Chapter 1
“I never left this house.”
Evelyn’s fingers were freezing around mine when she said it.
I remained crouched beside the open floor panel, one hand gripping hers while my mind rejected what my eyes were showing me. She was older than the woman I remembered standing in a wedding dress three years earlier, thinner too, but there was no possibility of mistake. The same gray-blue eyes. The same tiny scar beside her thumb. The same woman I had spent years forcing myself to hate because hatred hurt less than wondering why she left me.
Then I turned toward Bianca.
My sister had gone completely pale.
“You told me she ran.”
Bianca swallowed. “Raffaele—”
“You told me she climbed out through the east garden before the ceremony.”
“I told you what I was told.”
Evelyn’s hand tightened around mine.
“No.”
Her voice was weak but sharp enough to stop everyone.
“She told you what she needed you to believe.”
Bianca looked at her.
For one second, the fear disappeared and something colder replaced it.
That was all I needed.
I handed Ethan to Anna and climbed down into the shallow chamber. Evelyn flinched when I came close, then immediately looked ashamed for doing it.
That hurt more than the sight of her.
“You’re safe,” I said.
She laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
“You said that on our wedding morning too.”
I stopped.
Bianca moved toward the doorway.
Two bodyguards blocked her.
I lifted Evelyn carefully. She weighed almost nothing.
As I carried her out of the chamber, something scraped beneath her skirt.
A metal chain.
Not around her ankle now.
Broken.
I looked down into the darkness.
The chain was bolted into the stone wall.
May you like
Three years of believing Evelyn abandoned me collapsed into one simple truth.
She had been hidden directly beneath the room where I waited for her to become my wife.
