Chapter Three

In the end, it was one of Gordon’s men who realized someone had gone overboard. Following the rope I’d managed to grab onto, clinging with the last of my strength, he hauled me up.

“Miss Alani, are you all right?”

I couldn’t even shake my head.

The yacht had already turned around and was speeding back toward shore.

For Paula’s ankle—the wound so minor it hardly counted as one.

Once we docked, they didn’t even wait for me to stand. The taillights of the car convoy were already vanishing into the distance.

I walked for two hours. Dragging my soaked, freezing body and my reopened wounds, I made it back to the estate with my consciousness fraying at the edges.

I forced myself to shower and change into dry pajamas, tore the gauze from my knee, and collapsed onto the bed.

By midnight, the fever hit, right on schedule. No medicine, no one asking after me. My phone lay on the nightstand, as cold and silent as a stone.

Gordon was probably at Paula’s side, murmuring comfort.

My body swung between chills and heat, pain seeping out of every bone. I don’t know how long I drifted before the fever finally broke on its own.

I dragged myself out of bed, aiming for the living room and a glass of water.

I had barely shuffled down the hall, hand braced on the wall, when the front door opened.

Gordon walked in, immaculate in his suit, expression as composed as if nothing had happened the night before. When he saw me, he paused, a faint frown creasing his brow. “You look terrible.”

I opened my mouth, but my throat was too raw to form words. Had he forgotten? Or did he simply think it didn’t matter?

When I didn’t answer, he let it go and set a garment bag on the sofa. “There’s an auction tonight. Get ready.”

The old wound in my chest gave another little twist.

In the end, I silently took the bag.

That evening, I slid into the front passenger seat. Gordon and Paula sat in the back. As soon as the doors closed, the divider between front and rear slid up, sealing off the space completely.

When we got out, Gordon offered a distant explanation. “Paula likes quiet.”

I nodded and glanced at his collar, rumpled in a way that said more than words. I didn’t comment.

The ballroom sparkled with crystal chandeliers and silk. Gordon’s hand hovered politely at the small of Paula’s back as he introduced her in a low voice to the key players present. I followed half a step behind, like a transparent shadow.

Until a man with a drink approached Paula, his intent obvious.

Without hesitation, Gordon nudged me gently forward and told him, “Let my assistant Alani drink with you instead. She has a strong tolerance.”

I started to say, “I—”

I couldn’t drink. Not in the shape my body was in. Alcohol would only worsen my injuries.

“I’ve already said it.” Gordon cut me off with a frown, impatience creeping into his tone. “Do your job.”

The words lodged in my throat and stayed there.

One glass. Two. Three. Liquor burned its way down my throat like fire, searing all the way to my stomach. My face went whiter with each round; my fingers trembled around the stem of the glass. Nobody noticed.

I retched over a toilet, but my body was too empty; all that came up was bile.

By the time I returned to the ballroom, there was a noticeable disturbance at the center of the room. People had clustered around someone, murmuring.

I pushed my way through and saw Gordon gripping the lapel of a politician, eyes bloodshot, veins standing out at his temples.

“Say that bullshit again, I fucking dare you,” he snarled, punching the man hard enough to knock him sideways.

Gasps rippled through the room. I heard whispered commentary:

“Hoffmann’s going off like that—for his sister-in-law?”

“Sure looks like it. Apparently the guy implied Mrs. Paula had gone to him in private…”

“Tsk. Brother’s dead and he still guards her like that….”

I stood where I was, frozen to the bone.

Once, at another event, a drunk businessman had grabbed my waist and let his hand slide down my thigh. I’d been so startled I didn’t react in time. Gordon had brushed the man’s hand away, smoothed things over with a few polished words, and moved on.

Now, over some half-baked innuendo about Paula, he’d thrown away all decorum, all control, and was beating a man bloody like a cornered animal.

The politician’s face was already swollen and mottled, his attempts to fight back clumsy and pathetic.

“Gordon! That’s enough!” I rushed forward and latched onto his arm. “He’s done! Watch where you are!”

He was at a fever pitch of rage. My sudden interference triggered a reflex—he swung his arm back, hard.

The force hit me like a freight train.

The next second, my spine smashed into the champagne tower stacked behind me.

There was a deafening crash as the tower imploded.

Icy champagne and knife-sharp shards of glass cascaded over me like a waterfall. Pain exploded across my back. Warm liquid soaked through my gown in seconds.

Blood, or champagne?

All I felt was cold—bone-deep cold.

Through the haze, I saw Gordon shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around a terrified Paula, pulling her tight against his chest as he turned away and strode out of the ballroom.

In that brief darkness, I saw blood dripping down my body the day of the brand. Saw Gordon’s tired, impatient anger when he’d told me to stop “picking on Paula.”

And at the very end, I saw the beginning—five years ago, Gordon hauling me out from under a hail of bullets, saying,

“Don’t look back.”

I felt one hot tear slip from my temple into my hair.

“Miss!”

A voice cut through the ringing in my ears, urgent and close.

I forced my stiff neck to turn and saw a pair of glasses and furrowed brows above them.

“Thank God,” the man breathed, though his eyes stayed grave. “Listen, I need you to stay conscious. You’ve got multiple shards of glass embedded, you’ve lost a lot of blood, and the old wounds on your back are badly infected.”

He paused, anger sharpening his tone. “But the pharmacy just went into emergency lockdown. All anesthetics now need the director’s signature. And the director is currently… providing emotional support to a certain important man’s lover.”

Important man’s lover.

Paula.

I understood instantly. To calm *her* emotions, my access to anesthesia had been deemed unnecessary.

Waves of pain crashed over me, but I kept my eyes on the ceiling and rasped, “It’s fine.”

The doctor seemed taken aback, clearly not expecting that response.

I drew a breath, mustering what strength I had left to make myself clear.

“Just take it out. I can handle it.”

“And my back… leave it.”