to think it was his way of showing me I was special. That I mattered.

God, I was so stupid.

Celine.

Selene.

They sound exactly the same.

My stomach twisted.

Every night for three years, every time he whispered in my ear—it was never my name.

It was always hers.