Chapter 3

Mirelle buried her face in Kaelen's chest, her dramatic sobs echoing over the downstairs.

Before I could wipe the stinging liquor from my eyes, Bryndis's grip clamped around my bicep. Using the brute strength, she yanked me away from the whispering crowd and hauled me up the staircase, shoving me into the villa's upstairs quarters.

This master suite used to be my sanctuary.

It was Kaelen's private safe house, a place he brought me when the blood and death of the underground medical compound became too much to bear.

When I was so exhausted from digging bullets out of his soldiers that I forgot to eat, he would personally bring me warm, catered plates.

He had imported a medical-grade ergonomic chair just to ease the stiff ache in my neck after fourteen-hour emergency surgeries.

Those fleeting, quiet mercies had once tricked me into believing I was loved.

But now, our sanctuary was a nursery.

The armchairs and blueprints were gone, replaced by a bassinet and a changing station. Plush toys and customized infant clothes littered the floor.

Every trace of my existence had been surgically excised.

"What Kaelen has with Mirelle is love," Bryndis sneered, crossing her arms as she guarded the door.

"As for you? You were just a blood debt. Kaelen confused his gratitude for you saving him from that shrapnel wound with love."

I froze. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Instead of answering, she gave me a look of pure pity. She picked up a remote and hit a button. A projector screen hummed as it lowered over the windows, illuminating the dark room with a slideshow of photographs.

It was a timeline of Kaelen and Mirelle.

There they were, drinking vintage champagne at a private ski chalet in the Swiss Alps. Strolling along a secluded beach on the Amalfi Coast. Kissing on the deck of a heavily guarded yacht in the Mediterranean.

"They've been together for three years," Bryndis said.

"Last year, on your birthday? Kaelen wasn't in Europe brokering an arms deal. And Tom and I weren't on our honeymoon."

She walked over, tapping her finger against a massive, breathtaking photo in the center of the screen. Kaelen in a custom tuxedo, Mirelle in white silk, framed by the stained glass of a Gothic French cathedral.

"We were all in Paris," Bryndis whispered. "Swearing fealty to his true bride. Witnessing their happiness."

My lungs forgot how to pull in air.

"And the ambush at the medical compound?" Bryndis continued.

"Kaelen orchestrated it. He ordered her guards to break your hand to get you suspended and safely out of the way. We had to. If you had found out who Mirelle really was while she was vulnerable on your operating table, who knows if you would have actually treated her."

I stared at my supposed best friend as if she were a stranger wearing a mask. I couldn't comprehend how those venomous words were spilling out of her mouth.

Just months ago, at her wedding to my brother, Bryndis had bypassed her entire crew to place her bridal bouquet into my hands.

She had threatened Kaelen in front of the whole clan, swearing that if he ever broke my heart, she'd put a bullet in him herself.

Now, she was the one pulling the trigger. She had gleefully helped them bulldoze my life, standing here proudly informing me that I was the one being discarded.

A hot, bitter tear finally broke free, tracking through the spilled liquor on my cheek. I couldn't even name the agonizing emotion tearing through my chest.

My devotion, my sacrifices, my very blood—all of it had been trampled and ground into the dirt by the people I would have died for. My heart was shattered so thoroughly that I knew it would never form a whole, beating thing again.

The door opened. Kaelen walked in, one protective arm still wrapped around a sniffling Mirelle. Tom trailed anxiously behind them, refusing to meet my eyes.

I looked at the three of them, then at the tear-stained face of the woman who had effortlessly stolen my family. The searing, blinding rage suddenly evaporated, leaving behind a cold, desolate wasteland.

"If that's the reality," I said, my voice eerily calm, cutting through the heavy silence of the nursery. "Then keep him. I yield."

"Dr. Veyra..." Mirelle faltered.

"Seren, what the hell are you talking about?" Kaelen demanded, his jaw ticking, his dark eyes searching my face for the screaming, weeping woman he had expected to find.

I didn't answer him. Slowly, I reached for my left hand and slid the massive, flawless diamond off my ring finger. The syndicate's mark of possession. The ring that made me an untouchable Donna in the underworld.

I stepped forward, grabbed Mirelle's wrist, and pressed the diamond into her palm.

"May you have a long, prosperous life together," I whispered, my voice devoid of a single ounce of warmth. "A perfect little family of three, doomed to forever drown in your own sick lies."

Tom and Bryndis stood paralyzed, staring at me in absolute shock.

Kaelen's imposing frame stiffened. His mouth opened, a flicker of genuine, unadulterated panic crossing his lethal features as he reached out—as if he wanted to say something, as if the reality of my departure had suddenly pierced his invincible armor.

But I didn't want to hear a single syllable from his lips ever again.

Without looking back, I pushed past him and walked out the door.