Chapter 3

In the dream, her mother slapped her.

The crack turned Sophia's face sideways. She stood there, cheek burning, and did not raise her hand to touch it.

"You have no right to die," her mother said, shaking. "You are standing on your brother's shoulders to survive. Every breath you take, he paid for."

"I never asked him to."

Her mother's face crumpled. The slaps came harder. Sophia stood and received them, tears on her face—not from pain, but from the bewildering injustice of a life she had never been consulted about.

Then her mother knelt.

Sophia stared. She had never seen her mother kneel to anyone.

"I know what you've suffered," her mother said, voice breaking. "But this is what your grandfather left behind. You are the only one who can hold it. You must keep going—"

The dream shattered.

Sophia woke to antiseptic. Lucian sat in the chair beside her bed, eyes red-rimmed, jaw dark with stubble.

"You were bleeding through your shoe," he said. "Your foot. Why didn't you say something? I could have driven you."

"Was there something you needed?" she asked.

He poured water from the bedside pitcher and set it next to her. Then, very carefully: "Stella's anxiety has been flaring. I'd like you to help her through it."

The doctor stepped forward, voice strained.

"Mr. Drake—Mrs. Drake's condition is critical. Every single indicator is negative. Any additional stress could be life-threatening. Stella's anxiety disorder is a psychological condition. It requires medication and therapy, not—"

Lucian looked over the doctor's head at Sophia.

"Help her one last time," he said. "I'll sign the divorce papers. Plus thirty million on top."

He gestured. Guards brought in reinforced restraints—the kind used for crisis situations, he would have said if anyone asked.

Sophia looked at her own wrists. Old scars, layered over older scars. The record of every time she had been Stella's anchor when Stella's darkness turned violent.

Lucian saw them. His voice came out strangely.

"Does it hurt?"

She stood, walked into Stella's room, and did what was asked.

She held Stella through the worst of the episode—the blows, the screaming, the wild grief of a woman whose pain was real even if her cruelty was calculated. When it ended, Sophia lay on the floor looking at the ceiling, breathing, waiting for her vision to clear.

She checked her bank account from the hospital floor. Thirty million. Exactly as promised.

She got up. Found Lucian's sleeve and tugged it once.

He knew immediately what she wanted. His expression closed off.

"Seven years," he said flatly. "You don't throw seven years away over something this small."

"Something this small."

She let go of his sleeve, picked up her phone, and called a car.

She thought she was about to walk out. She hadn't counted on Stella blocking the door—again.