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She was about to open her mouth, but a look from her father

silenced her. The expression in his eyes was so dark it went

beyond fury to something cold and horrible that stabbed

Cassia in the gut when she saw it. “You remember your

mother, no?”

“I…yes, of course.” She’d died in a car accident when

Cassia was seven years old. She didn’t remember most of the

details, but she did remember her mom’s smile. The white

blonde of her hair, her flashing blue eyes, the yellow dress

with tiny white flowers that she adored.

Antonio’s lips twisted up in a snarl and his eyes were so

dead and hard that Cassia shivered. She’d never seen her

father’s eyes look that way. Inhuman. “You always thought her

death was an accident, but it’s time you learned the truth. She

was trying to leave me—leave you girls—for another man, a

younger man. An artist of all things. I made sure she never got

the chance to humiliate me. It was a wreck, but it was no

accident.”

Cassia couldn’t move. She could only suck at the air in the

room, trying to inflate lungs that were filled up with sulphur

and fire. She couldn’t blink even though her lashes fluttered

wildly, and her eyes burned. Her belly heaved and bile

splashed up into her throat. Her throat worked convulsively to

push back the sickness with a swallow so thick it was loud in

the room around her, echoing her horror back to her own ears.

“Wh-what are you going to do to me if I don’t obey you?

Kill me?” She couldn’t believe what she’d just said. That she

was able to speak at all.

Was this man leering at her with undisguised delight in his

black eyes really her father? She’d always known what kind of