Rising From Hell: The True Heiress's Revenge

"Last reminder. Keep your mouth shut once you're out. Three years-let them rot inside you. Understood? Don't think for a second that being a Beaumont heiress means anyone's coming to save you."

"They didn't before. They never will."

Chloe Boyd's face registered nothing. She nodded, obedient, not daring to defy Commander Price. One hand pressed against the cold wall, she dragged herself out of Remington Disciplinary Academy's administrative building. Her knees-once capable of commanding an entire charity ballroom with a single waltz-were nearly destroyed, cartilage ground to nothing from years of forced kneeling on concrete. Without medical supplies, her surgical expertise was useless. A doctor with no medicine. A healer who couldn't heal herself. Every step sent shards of pain lancing through her legs, but she had learned long ago that crying out only invited more punishment. The gray sky above seemed to press down on her, heavy and indifferent.

She reached the iron gate.

Someone called her name. Chloe flinched, shoulders curling inward as she raised her head. A limited-edition black Maybach sat idling at the curb. Inside sat Conrad Boyd, heir to the Boyd empire, the commercial prodigy whose name commanded fear across the Eastern Seaboard. Tall, broad-shouldered, with features that belonged on magazine covers and an aristocratic coldness that hadn't thawed in three years. The car's polished surface reflected the pale morning light, a beacon of wealth utterly at odds with the squalor behind her. She blinked, half-convinced he was a mirage.

"You came." Chloe's voice cracked, her eyes reddening.

This was the fiancé she'd loved for three years. The man who had personally signed the papers committing her to this brutal institution. Who had paid people to teach her obedience. Under his cold, assessing stare, Chloe couldn't stop trembling-a reflex burned into her nervous system. The wind picked up, cutting through the thin fabric of her clothes, but she barely felt it. All she registered was him.

"I can take you home. But first-have you learned your lesson?" Conrad looked down at her, his gaze thin and merciless, the way one might examine something unpleasant stuck to their shoe. "If you hadn't drugged Cassie's drink, she wouldn't be dependent on prescription medication to this day. You endured three years of discipline. Her body will never recover. You owe her a debt you can never repay."

When Chloe didn't respond, his voice cracked like a whip. "Answer me! Have you learned?"

The commanding tone triggered something primal. Chloe dropped to her knees on the gravel, head bowed low. The sharp stones bit into her ruined joints. "Yes. I've learned. I won't do it again."

She'd learned, all right. She'd learned that loving these people was like handing them the knife they'd use to gut her.

In the beginning, she'd held onto hope. Her fiancé wouldn't actually let her suffer-since their engagement, he'd protected her, would have died before letting anyone hurt her. Her parents at Beaumont Estate would come for her. She was innocent. She'd been framed. She'd waited. And waited. And the only thing that arrived was more pain. Hope had been a slow poison, far crueler than any beating.

She was an heiress, not a street thug. The guards couldn't touch her directly-too much liability-so they got creative. Thin leather whips designed for maximum pain with minimum evidence. Stripped naked and locked in industrial freezers. They wanted her to beg. To offer her body in exchange for a hot meal, a few hours of peace. She refused. So the abuse escalated, each degradation more inventive than the last. She learned compliance. The kind that lived in her bones now.

"Chloe. What game are you playing?" Conrad's brow furrowed.

Three years of discipline, and she'd become this? The vibrant, beautiful face he remembered was gaunt and bloodless. Her waist was so narrow his hands could probably encircle it completely. Was she faking this fragility? Trying to manipulate him? Her skin had a grayish pallor that spoke of prolonged deprivation. Her collarbones jutted out like architectural supports beneath paper.

Impossible. He'd personally instructed Commander Price to give Chloe special attention. She wouldn't have faced any real hardship. This had to be another performance. He had ensured she would be kept in line, not broken. The disconnect between his orders and the evidence before him unsettled something deep in his chest, but he pushed it aside.

Conrad looked away, pushed open the car door, and reached down to help her up. "Get in."

She recoiled, arms flying up to protect her head, eyes vacant with animal terror. "Please-please don't touch me. Don't."

"Enough. Still playing the victim?" Conrad's voice was ice. "Is this your way of making me feel guilty?"

Chloe surfaced from the flashback, a hoarse, broken laugh escaping her throat. In front of Conrad or her parents, she'd never had the right to feel wronged. If they were capable of guilt, they wouldn't have waited until today.

Thirteen years ago, she'd been found and returned to Beaumont Estate-the daughter who'd been switched at birth.She had been living in the slums with her criminal adoptive parents before being taken back by her biological family. She'd thought coming home meant being loved. Instead, her parents and brothers treated her like an intruder. Every time Cassie felt sad or slighted, they rushed to comfort her, as if Cassie were the one with Beaumont blood. Gradually, Chloe became the outsider. They'd remind her constantly-you're the eldest, you should know better, let your sister have this. The lesson was etched into her soul long before Remington reinforced it with pain.