For six years I’d stood beside him at endless galas, smiling through thinly veiled insults, letting his parents treat me like an inconvenient piece of antique furniture.

I’d swallowed Elaine’s whispered comments about my “inferior, middle-class bloodline.” I’d tolerated Victor calling me “pretty enough for the cameras, but useless for the legacy.”

I’d forgiven Daniel’s coldness, his absences, his transparent lies.

I’d forgiven all of it because I thought I was protecting my chance at a family. But I’d never once forgiven his stupidity.

And Daniel Ashford was fatally stupid to believe my silence had ever meant surrender.

A high, wailing sound bled through the soundproofed glass of the ballroom windows. A siren, faint at first, then multiplying.