The word sounded almost formal.

Like a punishment.

Like he had already decided what kind of woman I was and what kind of lesson I deserved.

He dragged me down the hallway while Taryn followed, clutching the robe closed. My vision spotted black. The house tilted. The marble stairs seemed impossibly far away, each step sending a shock through my side as he forced me down.

He did not take me to the guest room.

He took me through the kitchen to the old basement door.

Our basement was unfinished, a cold concrete space beneath the east wing where we stored old furniture, seasonal decorations, sample boards from my early design projects, and crates of things Barrett never cared enough to sort. The door was heavy oak with an iron latch. When we bought the house, I had said it looked like something from another century.

Barrett opened it.

The smell of damp stone rose from below.

“Barrett, don’t,” Taryn said, but there was no courage in it. Only fear of being implicated.

He shoved me.

I stumbled down three steps and fell the rest of the way.

The impact stole what little breath I had managed to gather. My shoulder hit first, then my hip, then the right side of my torso struck the concrete, and the pain became so complete it was almost silent. I curled around it, shaking, unable to move.

At the top of the stairs, Barrett’s silhouette filled the doorway.

“Stay down there,” he said. “Think about your place in this house.”

Then the door slammed.

The deadbolt turned.

Darkness closed over me.

For a long time, I could not tell whether I was awake.

Time dissolved into shallow breaths and the sound of water ticking somewhere behind the walls. The basement was freezing. The concrete pulled warmth from my body until my fingers felt numb. I crawled toward an old canvas tarp folded beside a broken chair and dragged it over myself with one hand. Dust filled my mouth. Every shiver made my ribs flare.

I thought, absurdly, of the conference in Chicago.

The bright stage. The applause. The lights. People asking about my work as if I were someone important.

Then I thought of Barrett calling me a broken little designer.

I almost laughed.

Instead, I coughed, and the pain nearly made me faint.

My phone was still in my jacket pocket.

I had no idea how it survived the fall. I slid my hand inside slowly, biting down on my own sleeve so I would not cry out. The screen lit the basement in a cold blue glow. My fingers trembled so badly I mistyped my passcode twice.

Police, I thought.

Then I stopped.

I knew what I looked like on paper. Wealthy wife. Powerful husband. Private home. Mistress. Fight. A slap. A kick. A basement. Barrett would say I was hysterical. Taryn would cry. His lawyers would arrive before the officers finished their coffee.

I needed someone who would not be intimidated by Barrett Hayes.

My thumb scrolled until it reached the bottom of my contacts.

Dad.

I had not called that number in twenty years.

Dominic Romano was not a man people called casually. He was a shadow in expensive suits, a name spoken carefully in certain restaurants and never spoken at all in others. My mother had left him when I was a child because she wanted me to have a life untouched by his world. After she died, I honored her by staying away. I became normal. Educated. Polished. Legal. Safe.

Safe.

The word almost made me choke.

I pressed call.

It rang once.

Twice.

On the third ring, a low voice answered.

“Yes.”

For a moment, I could not speak.

Then I whispered, “Dad.”

Silence.

I heard movement. A chair scraping. A breath caught too sharply.

“Mallory?”

My name broke in his voice.

“It’s me,” I said. “I need help.”

His tone changed instantly. Whatever emotion had been there vanished beneath steel.

“Where are you?”

“My house. Basement. Barrett…” I gasped, swallowing pain. “He broke my ribs. Locked me down here.”

The silence that followed was not empty.

It was the sound of a storm choosing direction.

“Send your location,” he said. “Now.”

“I’m cold,” I whispered.

“I know, baby,” he said, and for the first time since I was seven years old, my father sounded like my father. “Stay awake. Ten minutes.”

Before the line cut, I heard him shout away from the phone.

“Rocco. Car. Medical team. Now.”

He arrived in eight.

I know because I watched the timer on my phone through half-closed eyes, convinced I would pass out before anyone reached me. At seven minutes and forty-nine seconds, something thundered upstairs.

Not a knock.

Not a police siren.

A violent, controlled crash.

Voices erupted above me. Men shouting. Taryn screaming. Barrett yelling words that dissolved into panic.

Then the basement door burst open with a force that splintered the frame.

Light flooded the stairs.

A man built like a wall descended first, moving quickly but carefully. Shaved head. Broken nose. Black suit. Calm eyes full of fury.

“Miss Romano,” he said, kneeling beside me. “I’m Rocco. Your father sent me.”

I tried to answer. Only a wheeze came out.

His face tightened when he saw my side.

“Don’t move. We’re getting you out.”

Two other men came down with a backboard. They lifted me with a gentleness that made tears leak from my eyes. Not from pain this time, though there was plenty of that. From the shock of being handled like something precious after being treated like trash.

As they carried me upstairs, I saw the kitchen.

Barrett was on his knees near the island, held there by one of Rocco’s men. His shirt hung open. His face was white with terror. Taryn stood barefoot near the wall, still in my mother’s robe, mascara streaked down her cheeks.

When Barrett saw me, he struggled.

“Mallory, tell them this is a misunderstanding.”

I stared at him from the board.

The man who had kicked me. The man who had locked me in the dark. The man who thought a deadbolt could make me disappear.

“You wanted me to reflect,” I whispered. “I did.”

His eyes widened.

Rocco carried me out into the night.

A black armored sedan waited in the driveway, engine running. Beside it stood my father.

Dominic Romano looked older than the last photograph I had of him. His hair had gone silver at the temples. Deep lines bracketed his mouth. But his eyes were the same—dark, sharp, terrifying when turned toward an enemy.

They softened when they landed on me.

“Piccola,” he said.

Little one.

He reached out, then stopped himself, afraid to touch anything broken.

“Hospital,” he ordered.

“We have Dr. Evans waiting,” Rocco said.

As they slid me into the back seat, my father leaned close.

“Who did this?”

“My husband,” I said. “Barrett. With Taryn Vance.”

At Taryn’s name, something old and black moved through his expression.

“Vance,” he repeated softly.

I caught it despite the pain.

“You know them.”

His jaw tightened. “Later.”

“No,” I whispered. “Now.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then sat beside me as the car pulled away.

“Not now,” he said. “First you breathe.”

We did not go to a public hospital.

The private medical center looked like a luxury hotel from the outside and a fortress from below. The car entered through an underground garage. A team waited beside a gurney. A surgeon named Dr. Evans spoke to me gently while nurses cut away my blouse.

Three fractured ribs. Seven, eight, and nine. One clean break. No punctured lung. Bruising along my arm. Shoulder trauma. Mild concussion.

Lucky, they said.