Chapter 1

In the fifth year after I was sent to Port Castilla, I finally heard that the Whitmore Group's captive employees had been rescued.

Through the iron door of the basement, I chose my words carefully as I asked the cleaning woman who'd come to deliver my food:

"If the Whitmore daughter had been tortured beyond recognition, would her parents and her fiancé still want her back?"

The woman thought I was joking.

"Of course not. Families like that care about appearances more than anything. A woman held by a criminal syndicate for five years, disfigured, crippled in one leg—even if she made it back alive, she'd be nothing but a scandal they'd rather never mention."

"And her fiancé—if the Cole heir actually married a woman like that, every financial outlet in the country would have the photos on the front page by morning."

I was silent for a moment. Then I took the pills I'd been hiding for two weeks, crushed them to powder, stirred them into the cold oatmeal, and swallowed it all, spoonful by spoonful.

I'd known since I was small that I wasn't the biological daughter of Richard and Catherine Whitmore.

But they had loved me for sixteen years.

And Adrian Cole, the boy I'd grown up alongside, my fiancé, had once sworn he would never abandon me for as long as he lived.

So when the Whitmores' long-lost biological daughter was found, and my father told me that company employees at Port Castilla had been taken hostage—that the captors had demanded the chairman's daughter come in person to negotiate—I boarded the plane to Europe of my own free will.

For five years, no matter what they did to me, I never dared run.

They told me that if I disobeyed, every last one of those hostages would be executed.

Now those people had finally been rescued, and I had no desire to make the Whitmore family a laughingstock on my account.

A familiar cramping pain twisted through my lower abdomen, but the woman was still talking:

"Though I do feel sorry for Miss Whitmore. Turns out there were never any hostages in the first place. The port workers' union just released old records—the whole hostage list was fabricated."

"Word is the biological daughter they'd just found was afraid her parents still favored the adopted one, afraid Mr. Cole wouldn't break off the engagement. So she paid off a local middleman to stage the whole thing."

"Now Mr. Cole's here with a joint task force, storming the place. The Whitmores flew in on their private jet too. They're all looking for her."

So the kidnapping was a lie.

Their reluctance to let me go—also a lie.

Only these five years of captivity were real.

But Dad. Mom. Adrian.

I won't be going home with you.

......

The drugs hit faster than I'd expected.

I curled up on the damp concrete floor, biting down hard on my sleeve, not making a sound.

The woman was still standing on the other side of the iron door, rattling on about the news from outside.

"The joint task force has secured the docks. That man—Adrian—he's out of his mind. Cleared six warehouses in three days."

"Soren's people made a run for it—the boss and a few of his accountants. The rest got pinned down at the freight yard."

"The Whitmores are here too. People like them, actually showing up in a place like this—looks like they really do care about you."

I dug my nails into my palms.

Care about me?

Perhaps they did.

Only five years too late.

The bitter taste of the pills surged back up my throat. I forced it down, my voice a rasp:

"What you just said... there were never any kidnapped employees?"

The woman pursed her lips.

"Of course not. Back then Soren was just smuggling luxury goods for clients. He wouldn't have had the nerve to go head-to-head with the Whitmore Group."

"It's no secret around the port. From what I hear, your family's real daughter couldn't stand that her parents still had you in the family trust. Swallowed pills, slit her wrists, threw fits demanding you leave the country."

"She had her eye on your fiancé too. But Mr. Cole wouldn't cancel the engagement, so she said that as long as you stayed in Boston, she'd throw herself off the roof of the Whitmore Building—let the whole world see how her own biological parents drove her to her death over an adopted girl."

"Rich people's lives—they're not all worth the same."

I stared blankly at the empty paper bowl.

So that was it.

Five years ago, my father had told me with red-rimmed eyes that thirty-two of the group's employees at Port Castilla had been taken hostage. Soren had demanded the chairman's daughter as a negotiating envoy, or the executions would begin before dawn.

My mother held me and wept through the night, saying they were powerless, that they couldn't protect me.

Adrian stood outside the Whitmore Building's boardroom and put his fist through an entire glass wall.

He wanted to bring his Cole Security team and go with me.

He said he'd sooner destroy the partnership between both families than let me be used as a bargaining chip.

In the end, it was I who pried his fingers loose.

I told him I'd enjoyed sixteen years of the Whitmores' wealth and protection. It was time I did something for those thirty-two lives.

I even smiled to comfort him:

"Adrian, once the hostages are safe, you come get me."

He gripped my hand so tight his knuckles went white, his eyes terrifyingly red.

He said:

"Elena. Wait for me."

So I waited. Five full years.

From sixteen to twenty-one.

Waited until Soren grew bored of leveraging me against the Whitmore family and handed me off to his brother.

Until that man lost a shipment and took all his rage out on me.

Until my right leg was broken, my vocal cords burned with corrosive chemicals, and the left side of my face was branded with the letters they used to mark "private cargo."

All along, I believed they hadn't come for me because the hostages still weren't safe.

Now I knew those people had never existed.

The woman outside the door finally noticed something was wrong.

She crouched down, peering through the dim observation slot, and the color drained from her face.

"What did you take?"

I opened my mouth, but my stomach seized first in a violent spasm.

The woman slammed her palm against the iron door.

"Mara!"

"Get over here! She took the pills!"

Footsteps faded into the distance.

I lay on my side on the freezing floor, and through the haze I drifted back to the day I left Boston.

It had been snowing heavily outside Logan Airport.

My mother chased me through the VIP corridor and pressed a Saint Christopher medal engraved with my name into my arms, crying so hard she could barely stand.

My father couldn't look at me. He just kept repeating:

"Elena. Three months at most."

"Daddy will bring you home."

And Adrian's car followed the escort convoy all the way to the edge of the tarmac.

When we finally parted, he unclasped the old mechanical watch from his wrist and fastened it around mine.

"If they lay a hand on you, find a way to activate the distress signal on the back."

"Tell them you're the only person I will ever marry."

Later, Soren smashed that watch right in front of me.

He stood on my hand and ground the cracked dial under his heel, inch by inch, laughing at how stupid I was.

"If they really cared about you, why would they send you to my doorstep?"

Back then, I didn't believe him.

Now, at last, I did.

Before consciousness slipped away, I thought:

Thank God they'll never see me alive.

The Elena in their memory would forever be the girl in the red riding jacket, the one who took first place at the show-jumping championship.

Not the scarred, broken prisoner who could barely stand.