The first time Star understood what love was supposed to be, she was five years old—and she learned it by watching it die.
Her parents' marriage didn't crumble overnight. It decayed slowly, like rot spreading through the foundation of a house while the walls still stood. She watched her father's hands, the same hands that once held her mother's face with tenderness, curl into fists. She watched kindness curdle into contempt. She watched a man reduce a woman to something less than human, kick by kick, insult by insult, until Louise Set became a ghost in her own home.
And Star endured it. What else could a child do?
She stood in doorways, small and trembling, her tiny fingers gripping the frame as her father's voice thundered through the halls. She learned to recognize the sounds—the sharp crack of a palm against skin, the thud of a body hitting the floor, the silence that followed, heavy and suffocating. She learned to be small. To be quiet. To disappear.
But sometimes, she couldn't help herself.
"Why does Dada beat you all the time?"
Young Star knelt beside her mother on the bathroom floor, the tiles cold beneath her knees. Louise sat with her back against the tub, a bag of frozen peas pressed to her swollen eye, her lip split and bleeding.
Louise's hands trembled as she held the makeshift compress. She forced a smile—that broken, beautiful smile that Star would come to recognize as her mother's armor.
"Dada is just angry," Louise whispered, tears carving silver tracks down her cheeks. "Mommy will be fine."
Star believed her. Because what else could she do? She was five, and her mother was the only truth she knew.
But the beating continued. The yelling. The fights. The endless, grinding war fought in the spaces between dinner and bedtime. Sometimes Star would wedge herself between them, her small arms outstretched, screaming for them to stop. Her father would shove her aside—harder each time—and return to his work, his knuckles finding new bruises on her mother's skin.
She learned that love didn't protect you. It made you a target.
Now, fifteen years later, Star stood in the center of a restaurant surrounded by shattered glass and the metallic scent of blood. She was twenty years old, a university student with calloused hands and a spine forged in fire. And she was done.
Done with the violence. Done with the men who thought their anger entitled them to women's bodies. Done with this old-school rot that had poisoned her entire childhood.
Her blood ran cold.
Fury darkened her eyes to something ancient and unforgiving. Tomas lay pinned beneath Lucian's grip, his arm twisted at an angle that defied anatomy, his red-rimmed eyes pleading. He looked at Star—really looked—and something in his expression shifted from desperation to dread.
He saw it. The absence of mercy. The stillness of a woman who had watched her mother bleed for fifteen years and had finally stopped caring about the consequences.
Star closed her eyes.
Lucian received the signal.
SNAP.
The sound echoed through the dining room like a gunshot. Tomas's scream followed—raw, animalistic, the sound of a man who had never known real pain until this moment. His forearm bent where no joint should exist, bone tearing through skin, blood spraying across the white tablecloth.
Diners froze. Forks hovered mid-air. Breath caught in thirty different throats as they watched Tomas crumple to the floor, his body convulsing, his screams dissolving into wet, choking sobs.
Lucian straightened, unhurried. He pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit jacket—crisp, black, immaculate—and bent to wipe a single droplet of blood from his shoe. The gesture was almost meditative. A man cleaning up after a job well done.
He followed Star outside without looking back.
The night air hit her like a slap.
Star gasped, her lungs burning, her hands shaking so violently she couldn't hold them still. She paced the sidewalk in frantic, jagged lines—forward, backward, forward, backward—her heels clicking against the concrete like a metronome counting down to something she couldn't name.
"I broke his arm," she said, her voice climbing. "Oh my God, you broke his arm."
Lucian leaned against the brick wall, watching her with the calm of a man who had just ordered coffee. "He was going to beat you."
"He is going to beat her!" Star whirled on him, her hands flying to her hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands. "That doesn't make him any less of a douche! My mother is the one who's going to suffer for this—again!" She pulled at her hair, her chest heaving. "I should have stopped you. I should have walked out earlier. I should have—"
The words fractured. Her voice cracked, and suddenly she was crying—great, heaving sobs that tore out of her throat like she'd been holding them for fifteen years.
Lucian moved.
His arms wrapped around her before she could pull away, pulling her against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other pressed flat against her spine. He didn't shush her. Didn't tell her it would be okay. He just held her, his warmth seeping through the thin fabric of her dress, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear.
"It's okay," he murmured finally, his lips brushing her hair.
But they both knew it wasn't.
Lucian had known Star since he was seven years old, when their mothers worked side by side as cleaners at Summit Heights Medical Center. He had watched her shrink and grow, had seen the bruises she tried to hide, had heard the fights through paper-thin walls. He knew her pain because he had mapped it, memorized it, catalogued every wound her father had ever inflicted.
