The Enemy’s Ring

“One...”

“Two...”

“Three.”

The leather belt split the air with a dry, quick snap. Cold fire rushed across Carina’s shoulder, tearing through the fine silk of a pristine bodice. The lace frayed into bleeding threads.

“Apologize to her, Carina,” Renzo rasped near her ear. There was this low and familiar satisfaction. “You spoke her name without respect. Say it.”

“I-“

Carina gasped and blindly touched with her fingers the floorboards.

The colour of her skin turned white, almost transparent.

Her lungs locked up, refusing to let out any left air.

But it wasn’t the bite of the leather that made her blood run cold, but that soft rustle of silk near the doorway and the perfume that drifted through the air…sweet, disgusting jasmine.

‘Violet…’

Carina raised her head and blinked way too many times.

The breathing felt paralysed in her throat. Her eyes rushed over the pale lace that kept falling down her arms, the layer of tulle gathered around her waist, and the hand-stitched pearls shining under the chandelier.

‘A wedding gown….?’

She was wearing a white dress.

‘No. This is wrong. I was underwater. The lake was freezing.’

The memory hit her like a strong arrow: the ice-cold water filling her nose, the dark sky above the harbor, Violet’s laugh ringing out from the dock, and Renzo’s hand pressing the back of her head beneath the black waves until her chest gave out.

She had watched her brothers die on that dock first… Carina saw them bleed out onto the wood, discarded like broken toys by the very woman they had chosen over their own sister.

Carina had died in the dark…this woman that was now gasping was dead.

So why was the floor under her palms dry? Why was her chest breathing air?

“Look at me when I speak to you,” Renzo barked. He grabbed a fistful of her dark hair, yanking her head back.

Carina looked into his face. His jaw was square, his dark eyes seemed empty of anything human, his golden skin flawless without a single scar.

The scar she had slashed across his cheek on the night he killed her father, well, that was gone.

Panic swimmed through her veins. It was so hot and blinding.

Her heart couldn’t stop beating so aggressively against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Sweat broke out across the back of her neck, sticking her hair to her skin.

She stumbled back, her knees couldn’t stop from shaking so violently that Carina could barely stand.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Renzo’s hand tightened on her hair, dragging her back down before she could take a single step toward the door. “You haven’t begged for her forgiveness yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Carina hushed out, these words tumbled out of her mouth before she could think, driven purely by the old, instinctual dread that had governed her past. Her vocal cords felt like someone set them on fire. “I’m sorry, Violet. I’m sorry.”

Renzo sneered, disgusted by how easily she yielded, yet unsatisfied. “Not good enough.”

He raised the belt high above his head again, the brass buckle looked so bright beneath the warm lights.

Carina flinched, curling into a ball on the floor, bracing her arms over her head, waiting for the tearing heat to return.

But then, the same old, heavy mahogany doors opened.

“Renzo. Control your pet. The guests are downstairs.”

That sound of the voice made Carina’s skin cover in snowflakes. She lifted her chin out of her arms, her eyes looked so blurry from tears.

Standing in the doorway was Dante, her eldest brother. Behind him was Leo and Matteo.

All three of them were dressed in black tuxedos, having the same cold facial expressions.

Even their mouths curved into matching sneers of utter disgust as they looked down at her crumpling on the floor.

Carina swallowed a sob.

Her brothers. They were standing. They were breathing. There were no bullet holes in Dante’s chest. Leo was not vomiting poison out from his throat. Matteo’s eyes were normal, alive.

‘It was a dream,’ a frail, desperate whisper got stuck in her mind. ‘It was just a horrific, twisted nightmare. I didn't die. They didn't die.’

Another sob, but way louder this time came from her throat. It seemed so unrestrained.

Relief flooded into her heart so fast her head spun.

Forgetting the sting on her back, forgetting the fear, Carina pushed herself up from the floor and reached her hand out toward Dante, her fingers were so heavy, they couldn't stop from shivering.

Those almost blue lips opened to call his name.

She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and feel the solid warmth of her family, to wash away the phantom chill of the lake water that still seemed to linger on her skin.

“Dante…” she choked out, taking a frantic step forward.

However, Dante didn’t care enough to move to meet her. But he did take a small step backward.

Carina saw how he narrowed his eyes, clearly reflecting a deep, unbothered contempt.

“Keep your hands off me, Carina,” there it was again, that flat, devoid tone.

Her brother dusted off his lapel as if her very shadow had stained the fabric.

“You look like a disgraced dog. Get yourself together. Violet spent hours ensuring this match was arranged smoothly, and you are embarrassing us before the ceremony even begins.”

Carina’s reaching hand halted in midair.

Leo stepped forward, crossing his arms. The gaze his own glare had trailing over her ripped white sleeve and the weak red line blooming on her shoulder.

He didn't ask if she was hurt.

“Father gave you everything,” Leo muttered, shaking his head. “Spoiled you until the day he died. And yet it was Violet who saved this family when the syndicate almost tore itself apart. Violet did the work. You just sat in your room and looked sweet. The least you can do is marry Renzo without making a scene.”

Matteo didn't even look her in the eye and remained by the door, checking his gold watch, seemingly bored. “Fix her dress, Renzo. We have ten minutes before the priest arrives.”

And so, that same air rushed out of Carina’s lungs, chiller and more suffocating than the water in the lake.

The relief vanished, but somehow turned into a bitter, ash-like truth. The memories didn't fade; they came back with clarity, slotting into its place.

This wasn’t a bad dream.

She remembered the years before her death, how her father had doted on her, and how her brothers’ love had turned into a toxic, festering hatred because of it.

Carina thought of how Violet Corvo had walked into their lives, playing the savior, spreading poison into her brothers’ ears until they viewed their own sister as a useless parasite.

The day her brothers signed her life away, selling her to Renzo Valenti like livestock to secure their alliances, completely blind to the fact that Violet and Renzo were sleeping together behind their backs.

They had traded her to a monster. And when Renzo and Violet finally moved to take full control of the Bellini empire, they had executed her brothers in the dark, and her brothers had never seen it coming because they were too busy worshiping the woman who destroyed them.

Then slowly, Carina pulled her hand back. She pressed her bleeding shoulder against the frame of the wall, lowering her head so they couldn't see the light dying in her eyes.

Her brothers were alive...yes, but they were not her family.

They had never been her family. They were the ones who had handed Renzo the belt in the first place.

Renzo stepped behind her and placed his hand heavily on her uninjured shoulder.

Rattling, his thumb pressed into the bruised flesh with deliberate force.

“She’ll be ready,” he told her brothers, smoothly and filled with false respect. “Go on down. I’ll bring my bride.”

The three men turned and walked away without looking back.

Carina was left to stand perfectly beneath Renzo’s grip. The jolting in her knees stopped and the sweat on her skin turned to snow.

She looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror across the room and saw a girl drenched in tear-stained lace, marked by leather, surrounded by monsters.

But as she stared into the glass, she didn't see a victim drowning in the dark, but a ghost who had walked back out of the grave.

The universe had not brought her back to save her family. It had brought her back to watch them pay.

But the question remained the same-why?