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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

AURELIA

I wake to cold marble against my cheek, the polished stone like ice on my burning skin.

Every nerve ending screams for relief as I peel myself from the floor.

Tiny bursts of pain flare around my body where they burned me.

Someone has draped a blanket over me, though it doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t hide what they did.

My gaze catches on my exposed skin where dozens of perfect, quarter-sized circles of scorched flesh glare back at me. A sick echo of what Victoria’s mother did to mine so many years ago. Though I know this is worse.

My mother had a few marks done with cigarettes. My body is now branded for life, all around my hips and thighs with one particularly nasty, swollen welt on my breast.

Anyone who ever sees me naked again will know my shame.

I trace the edge of one burn with shaky fingers, the skin around it an angry red. And I feel… I might be close… to fully breaking.

How long did it take my mother before she broke?

Her beginning diary entries are so different than the middle ones.

She started out defiant, certain she would escape.

Then she fell into depression. And next, she developed a love for Lucian.

It was hard to read about how he’d abuse her and she’d find some twisted pleasure in it.

She wrote like she felt she deserved it, like he was actually treating her kindly.

Toward the end of her diaries, she was pregnant with me, so she found a new motivation to escape.

Am I simply following the same path?

With more nights like these, I might finally surrender, seeing Julian as my perfect master and I’ll do everything he wants with a smile on my face.

I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, glancing at the pile of tattered clothing several feet away. My tank top is in shreds, so are my leggings. At least they left my underwear somewhat intact.

No one else is here, except for one guard near the entrance to the elevator. He’s looking at me as if daring me to try to escape.

But for the first time, I don’t plan to. I’m in too much physical pain because it’s like my entire body is on fire. The stinging from every burn… god, it hurts. And I want to take a shower to wipe the Consortium filth from my body, but I worry it’ll only make the marks sting more.

My fingers move to my neck instinctively, searching for the comfort of Adrian’s necklace before remembering it’s not there .

It’s a little funny, I hid Adrian’s last gift inside something Julian gave me. Like these two brothers will forever be entangled in my fate. And heart.

Regardless, I need that necklace now. I need to return to it.

I won’t remove it from the diary, but I just need it close.

It’s a reminder that at least one Harrow might have actually cared for me, even if I was too blind to see it until it was too late.

It’s the only pure thing left in this nightmare; a tether to something better than this hollow existence.

With aching muscles and searing pain from every burn, I pull myself up.

Standing takes more effort than it should, my body protesting each movement.

I gather my shredded clothes, holding the pieces together to cover as much skin as possible.

Looking down at my handiwork—half-dressed in torn fabric like some twisted paper doll—a hysterical laugh bubbles up.

Look at me now—exactly the way Lady Harrow has always wanted me—fallen from grace.

I hobble toward Adrian’s room, each step like a negotiation to keep my body moving. The single guard watches me as I make this humiliating journey back to my prison cell.

Thankfully, I turn a corner and I’m out of his line of sight.

The hallway stretches endlessly before me, the distance to Adrian’s room seeming to expand with each painful step.

As I pass Lady Harrow’s room, I notice her door is cracked open slightly—unusual for a woman so obsessed with privacy.

Her voice drifts out, clipped and precise, in what sounds like a phone conversation .

I glance around, making sure no guards are nearby.

Seeing none, I slip into a recessed alcove in the hallway—a blind spot from the security cameras that Adrian once showed me years ago.

My heart twists at the memory. What possessed him to reveal that vulnerability in their security system?

Was it another subtle way he tried to protect me, giving me an escape route I was too blind to recognize at the time?

My focus turns to the conversation in Lady Harrow’s room. It’s on speaker phone and her voice fluctuates as she paces around inside.

“—he might be unraveling,” she says, her tone sharp with frustration. “You’re not helping him as you should.”

I strain to hear the response, the other voice too muffled until Lady Harrow paces closer to the door.

“—won’t listen,” the voice replies, and my stomach drops as I recognize it instantly.

Valentine.

My blood turns to ice. Is Lady Harrow trying to manipulate Valentine now? Has she sunk her poisonous claws into the only person I have left to trust?

Anger floods through me, temporarily numbing the physical pain as a new, deeper wound opens in my chest. I need to take care of her before she turns everyone against me. Hell, she might even go after Eleanora even though she’s not part of this world.

Maybe I should just burst in there and strangle her right now. This is actually a great opportunity, if only I had the strength.

