The Real Daughter They Wanted Dead

I woke three days later under a dark gold canopy, with antiseptic and medicine thick in the air.

My throat was so dry it felt scorched. I tried to lift my hand and discovered even my fingers were weak. My mother was sitting by the bed.

In three days she seemed to have aged ten years. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her face hollowed with exhaustion. When she saw my eyes open, she lurched to her feet so quickly she nearly stumbled.

“Yvette.” She turned toward the door. “Get the doctor—”

“Did Kane deny it?”

The second the words left me, pain sliced across my chest, and blood rose hot and metallic into my mouth. A thin line of it slipped from the corner of my lips.

Her face crumpled. She snatched up a handkerchief and wiped it away.

“Don’t worry about him right now. You’re losing too much blood. Your old lung injury flared up again. Your rhythm still won’t settle. The doctors said from now on it’ll be specialists, machines, and the best drugs money can buy. One wrong shock and—”

Footsteps sounded outside.

My father came in with Leon and Kane. Kane’s side was wrapped in heavy bandages. But the second he saw me, hatred flashed across his face.

“You really milked this, didn’t you? You throw yourself off a tower, blame Sofia, and somehow I’m the one who gets whipped for it.”

Leon, standing beside him, wore the same expression he might have used with an unreliable subordinate.

“Sofia hasn’t slept in days, and She can barely eat. Since you’re awake now, Yvette, maybe it’s time you went and cleared this up with her so we can all move on.”

I looked at them and saw worry for Sofia, irritation at the scandal, and not one ounce of shame for what had happened to me.

My mother laughed, a sound so cold.

“My daughter nearly died in this house, and you want her to apologize to the girl who set all of this in motion?”

My father’s jaw tightened.

“Sofia is not some girl,” he said. “She has been a DeLuca for fifteen years. She is my daughter. Yvette may share my blood, but she was raised somewhere else and brought back every bad habit that comes with it. She has done nothing since arriving but turn this house upside down.”

I said nothing.

Kane mistook my silence for guilt. He strode to the bed and pointed straight in my face.

“What, no act this time? Listen to me. I don’t care what name you carry. Sofia is the only real daughter this family has. You? You’re poison.”

I looked at him for a long second.

My face went red with anger. A cough broke out of me the next second.

Then the spasm slammed into me full force, tearing up from my lungs so violently my shoulders folded in on themselves. I bent over the blankets, shaking, each breath shorter than the one before.

Kane let out a disgusted laugh.

“Oh, here we go again. You think coughing up a little blood means everybody has to—”

He never finished.

I lurched forward and spat a thick mouthful of black-purple blood all over his face and shirt.

The smell of iron hit the room at once. Kane froze, eyes wide, then stumbled back with a shout and crashed to the floor.

My mother shoved past Leon and caught me before I slid sideways.

“Doctor!” she shouted. “Now!”

Then she turned on Kane.

“Drag him out,” she said. “Break his legs.”

Guards flooded the room before my father could stop them. They hauled Kane down as he thrashed and shouted.

“Dad! Leon!”

My father took a step forward, furious. “Veronica—”

She cut him off by yanking a black-and-gold medallion from beneath her collar and holding it up between them.

Every person in the room knew what it meant. It was a Visconti arbitration seal, recognized by the Commission itself. The DeLucas still sat where they sat because the Viscontis had allowed it.

“My brother gave me this for a reason,” my mother said. “You say one more word, Roland, and I’ll use the Visconti name to wipe DeLuca off the books.”

No one spoke after that.