Chapter 3

Linnea's POV

The cold down in that basement is the kind that gets into your bones. When I come to, it's already the next morning.

One of the cleaning staff slips in and undoes the chains. I drop straight into the blood pooled on the floor beneath me.

Damon's orders were to leave me down here. Whatever happened next was my problem.

I grit my teeth and push through it, every breath feeling like something tearing loose inside me. I get my bloody hands against the wall and drag myself out, one step at a time. Behind me, the hallway floor gets a long red streak all the way to the stairs.

I don't go back to the bedroom. I go straight to the Godmother's chapel.

Candles burn low along the walls. She's on her knees at the kneeler, rosary in hand, eyes closed. She hears me coming and opens them slowly.

When she sees me, covered in blood and barely holding myself upright, even she goes still for a moment. This woman who has seen everything.

"What do you think you're doing?" she says, frowning.

My legs give out. I go down hard on the stone floor.

With shaking hands I pull a folded paper out from under my clothes. It's soaked mostly red now, but you can still read it. The divorce agreement I printed last night in his study. My signature at the bottom, Linnea Hayes, written like I meant it. Because I did.

"I'll do it. The arrangement you laid out." My voice comes out rough, but it doesn't waver. "I'll sign the papers. I'll go to Chicago. I'll marry Knox Steele. I just need you to let me walk out of here alive."

She looks at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving across her face.

She expected me to fight. To beg. To do whatever it took to hold onto Damon the way I always had. She didn't expect this.

"You sure about this? Knox Steele isn't someone you want to underestimate. Chicago's a different world. You'd be on your own."

"Anywhere is better than here." I pull together something that might pass for a smile. "As long as I'm out of this house. Away from him. That's all I need."

She's quiet for a long time. Then she sighs, reaches out, and takes the paper from my hands. "Alright. I'll hold onto this. Rest up, let yourself heal. Knox's people will come for you in two weeks."

That's all I needed to hear. The last bit of tension holding me together lets go, and everything goes dark.

—

When I wake up again I'm in a narrow guest room, dim and plain. Someone wrapped my wounds at some point. They still pull with every breath.

There's noise outside the door. A woman laughing, soft and sweet.

I make myself get up. I open the door and walk to the railing at the top of the stairs.

Down in the main hall, Damon has his hand at the small of a woman's back, guiding her in like she's made of glass. White dress, soft features, that practiced fragile look she always wears. Aurora Marsh.

"Damon," she says, leaning into him, "Linnea's not gonna be weird about me being here, right? Maybe I should just stay somewhere else. I don't wanna get in the middle of things."

"What right does she have to be upset?" His voice is soft in a way I barely recognize. He taps Aurora lightly on the nose. "This is my house. Whoever I want here stays. I had the master bedroom redone exactly the way you like it. This is your home now."

How nice for her.

I stand in the shadow at the top of the stairs and watch them.

Three years I gave this family. Three years of making myself useful, making myself small, making myself whatever they needed. I wasn't even allowed to pick out my own pillow. One sentence from Aurora Marsh and she walks straight into everything I built, like I was never here at all.

Something must give me away. Damon looks up.

His face goes cold the second he sees me.

"What are you looking at? You're still alive, so get back in your room. I don't want you anywhere near Aurora. She doesn't need the stress. You upset her in any way, you'll regret it."

Aurora looks up too. Our eyes meet. There's a flicker of something at the corner of her mouth, there and gone, before she gasps and presses herself into Damon's side. "Damon, the way she's looking at me is scaring me..."

"You're okay. I've got you." He pulls her close and turns that ugly look back on me. "I said get out of my sight."

Once, that would have gutted me. I'd have stood there falling apart, demanding to know how he could do this to me.

Now I feel nothing.

"Don't worry, Mr. Kingsley." My voice comes out flat and even. "I won't get in the way. Enjoy your evening."

I turn around, walk back to the guest room, and lock the door.

Down below, Damon watches me go. For some reason he can't name, something sharp catches in his chest. He reaches up and yanks at his tie, pushing down whatever that feeling is before it has time to become anything.

Inside the guest room, I pull my suitcase out from under the bed and start folding the few clothes I actually own. Everything the Kingsley family ever gave me, the jewelry, the bags, all of it, I leave exactly where it is. I don't want any of it.