Caution: Mature and violent scenes ahead.18+
Yvette's POV
Ouch. It hurts.
My skull felt like someone was hacking it open with a blunt axe. I squinted against the dim light, but the room felt wrong. The air pressed heavy against my chest, making it hard to breathe.
The first thing I noticed was the colour of the walls. This was not my room.
"Where am I?" I mumbled. My throat was dry. I tried to remember how I had ended up on the hard, cold floor.
Then the scent hit me.
I knew it at once. My brother's cologne, warm cedarwood and leather. Safety.
My eyes widened. Grey walls came into focus. Nathan's bedroom.
But something else lay beneath his scent. Something metallic. Something wrong. Blood.
I froze when my foot brushed against something warm and soft. Something that felt human.
"Brother Nathan?"
The name came out like a whisper. I turned toward the body lying only inches away.
His eyes bulged, wide and lifeless.
"No. What happened? How…"
My voice shook as I crawled closer. The floor was slick and sticky under my palms. My hand slipped and my knees nearly gave out.
My fingers trembled as I touched his shirt. It was soaked through, thick and wet.
It wasn't water. Blood.
Nathan lay in a spreading pool of it. The dagger I knew too well was buried deep in his chest.
The one Dad had given me on my sixteenth birthday, the blade with the pink diamond.
A weapon a fake daughter like me was never supposed to carry.
Nathan's favourite white shirt, the one I had given him for his birthday, was drenched crimson. His cedarwood scent was already fading beneath the copper smell.
"Oh god. What happened? Brother, can you hear me? Please… say something."
I leaned closer. The truth settled over me like ice.
He was gone. No heartbeat. No warmth. His skin was so pale there was no blood beneath.
Who did this?
I did not scream. I could not. The silence in the room pressed down on me until I could only hear the slow, steady drip of blood hitting the floor.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
For a long minute the world stopped. I was no longer the disgrace or the fake mafia princess. I was just a girl staring at the only person who had ever truly loved me.
My hand hovered over the dagger, but before I could even touch it…
The doors burst open.
Swan family members flooded into the room.
"Oh my God! Yvette, you killed Brother Nathan! Murderer!"
Vanessa's voice cut through the noise. Her shaky fingers pointed straight at me.
The memories rushed back in a wave.
Vanessa kissing Lucas behind the garden walls. Their whispers. His words: "You're the woman I love, Vanessa. Yvette was just a stand-in. A placeholder. I only stayed close to her because of you."
The love I had felt for Lucas had been one-sided and worthless. Just like me.
In my anger I had confronted them. I had threatened to tell Dad and Nathan.
Then sharp pain exploded at the back of my head, and everything went dark.
Now I lay here with my own dagger in my brother's chest and blood on my hands.
I had walked straight into Vanessa's trap.
Again.
"You jinx! What have you done?"
My father's growl ripped through the room. His cold aura burst out, and my body shrank under the weight of it before I could stop myself.
He stepped closer like a predator.
Smack!
His hand cracked across my face. The slap sent my head snapping to the side. Blood filled my mouth.
"No… Dad… please… I didn't do this…"
"Guards!" he snarled. "Drag this ungrateful schemer to the torture chambers."
My heart sank. This was not my father speaking. This was the mafia lord passing judgement.
The guards grabbed me. Their grips were iron. I struggled, but it was useless. My strength meant nothing against theirs.
I looked desperately at Madam Swan, the woman who had once called me 'daughter'.
"Mom… please… don't let them torture me. I swear I didn't do it. Nathan is my brother. You believe me, right?"
I reached for her, but she flinched and stepped back as if I were something filthy.
Her eyes moved from Nathan's body to me. What I saw there was not hatred; it was something worse: it was cold detachment.
"Take her away."
Three words. That was all it took.
The guards dragged me out while the last piece of hope inside me broke.
~~~♧♧♧~~~
The torture chambers
"Aaahhh!"
Electricity surged through my body again. The jagged iron restraints burned my skin anytime I tried to move.
They treated me like I was dangerous. Like I needed to be broken.
Time had lost all meaning. Hours had passed, or maybe days. I no longer knew.
Another fingernail was yanked away. The pain made my vision white out. I wanted it to end. Death would have been kinder.
"Please… have mercy…"
My voice came out as a hoarse whisper. No one listened.
The people I once called family stood and watched with cold faces. As if I had never belonged.
Maybe I never had.
Was it because I wasn't their blood? Because I was weak and couldn't fight like them?
Vanessa had everything they wanted. Strength. Power. A true mafia princess.
Now Nathan was dead, and I was the one they blamed.
"I swear I woke up in the room. I didn't kill my brother. He was my brother. Why would I kill him?"
My words trembled, but they fell on deaf ears.
Dad sat in the corner sipping his scotch as if this were entertainment.
Lucas and Vanessa stood together like real lovers. Lucas looked at me with pure disgust. No regret. Vanessa leaned into him and smiled, victorious.
"It was Vanessa!" I screamed. "She and Lucas framed me!"
For a second the room went quiet. Everyone turned to look at her.
Then Dad hurled his glass across the room. It shattered against the wall.
"How dare you accuse your sister?" His voice was low and thunderous. "Do you think she is as scheming as you?"
Of course he would not believe me. He never had.
He grabbed my chin hard, forcing me to look up at him. His fingers dug into my jaw.
"You ungrateful brat. I should have thrown you out of this house the day I learned you were not my blood. You killed my heir."
"Dad… please… believe me…"
"Continue the torture."
His voice was final. He turned and walked toward the door.
Another animalistic scream tore through me as another nail was roughly yanked, and the collar around my neck tightened, cutting off my air.
Dad paused at the door and took one long look at me.
A violent surge of hope arose within me. Was Dad finally going to release me now? Does he finally believe me? But his next words killed all my hope.