Chapter 3

"Ahh—!"

Helena let out a short, piercing shriek, like something small being strangled.

She pointed at me with a trembling finger, her hand shaking so hard she could barely hold it up.

"She's — she's awake?!"

The scalpel hit the floor with a clang.

The doctor scrambled backward and collapsed onto the floor, face drained of all color.

By all rights, with the dosage they'd given me, I should barely have been breathing. Speaking was supposed to be impossible.

Liam reacted fastest.

His pupils contracted. He stepped forward sharply, eyes locked on me.

"How are you awake?"

There was something in his voice he couldn't quite hide. Not fear. Control slipping.

He was the kind of man who needed to own every situation. Anything that deviated from his plan made him furious.

I sat up on the metal table. Unhurried.

I rolled my wrists where they'd gone stiff and pulled the IV needle out of my arm.

Blood welled from the puncture and dripped from my fingers, blooming across the white of my wedding dress in a scattered pattern of dark red.

Beautiful, in the most unsettling way.

"Nice vintage, Liam. Too bad I can hold my liquor."

I tilted my head and reached into the layered skirt of my dress, pulling out a small glass vial.

Clear liquid shifted inside it.

It was what I'd managed to quietly spit back out from the drugged wine he'd given me — combined with something I'd prepared in advance.

"Dr. Sullivan."

I looked at the doctor crumpled on the floor and smiled pleasantly. "If I were to put the contents of this vial into Violet's IV line, do you think she'd wake up — or stay asleep forever?"

Dr. Sullivan broke into a cold sweat on the spot.

He was a specialist. He knew exactly what had been in that wine.

High-concentration neurotoxin. Enough to drop a horse in seconds.

More than enough to kill a woman who'd been lying in a coma for three years.

"Don't you dare—!"

Liam's voice cracked across the room and he lunged forward.

"Don't move."

I raised the vial. My other hand had somehow found a scalpel, and it was now pressed against my own carotid.

"Take one more step and I drink this. Or I open the artery myself."

I watched him and let the smile widen.

"If my blood drains out, or if it's contaminated — there's no saving Violet. Is there?"

Liam froze.

He was stuck, and he knew it.

He loved Violet too much to risk a fraction of a percent. That love was his leash.

And it was the sharpest weapon I had.

"Vivian, have you lost your mind?!"

Arthur's voice came out as a shout, finally catching up to what was happening.

"That's your sister! How can you be so cruel?!"

"Cruel?"

Something in the word made me want to laugh. I did laugh, a little. My eyes went wet at the corners.

"Dad, can you really say that with a straight face?"

"You were about to cut me open alive to harvest my organs for her — and that's love? That's family?"

"I defend myself, and I'm the monster?"

"Interesting moral compass you've got there."

I slid off the table. My bare feet met the cold floor.

With every step I took forward, Arthur and Helena took one back.

They were afraid of me.

And they should have been.

Hair loose, dress bloodied, a lethal toxin in one hand and a blade at my own throat. I looked like something that had clawed its way back from somewhere no one was supposed to return from.

I stopped at Violet's bedside.

Every muscle in Liam's body went rigid. Like a big cat a second before it strikes.

"Vivian. Put it down."

He drew a slow breath, reaching for that commanding softness he always used to manage people.

"Tell me what you want. Money? Shares in the company? Your freedom? Put down the knife and I'll give you anything."

"What do I want?"

I tilted my head. My free hand drifted lightly across Violet's pale cheek.

Her skin was smooth. Like fine porcelain.

"Liam, do you really think I care about any of that right now?"

"I'm supposed to be dying. What would I spend money on in the afterlife?"

I turned and looked at Arthur and Helena dead-on.

"I want to play a game."

"A game?" Arthur blinked.

"A game."

I pulled a chair to Violet's bedside, dropped into it like I owned the place, and turned the vial over slowly in my fingers.

"From now until sunrise. A few hours. I want to hear some stories."

"What kind of stories?" Helena's voice barely came out.

"Stories about Violet."

I pointed at the woman still sleeping in the bed.

"I want you to tell me, out loud, every terrible thing this perfect Hargrove daughter has ever done. Start to finish. No gaps. No lies."

"And if I'm not satisfied — or if I get bored—"

I swung the vial toward Violet's IV line and let it hang there.

"—I'll let her have a drink."

Silence.

The basement went absolutely still.

Arthur and Helena exchanged a look, faces gone the color of old ash.

They wanted them to expose their daughter themselves? Dismantle the image they'd spent a lifetime building?

Worse than killing them.

But if they refused, Violet was genuinely dead.

"Nothing to say?" I raised an eyebrow. "Need me to start?"

"I'll give you an example."

"Five years ago. The girl from Violet's middle school who jumped off the roof. Was that really about academic pressure?"

My gaze settled on Helena. Quiet as a blade lying flat.

"Mom. You went to the school personally to handle the fallout. How much did it cost? Two hundred thousand? More?"

Helena's knees buckled. She grabbed the wall to keep from going down.

She stared at me like I was something that shouldn't exist.

"How — how do you know about that?"