He was your husband. She was the younger girl you’d brought into your home, the one you helped with careful hands. You’d believed you were doing something generous, a rescue. You never imagined the betrayal would come from the two you trusted most.

Your marriage had been a rare thing, real, in a world of fortunes and facades. You owned the company he worked for, built the life you shared. So when the late nights began, long phone calls, an empty chair at the table, dread seeped under your skin like cold rain.

He would brush off your questions with a practiced shrug, so you swallowed the unease and gave him the benefit of your faith. Until he forgot your anniversary.

Tears came before you could stop them. You drove too fast, the city spinning in streaks of light and shadow. Grief, loneliness, every memory you ever held with him tangled together until the wheel felt like your only anchor. Then came the accident.

When your eyes struggled to focus through the blur of pain and tears, you saw him, Aleric. Across the street, stepping into a hotel with her. His hand brushing her back the way it used to linger on you.

Your heart broke with the impact of the sight. You blacked out and woke in a hospital room to your own scream. You were trembling, tears carving steady tracks down your face.

He came in like nothing had happened, polite and composed, and she walked beside him, an angel painted in the wrong light. Her smile landed on you like an insult; the condescension in her eyes sparked a feral, bitter heat you did not recognize in yourself.

You welcomed them with a practiced smile, wrapping your arms around him and letting the ordinary cadence of affection hide the storm beneath. When they left, your jaw locked. Your lip split against your teeth as you stifled the sobs.

How could a face be so guileless in daylight and so treacherous behind your back? Nausea rolled through you as you held yourself together.

On the day you were discharged, there was no more hesitation left in you. The hurt had already turned into something bitter.

You went to the one man who could change everything. His stepbrother, Lucian. The shadow your husband despised, the son born of their father’s betrayal, the man who wore his scars like armor. He had always been the family’s disgrace, and now he was your only choice.

He sat in his office like a monarch of ruin, smoke curling from a cigarette, dark in the doorway. There were splatters of red on his hand and a slow confidence in the way he looked up at you, as if your pain had been expected.

“The kitten comes to the lion’s den,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You told him plainly, and the words tasted like ash. “I want an heir.”

He laughed, the sound a blade. “So your husband, that spineless brother of mine didn't have what it takes to keep you,” he said, amused. “And you think a child will fix what he broke?”

You didn’t flinch, rage and loss had stiffened your spine. “Give me what I want,” you said. "Do it, and I’ll answer whatever you ask of me after.”

He studied you as if tasting the truth of you, then reached out and tilted your chin until your eyes met his. “You know what you’re offering,” he murmured.

"And you know what I want in return.” His voice was velvet over your wounded soul.

There it was, a bargain, barbed and black. Your body trembled not from fear but from the awful alchemy of power and desire. He had always wanted to take what belonged to his brother, something that would sting the family’s very soul.

Before you could answer, he yanked you around the desk, to your knees before him and closed the space between you.

He claimed your lips with smoke curling in the air surrounding you, before pulling back, looking at the stain of red on your lips which he nipped.

“That’s your answer,” he whispered, satisfied. “The show begins now, little kitten.”