Chapter 3

Clarissa's POV:

"I'm waiting for your answer." Derek's voice dropped low, icy to the bone, laced with naked threat.

I looked at his furious face, then turned to Alondra—fake tears on her cheeks, but triumph glittering in the depths of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said to her, enunciating every word. "I hope a gallery picks up that painting of yours soon."

Derek froze.

He had expected me to fight back. He had expected screaming, cursing, a desperate defense of my dignity as an artist.

Nine years ago, his wealthy mother forced a humiliating prenuptial agreement on me, trying to ensure I'd leave the marriage with nothing. I hadn't yielded an inch. His family threw us out and cut off Derek's trust fund, and we survived an entire winter in a freezing basement.

I worked three jobs, my hands cracked and bleeding from the cold, to put Derek through his finance degree. Not once did I bow my head under his family's contempt.

I could afford my pride back then, because I believed he loved me.

And now my apology weighed nothing at all, because to me, he had become nothing at all.

I picked up the canvas bag with my documents, threw on whatever shoes came to hand, walked straight past Derek, and stepped into the elevator. He stood rooted in the middle of the hallway with a strangely hollow look on his face, watching the stainless-steel doors close between us.

That night, I roughed it in a twenty-dollar-a-night motel near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The next morning, I went to look at an empty little storefront on Grand Street. The landlord was a frail elderly Polish man named Kowalski.

"It's not big," Mr. Kowalski said, showing me the bare concrete space with its large picture window. "Twelve hundred a month. Two months' deposit, first month up front."

"I'll take it," I said. "I can pay the deposit right now."

I handed him my debit card. He ran it through his portable card reader.

The machine let out a harsh error beep.

Transaction declined: account frozen.

I pulled out my phone and opened the banking app. Every account I had—business, savings, personal checking—showed a balance of zero, topped by a glaring red banner: Frozen at the primary account holder's request.

A text message from Derek popped up on the screen:

"When you're done throwing your tantrum, come home like a good girl and take care of Alondra, and I'll unfreeze the cards. Clarissa, you have nowhere to go."

I stared at the screen for three seconds, then blocked his number and deleted the entire thread.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kowalski," I said quietly. "I'll come back another time."

Fourteen dollars in cash. That was what my pockets held.

I walked twelve blocks against the wind until I reached McNeil's Tavern—a cheap neighborhood bar with a neon beer sign out front and dark wooden booths inside.

When the door creaked open, the owner, Finlay McNeil, was wiping down the mahogany bar. Finlay had grown up with me in the same foster home in Queens. He was thick-bearded and broad-shouldered, with tired blue eyes that were gentle all the same.

"Clarissa?" Finlay dropped his rag at once. He took in my thin camisole and the bruising around my wrist. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Derek froze all my accounts," I said shortly. "Can I work the bar tonight?"

Finlay asked nothing more. He immediately shrugged off his heavy flannel shirt and wrapped it around my shivering shoulders, led me into the back room, found me a pair of thick wool socks and clean sneakers, and set a steaming bowl of beef stew in front of me.

"Stay as long as you need," Finlay said firmly. "I'll set up the folding bed in the office upstairs."

For the next three days I worked the tavern—pulling draft beer, washing mugs, bussing tables until two in the morning. My hands ached from being soaked in water, but inside me there was, at last, an unfamiliar peace.

On Thursday afternoon, with barely a customer in the bar, three black Cadillac Escalades pulled up outside.

Six men in dark suits filed through the wooden door, and behind them came Derek, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat and leather driving gloves.

The few patrons at the bar grabbed their jackets and slipped out the side door.

"Pack up your things, Clarissa," Derek said, strolling to the bar. "You're coming home."

"I'm working," I replied coldly, wiping down the beer taps.

"You think I'll let my wife slave away in this filthy dive?" Derek snapped. "Alondra's morning sickness is terrible. She wants your mushroom soup. You're going back to cook for her."

I stared at him in disbelief. He actually expected his lawful wife to go back and play personal nanny to his pregnant mistress!

"I'm not going," I said.

Derek's face went thunderous, his jaw clenching hard. He flicked a glance at the men behind him.

"Smash it," Derek ordered, his voice eerily calm.

"Hey! Get out of my bar, all of you!" Finlay bellowed, yanking a wooden baseball bat from under the bar and planting himself in front of me.

Two of Derek's hired thugs lunged. One wrenched the bat from Finlay's hands and brutally twisted his arm behind his back; the other swung a thick glass liquor bottle into the side of Finlay's head.

Glass exploded everywhere. Finlay crashed onto the wooden floorboards, blood pouring down the side of his face.

"Finlay!" I screamed, flinging down my towel and trying desperately to climb over the bar.

Derek locked an arm around my waist and hauled me back with effortless strength.

The rest of the goons began demolishing the liquor shelves. Hundreds of bottles of fine whiskey and vodka crashed to the floor, and the sharp reek of spirits flooded the room. They kicked the legs off the wooden bar stools and stomped on Finlay's ribs again and again. He moaned in agony, coughing up blood.

"Stop it!" I clutched at Derek's collar, sobbing, begging. "Derek, call them off! Please!"

Derek looked down at me from above, a dark, satisfied smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He raised a hand and stroked my hair with mocking gentleness.

"And will you come home and take care of Alondra now?" Derek asked softly.

I looked at Finlay, lying in a pool of his own blood.

"I'll go," I choked out. "I'll go! Tell them to stop! Please!"

Derek raised a hand, and the thugs stopped at once.

"See?" Derek's leather shoe ground over broken glass and Finlay's blood with a grinding crunch. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and murmured, "You always make the sensible choice in the end."

He tossed a curt word to his men about covering the damages, then dragged me out to the waiting car.

The Escalade tore through Manhattan traffic. I turned to look at the East River through the window. Seven years ago, on those very banks, Derek had taken my hand and sworn that no one would ever hurt me as long as he lived.

And now the man holding my leash was him.

Back at the penthouse, Derek shoved me into the kitchen.

"Make something simple," he instructed. "And remember—no onions, under any circumstances. Alondra can't stand the smell."

I spent three full hours in that kitchen. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, but I peeled and washed and simmered and set out a full spread.

When I carried the tray into the living room, Alondra was sitting upright at the glass dining table.

In her hands was a thick portfolio of paintings.

It was my master sketchbook—holding the final oil studies for upcoming New York International Art Biennale. I had spent eight months, day and night, creating the monumental painting of a phoenix wreathed in wild roses, rising through fire.

Alondra looked up at me, a heavy pair of kitchen shears in her hand, smiling like an angel.