ella

o the heavy oak door and back again. The realization of her catastroph

e hissed, her voice trembling wit

confused whisper. "I don't unders

aterina let out a guttural, unhinged shriek. She

ma

ain blooming across my left cheek. I tasted copper. I didn't stumble. I didn't raise a hand to de

ed into a suffoca

corner of the wing. "Mrs. Moretti. My father, Liam Carson, may have bled out for this alliance, but Carson blood has not run dry. My

lammed into the hardwood floor. *Cl

d condemning glares. Striking an allied family's daughter in front o

Caterina's chest heaved. She swallowed hard, her eyes burning with a promise of death. "Mi dispiace" (I

st go find Caitlin. Come, Isabella, let us leave thi

back on her entirely and faced my grandmother. I did not kne

with my cousin Caitlin. Now she is missing, and there are strange sounds coming from that room. I

ing forward. "Eleanor,

nder. She looked at Caterina with utter disdain, then turne

The color drained from

Her sharp, calculating eyes bored into mine. She needed her judgment to be airti

felt the weight of their stares-some pitying, so

it. The f

tly at the closed oak door. I kept my voice eerily calm, devoid of

arp gasps of revulsion. The wives' faces twisted into masks of disgust. Even Eleanor's stoi

sed to orchestrating the entire scandal. In the eyes of every woman present, I had just transformed from

d and waited for