THE ROSSETTI HEIRESS HAS STOPPED BEGGING

CHAPTER THREE

The second splash hit higher.

Scalding water cascaded over my collarbone and down the front of my blouse. The fabric clung instantly, trapping the heat against my skin like a brand. A raw, animal sound tore out of my throat. My knees buckled, but the guards held me upright, fingers digging bruises into my arms.

“Arthur—please—!”

He didn’t even blink. He tilted the pot again. A third stream of boiling water struck the side of my neck and shoulder, rolling down my back in searing rivers. The pain was white-hot, blinding, the kind that made the edges of the room go gray. My body jerked violently. I could smell my own skin.

Toria stood just behind Eleanor, one hand pressed to her mouth in a perfect performance of distress, but her eyes were bright. Alive. She was drinking every second of this.

Eleanor’s voice was cold and precise. “Enough theatrics. Make sure she understands the consequences of stealing from this family.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened. He handed the half-empty pot to a maid without looking at me.

“Again.”

The maid hesitated only a second before pouring what was left. The water hit the already burned skin of my shoulder and I screamed until my voice cracked into silence. Tears and snot and water ran down my face. My legs gave out completely. The guards let me drop to my knees on the polished floor, still gripping my arms so I couldn’t curl into myself.

I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Every breath felt like fire.

Arthur crouched in front of me, the same way he had the night before in the dark room. Close enough that I could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the cold indifference in his eyes. He smelled like expensive cologne and the cigarette he must have smoked earlier.

“Look at me.”

I forced my head up. My vision swam.

“You will never,” he said quietly, “embarrass this family again. You will never touch what belongs to Toria. You will never raise your voice or your hand in this house. Do you understand?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” I whispered. The words came out broken, scraped raw. “Arthur, please… Leo—”

His hand shot out and gripped my chin hard enough to bruise. “Do. You. Understand?”

I nodded once. Anything to make it stop. Anything to keep the water away.

He released me like I was something filthy and stood.

“Get her out of my sight. And someone clean this mess before it stains the marble.”

The guards dragged me upright. My blouse was plastered to my skin, the fabric already sticking to the angry red burns blooming across my shoulder, neck, and chest. Every movement was agony. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood again, refusing to give Toria the satisfaction of another scream.

As they pulled me toward the hallway I caught a glimpse of her face. She had stepped closer to Arthur, resting her cheek against his arm, the picture of fragile innocence. Eleanor watched me go with open contempt, as though I were a stain she intended to scrub out permanently.

They didn’t take me to a doctor.

They took me to the same windowless room as the night before and left me there on the cold floor. No cream. No bandages. Just the dark and the throbbing, blistering pain and the sound of my own uneven breathing.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that—curled on my uninjured side, shaking, trying not to let the fabric of my clothes touch the burns—before the door opened again.

Soft footsteps. A small voice.

“Mama?”

My heart stopped.

Leo stood in the doorway, one of the younger maids hovering nervously behind him. His dark hair was messy from his nap. He clutched his favorite stuffed dinosaur against his chest, eyes wide and worried.

“Mama hurt?”

I pushed myself up onto my good arm, ignoring the way the movement pulled at the burned skin. “Come here, baby. It’s okay. Mama’s okay.”

He ran to me on short, unsteady legs and threw his little arms around my neck. I hissed through my teeth as his weight pressed against the burns, but I didn’t push him away. I wrapped my uninjured arm around his small body and held him as tightly as I dared.

He smelled like baby shampoo and the lavender detergent I had used on his clothes that morning. He pulled back just enough to look at my face, chubby fingers reaching up to touch the swollen cheek Arthur had struck.

“Owie,” he said solemnly.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Big owie. But it’s okay. You’re here now.”

He settled against my good side, careful in the way only little children can be when they sense something is wrong. I rested my cheek on top of his head and stared at the dark wall, listening to his soft breathing.

He looked so much like Arthur it still stole the air from my lungs sometimes. Same dark brows. Same shape to his mouth when he concentrated. Same stubborn set to his jaw when he didn’t get his way. But his eyes—those were still soft. Still full of the kind of trust Arthur had never once given me. When Leo looked at me, he saw his mother. Not a business transaction. Not an inconvenience. Not a body to punish.

I pressed a trembling kiss to his hair.

“I love you more than anything,” I whispered into the quiet. “More than this house. More than my name. More than the pain. You hear me? You’re the only reason I stay.”

He just hummed and snuggled closer, completely unaware of the way my tears were dripping into his hair.

They let me keep him for twenty minutes before the maid returned, face pale, and gently pried him from my arms. Leo cried. I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled so I wouldn’t cry with him in front of her.

After she left, the door locked again.

I stayed on the floor as the hours dragged by, the burns tightening and blistering, the cold of the room seeping into my bones. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Arthur’s face as he poured the water. The complete absence of anything resembling regret. Toria’s triumphant eyes. Eleanor’s cold approval.

At some point the door opened once more.

Arthur stood there, a glass of whiskey in one hand, looking down at me the way a man looks at something already finished. He didn’t come closer. He didn’t offer help. He simply studied the angry red skin visible above the neckline of my ruined blouse.

“Toria was very upset,” he said at last. “You made her cry. Again.”

I didn’t answer. My throat was too raw.

He took a slow sip of whiskey. “Grandmother wants you gone by the end of the week. She thinks you’re a liability. I’m inclined to agree.”

My head lifted. Fear cut through the pain like a blade. “Leo—”

“The boy stays,” Arthur said flatly. “He’s a Knight. You’re not. Not really. You were a signature on a contract. That contract has become inconvenient.”

He turned to leave, then paused in the doorway without looking back.

“Be useful for once in your life and don’t make a scene when the time comes. I’d hate for the child to see you dragged out.”

The door closed.

I sat in the dark with the smell of burned skin and the echo of my son’s small voice still clinging to the air, and for the first time since the day I married him, I understood something with perfect clarity.

They were going to take everything.

And if I didn’t find a way to stop them… they were going to take Leo too.