Cruel Inheritance

CHAPTER TWO

The car smelled of leather.

Kira sat in the back seat, Sofia pressed against her side, one small hand gripping her mother's sleeve. The girl hadn't spoken since they left the bakery. She had watched the coastal town disappear through the tinted window, her espresso eyes wide and unblinking.

Damien sat in the front. He hadn't looked at them once.

Two guards flanked the driver. Kira didn't recognize them. New faces. New loyalties. Everything about Damien's world had changed in five years — except the cold weight of a gun beneath a jacket, the silent language of men who tries to protect.

Sofia should not be here.

Sofia should be anywhere but here.

Kira pressed her lips to her daughter's hair and said nothing.

The mansion sat on a hill outside the city.

Black iron gates. Winding driveway. Cypress trees lined the road like mourners at a funeral. Kira had been here before — years ago, when Damien's father was still alive, when the house had felt like a palace instead of a prison.

Now the stone walls seemed higher. The windows seemed darker.

The car stopped.

"Out," Damien said.

No hand on her elbow. No gentleness. Just the word, flat and final.

Kira opened the door. Lifted Sofia from the seat. The girl was light — too light, always too light, the heart condition stealing weight she couldn't afford to lose.

Damien walked ahead. His guards fell in behind Kira. She was surrounded. Caged. Exactly where he wanted her.

The front door opened into a grand foyer. Marble floors. A chandelier that had belonged to Damien's grandmother. A staircase that curved upward into shadow.

Kira remembered running down those stairs five years ago, half-conscious, screaming his name.

She stopped walking.

Damien turned.

"Problem?"

She could feel Sofia trembling against her chest.

"She needs a room," Kira said. "Near mine. She gets nightmares."

"She gets her own room. Far from yours."

"She's four years old —"

"I don't care how old she is." Damien's voice was ice. "She is not your daughter here. She is his daughter. And I will not have you whispering lies to her through a shared wall."

Kira's arms tightened around Sofia.

"She's my daughter."

"Was." Damien stepped closer. Close enough that she could smell him — cedar and whiskey and something darker. "Everything you had is mine now. Your freedom. Your future. The girl. You are my prisoner, Kira. Not my wife. Not my guest. My prisoner. Start acting like one."

He turned and walked away.

A guard stepped forward. A woman, this time tall, dark hair pulled into a severe knot, her face expressionless.

"Follow me," she said.

Kira followed.

Sofia's room was small.

A single bed. White sheets. No windows. A door that locked from the outside.

Kira set her daughter on the bed and knelt in front of her. Sofia's face was pale. Her lips were slightly blue — not dangerously, not yet, but enough to make Kira's heart race.

"Baby, listen to me."

"I don't like this place."

"I know."

"I want to go home."

Kira closed her eyes. Home. The bakery. The small apartment above it. The lavender soap and the crooked floorboards and the sound of the sea through an open window.

"Not yet," she whispered. "But soon. I promise. Soon."

"You always say soon."

"This time I mean it."

Sofia looked at her with Damien's eyes. "You're lying again."

Kira kissed her forehead. "Take your medicine. The pink bottle. Two spoonfuls. I'll come back tonight to check on you."

"If the scary man lets you."

"He'll let me."

"How do you know?"

Kira stood. She didn't have an answer.

She left the room. The female guard locked the door behind her. The click of the bolt was soft, final, and absolutely devastating.

Kira's room was at the end of the hall.

Larger than Sofia's. A bed. A wardrobe. A window that overlooked the back garden — roses gone wild, a fountain that no longer ran, iron benches rusting in the rain.

She stood at the window and pressed her forehead to the cold glass.

Five years.

Five years of hiding. Five years of working herself to the bone. Five years of watching Sofia grow sicker while she smiled and said everything would be fine.

And now this.

Damien's prisoner. Sofia's jailer. A puppet in a house that hated her.

The door opened.

She didn't turn.

"I told you to unpack," Damien said.

"I told you she needs me."

"She doesn't need anyone. She's not yours anymore."

Kira turned.

Damien stood in the doorway. He had removed his jacket. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. His forearms were mapped with scars she didn't recognize.

"Five years," she said quietly. "You had five years to find me. To ask me what really happened. You didn't. You let yourself believe the lie because it was easier than facing the truth."

"What truth?"

She almost told him.

The words rose in her throat like bile. I was drugged. Marco set us up. Sofia is yours. She's dying. Please, Damien. Please believe me.

But she saw Marco's face in her memory. Calm. Gentle. Kill what you love most.

"I can't," she whispered.

"Can't what?"

"I can't tell you."

Damien laughed. It was not a happy sound.

"Typical," he said. "Even now. Even after I dragged you here. You still won't give me the truth."

"I'm trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" He crossed the room in three strides. His hand closed around her wrist. Not hard. Not yet. "You slept with my best friend. You destroyed my marriage. You disappeared with his child. And you think you're protecting me?"

She didn't pull away.

"I'm protecting her," she said. "There's a difference."

"Her." His grip tightened. "Marco's daughter."

"She's not —"

She stopped.

Almost. Almost told him.

Damien's eyes burned into hers. He was waiting. Listening. For one heartbeat, she saw the man she had married — the one who laughed too loud and loved too hard and believed in her absolutely.

Then he blinked, and the man was gone.

"You're lying," he said. "I can see it in your face. You've always been a terrible liar, Kira."

"I'm not lying."

"Then tell me the truth."

"I can't."

"Because there is no truth. Only the betrayal I saw with my own eyes."

He released her wrist. Stepped back.

"I didn't bring you here to talk," he said. "I brought you here to suffer. And I'm going to start tonight."

Kira's blood went cold.

"What does that mean?"

He didn't answer. He walked to the door, closed it, and locked it from the inside.

Then he turned to face her.

"Take off your dress," he said.

"Damien —"

"Take. It. Off."

Kira's hands trembled. But she didn't say no.

Because a small, broken part of her, the part that still loved him, still remembered his hands gentle on her skin, still dreamed of his voice saying her name like a prayer, that part wanted him to touch her.

Even like this.

Even angry.

Even cruel.

She reached for the strap of her dress and pulled it down her shoulder.

Damien watched.

His face gave nothing.

But his hands when they finally touched her were not gentle.

And Kira let him.

Because she had spent five years running from this man.

And some part of her had always known she would end up here.

In his house.

In his bed.

His prisoner.