Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The first thing I notice is silk.
Soft, expensive silk sheets against my skin. Not the rough hospital blankets I expected. Not the cold marble of the cathedral floor where I thought I would die.
Silk.
My eyes open slowly, like they're filled with sand. Everything hurts. My head throbs with each heartbeat. My wrist burns like fire under thick white bandages. But I'm alive.
Somehow, I'm still alive.
The room around me looks like something from a magazine. Crystal chandeliers hang from painted ceilings. Gold frames hold artwork I don't recognize. The bed I'm lying in could fit six people, with posts carved from dark wood that probably costs more than most people make in a year.
This isn't a hospital.
This isn't anywhere I've ever been before.
I try to sit up and immediately regret it. Pain shoots through my skull like lightning. My stomach lurches, and for a moment I think I might throw up all over these beautiful sheets.
"Easy." A woman's voice, calm and controlled. "Don't move too fast."
I turn my head toward the sound, and it feels like my brain is sloshing around inside my skull. A woman sits in a chair by the window, and she's nothing like I expected.
She's older, maybe fifty, with silver hair pulled back in a perfect twist. Her dress probably costs more than my car used to be worth. Everything about her screams money and power, from her diamond earrings to her perfectly manicured nails.
But her eyes. Her eyes look familiar somehow.
"Who are you?" My voice comes out like gravel. My throat feels raw, like I've been screaming.
She stands and walks toward me, moving like she owns the world. Maybe she does.
"My name is Salome Valen," she says, and something in her voice makes my chest tight. "I'm your mother's sister."
The words hit me like a slap. "That's impossible. My mother didn't have any family. She was an orphan."
"No, child. She wasn't." Salome sits on the edge of the bed, and I can smell her perfume. Expensive. Everything about her is expensive. "Your mother and I were separated when we were very young. I've been looking for her for decades."
My head spins, but not from the injury. "Looking for her?"
"She died before I could find her." Salome's voice gets softer, sadder. "But I found you instead. Just in time, it seems."
The cathedral. The blood. David's letter. It all comes rushing back like a dam breaking in my chest.
"You found me," I whisper. "You saved me."
"Barely." Her face hardens. "You lost a lot of blood. The doctors weren't sure you'd make it."
Doctors. Plural. How long have I been here?
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Three days."
Three days. Three days of my life gone, just like everything else.
"Where am I?"
"My home. My private medical team has been taking care of you." She pauses, and something in her expression changes. Gets colder. "There's something else you need to know."
My heart starts pounding again. Whatever she's about to tell me, I don't want to hear it.
"What?"
"You were pregnant, Lucia."
The world stops.
Just stops.
"What did you say?"
"You were about six weeks along. You lost the baby when you..." She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.
When I tried to kill myself.
When I slit my wrist on the cathedral altar.
I killed my baby.
The sound that comes out of my mouth isn't human. It's the sound of something breaking apart from the inside. I double over, clutching my stomach like I can somehow protect what's no longer there.
My baby. David's baby. The baby I didn't even know existed.
Gone.
"I'm sorry," Salome says, but her voice sounds far away. "The trauma, the blood loss—there was nothing anyone could do."
I can't breathe. The air in this beautiful room feels thick and poisonous. My chest feels like it's caving in on itself.
"I killed my baby," I whisper. "I killed my own baby."
"No." Salome's voice turns sharp. "David Rodriguez killed your baby. His betrayal, his cruelty—that's what drove you to that altar. Don't you dare blame yourself for what he did."
But I do blame myself. How can I not? I'm the one who held the blade. I'm the one who chose to bleed out rather than fight back.
I'm the one who failed to protect the innocent life growing inside me.
The tears come like a flood, but they're not soft tears of sadness. They're angry tears that burn my cheeks like acid. They're tears of rage and guilt and loss that threaten to drown me.
"Everything," I sob. "I lost everything."
"Not everything," Salome says quietly. "You still have your life."
"For what?" I laugh, but it sounds more like choking. "Do you know what David did? He took everything. My money, my shares, my properties. He probably already sold them all to fund his new life with Yvonne."
Salome doesn't look surprised. "I know about the contracts you signed."
Of course she does. Rich people always know things.
"Then you know I have nothing left. No money. No home. No reputation. The newspapers are probably having a field day with this story. 'Banking Heiress Attempts Suicide After Groom Runs Away.' I'll be a joke for the rest of my life."
"You're right," Salome says, and her honesty cuts deeper than any lie would have. "The media has been brutal. Your reputation is destroyed. Your fortune is gone. David and Yvonne disappeared the same day as your wedding. They've vanished completely."
Each word feels like another knife in my chest. But something in her tone tells me she's not done talking.
"However," she continues, "losing everything can sometimes be the beginning of gaining everything."
I stare at her through my tears. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you have a choice to make." Salome stands and walks to the window. She looks out at gardens that probably cost more to maintain than most people's houses. "You can stay broken, wallowing in what you've lost. Or you can let me help you take it all back."
"How?" The word comes out like a whisper. "I have nothing. I am nothing."
She turns back to me, and there's something dangerous in her smile. Something that reminds me of the promise I made on that altar.
"You have me. And I have everything you need."
"I don't understand."
"Lucia, I'm worth twelve billion dollars. I own companies in fifteen countries. I have connections that reach into every government, every board room, every place where real power lives." She walks back to the bed, and her eyes burn with something I've never seen before. "I can give you the tools to destroy David Rodriguez and Yvonne Castillo. I can help you take back everything they stole, plus interest."
My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you're family. Because your mother was my sister, and I failed to save her." Her voice gets cold as winter. "But mostly because I hate people who think they can take advantage of the innocent and walk away unharmed."
I think about David's hands on my body, whispering lies about forever. I think about Yvonne holding my hand while she plotted to steal my life. I think about my baby, who will never get the chance to breathe because of what they did to me.
The fury that rises in my chest is like nothing I've ever felt before. It's clean and sharp and pure.
"What do I have to do?"
Salome's smile gets wider, more dangerous. "First, you heal. Then, you learn. I'll teach you everything you need to know about real power. How to move money without leaving traces. How to destroy people without getting your hands dirty. How to become someone they'll never see coming."
"And then?"
"Then you become someone new. Someone stronger. Someone who can take back everything that belongs to you and make them pay for every tear you've cried."
I close my eyes and think about the vow I made on that altar. The promise sealed in my blood.
When I open them again, Salome is watching me carefully.
"They think I'm dead, don't they?" I ask.
"The official story is that you're in a private facility, recovering from a nervous breakdown. As far as the world knows, Lucia Mendez is broken beyond repair."
"Good." My voice sounds different now. Harder. "Let them think that."
"And what will you really be doing?"
I look at this woman, this aunt I never knew existed, this billionaire who's offering me everything I need to get my revenge.
"Learning how to become their nightmare."
Salome's smile could cut glass.
"Excellent. Your education begins tomorrow."
She walks toward the door, but stops before leaving.
"Lucia?"
"Yes?"
"The weak little girl who signed away her birthright for love? She died on that cathedral altar. What rises from her grave will be something entirely different."
The door closes behind her with a soft click, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my rage.
I look down at my bandaged wrist, at the mark of the promise I made in my own blood.
They think they buried me.
They have no idea they just gave birth to their destruction.