ella
o the heavy oak door and back again. The realization of her catastroph
e hissed, her voice trembling wit
confused whisper. "I don't unders
aterina let out a guttural, unhinged shriek. She
ma
ain blooming across my left cheek. I tasted copper. I didn't stumble. I didn't raise a hand to de
ed into a suffoca
corner of the wing. "Mrs. Moretti. My father, Liam Carson, may have bled out for this alliance, but Carson blood has not run dry. My
lammed into the hardwood floor. *Cl
d condemning glares. Striking an allied family's daughter in front o
Caterina's chest heaved. She swallowed hard, her eyes burning with a promise of death. "Mi dispiace" (I
st go find Caitlin. Come, Isabella, let us leave thi
back on her entirely and faced my grandmother. I did not kne
with my cousin Caitlin. Now she is missing, and there are strange sounds coming from that room. I
ing forward. "Eleanor,
nder. She looked at Caterina with utter disdain, then turne
The color drained from
Her sharp, calculating eyes bored into mine. She needed her judgment to be airti
felt the weight of their stares-some pitying, so
it. The f
tly at the closed oak door. I kept my voice eerily calm, devoid of
arp gasps of revulsion. The wives' faces twisted into masks of disgust. Even Eleanor's stoi
sed to orchestrating the entire scandal. In the eyes of every woman present, I had just transformed from
d and waited for
/1/111389/coverbig.jpg?v=8710e76ba80f054cf4bbd585e5ea3e9e&imageMogr2/format/webp)