“Keep talking to him,” Lady Harrow says. Her voice is clearer, like she’s closer to the door. “Keep guiding him. ”

“And what if I don’t?” Valentine snaps. “You certainly didn’t follow your end of the bargain.”

I hold my breath. What bargain?

“How is that? I haven’t killed her.”

“You said she wouldn’t be harmed .” Valentine’s voice turns hard, vibrating with barely contained fury. “What’s Julian doing to her? She’s terrified. Julian’s in power. That was our agreement. Aurelia was supposed to remain safe.”

I still can’t breathe as I listen.

I… I have to be imagining this in my injured state.

“Circumstances change,” Lady Harrow replies.

“That wasn’t the deal.” The edge in Valentine’s voice could cut glass. “I helped with everything and I didn’t ask questions. In return?—”

“Yes, yes. Thank you. Though I suppose I could’ve done it without you. Getting her to find her mother’s diary wasn’t hard. You act like you did so much. ” I can hear the eye roll in her voice. “The killings—I’ll give you credit for those.”

“Do you hear yourself? I’ve put everything on the line for you. All of it to help you get what you wanted. But I was clear about one thing: Aurelia stays safe. Yet, where is she now? You let Julian lock her away.”

My lungs collapse. Reality shifts sideways. This can’t be happening.

God, please don’t let this be happening.

“Your… attachment to her is clouding your judgment.”

“My attachment?” Valentine’s laugh is bitter.

“I raised her. After what your husband did to her mother, I promised myself I’d protect that child.

” A pause. “Let her go. Julian is firmly in control now. That’s what you wanted.

I swear, I’ll take Aurelia away and you’ll never see her again. But she goes free. ”

The silence stretches, tight and thin.

“Think carefully about your next move, Valentine.” Lady Harrow’s voice drops lower, almost purring. “Julian trusts me implicitly. One word from me, and he’ll believe you were involved in Adrian’s death.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

Valentine doesn’t reply, so Lady Harrow finally sighs. She starts to speak, but her footsteps move away from the door, her voice fading. Doesn’t matter; I’ve heard enough.

My body moves on autopilot, propelling me down the hallway despite the searing pain. My mind fragments into a thousand jagged pieces, each one reflecting the same horrific truth: Valentine betrayed me. Not recently. Not reluctantly. From the very beginning.

The one person I trusted—my father in every way that matters—orchestrated my entire revenge mission. Fed me to the wolves. Used me as a pawn in a twisted game of power orchestrated by that maniacal witch.

I barely make it back to Adrian’s room before the nausea hits.

The world spins violently, and I collapse on the bathroom floor, vomit spewing across the pristine tiles before I can reach the toilet.

The acid burns my throat, mimicking the cigar burns on my skin.

Physical pain merging with something deeper, more devastating .

It finally happens; I break. I’m utterly and completely shattered.

My entire life, Valentine has been my anchor.

The one person I could count on when the entire world turned its back on me.

He taught me how to shoot, how to fight, and how to survive.

He dried my tears when Julian broke my heart.

He comforted me when Adrian grew distant.

He sat with me to peel onions so I could let it all out when everything became too much to bear.

Yet all this time, he was using me. Molding me into a weapon for Lady Harrow’s schemes.

I crawl to the bed, my body a hollow vessel housing nothing but pain and betrayal.

The diary sits where I left it. I clutch it to my heart, holding Adrian’s necklace close, and I curl into myself as sobs shake my body.

This necklace is the last pure thing. The only reminder that someone might have genuinely cared for me, even if I realized it too late.

In this moment, my revenge plans crumble to dust. The names on my list dissolve into nothingness. What’s the point of vengeance when there’s nothing left to fight for?

My only wish, as darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, is to join Adrian in whatever comes after this life. To escape this endless cycle of betrayal and pain. To find peace in the same oblivion that claimed him.

Because without Valentine, without that last tether to trust and family, I’m truly alone. Adrift in a world of monsters wearing human faces, each one more cruel than the last.

I press my face into Adrian’s pillow, inhaling whatever trace of him still lingers, and surrender to a grief so profound it feels like drowning.

Maybe this is how my mother felt in those final moments. Maybe she, too, realized that in a world this corrupt, the only escape is to simply stop existing.

And in that terrible connection with a woman I never knew, I find my darkest truth: I am my mother’s daughter after all—broken by the same cruel hands, betrayed by the same cold hearts, lost in the same inescapable hell of the Inferno Consortium.

Adrian, please let me join you.