And if it were up to him, Tomas would already be six feet under.
Star pulled back slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Her mascara had smudged; she probably looked like a raccoon in a cocktail dress. Lucian didn't mention it.
He escorted her to his car—a black Mercedes that gleamed under the streetlights—and opened the passenger door. In the distance, the wail of an ambulance grew louder, slicing through the night.
"I have to take care of the bill," Lucian said, his voice low. "I'll be right back."
Star nodded, her throat too tight for words. She slid into the leather seat, and Lucian closed the door with a soft click.
He walked back into the restaurant like a predator returning to its kill.
The atmosphere inside had curdled. Diners sat frozen in their seats, some clutching their partners' hands, others staring at the door with wide, fearful eyes.
The paramedics worked on Tomas, their movements efficient, their faces carefully neutral. And in the center of it all, the police had arrived.
Two officers stood near the entrance, their body language already shifting as Lucian entered. One of them—a veteran with a salt-and-pepper mustache—straightened instinctively.
"Why don't I repeat my question again?" the officer said, his voice carrying through the silent room. "Who here is vouching for Mr. Tomas? Did this man really twist his arm until it broke?"
Frieda stood beside the officers, her face contorted with rage, her mascara running in angry streaks. "Why do you need more than me vouching, Officer?" Her voice rose, shrill and desperate. "Are you playing favoritism? Who is he? Why isn't anyone speaking up?"
She scanned the room, her eyes wild, but the diners refused to meet her gaze. They stared at their plates, their wine glasses, anything but the woman screaming for justice she would never get.
The officer's eyes landed on the door. His expression shifted—from professional authority to something more complicated. Recognition. Wariness. Respect.
"Oh. Mr. Throne."
Lucian stood in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, his hands in his pockets. He looked like a man who had all the time in the world.
"I twisted this man's arm," Lucian said, his voice smooth as oil, "because I was protecting him from assaulting a woman."
"Yes, there!" Frieda's voice cracked with triumph. "He confessed! Arrest him!"
The officer hesitated. "Mr. Throne?"
Lucian pushed off from the doorframe and walked toward the officer, his steps unhurried, his eyes fixed on Frieda with a look that made her take an involuntary step back.
"I'd like to make a statement. I think I got carried away."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
The officer glanced between Lucian and Tomas, who lay on the floor, his arm now splinted, his face the color of old cheese. The paramedics worked quickly, but even they moved with a certain caution—aware, perhaps, that the man standing before them had a reputation that extended far beyond this restaurant.
Lucian Throne. Twenty-two years old. Already a name whispered in Crestfall with a mixture of fear and respect. The cases against him never went anywhere. The witnesses never talked. The charges always disappeared.
And if this man—this Tomas—had truly tried to assault a woman?
The officer felt a flicker of pity for the groaning figure on the floor. Tomas wasn't just in legal trouble. He was in something far more dangerous.
Across the room, the restaurant manager pulled Frieda aside, her hand gentle but firm on the woman's arm.
"Ma'am." The manager's voice was barely a whisper. "Can I talk to you?"
Frieda followed her to a corner near the kitchen, her heels clicking furiously against the floor. Her entire body vibrated with rage.
"If you truly love this man," the manager said, her eyes steady, "you'll let this go."
Frieda stared at her. "A young boy broke my boyfriend's arm, and you're telling me to let it go?" Her voice pitched higher, incredulous. "Are all of you hypnotized? What is wrong with this city?"
The manager crossed her arms, her expression softening into something that might have been pity. "You don't know who that man is, do you?"
"I don't care who it—"
"He's Lucian Throne." The manager cut her off, her voice sharp. "I'm sure you've heard of him."
Frieda's mouth fell open. She turned, pointing toward Lucian, who was now speaking with the officer, his posture relaxed, his hands still in his pockets. "That's Lucian?"
"Yes." The manager leaned closer. "Do you know how many cases he has? Do you know how many times the police have tried to hold him? It never works. He's got police, lawyers, and very powerful people by the—" she paused, her voice dropping to a whisper, "—by the balls. And if you continue this arrogance, I don't think you and your boyfriend will wake up to see the sun tomorrow."
Frieda's face drained of color. Her hands, clenched so tightly her knuckles had turned white, began to tremble.
***
Across town, the Stark residence loomed against the night sky like a monument to wealth that couldn't buy happiness.
The mansion was grand—all marble floors and crystal chandeliers, with servants for every conceivable need and furniture that cost more than most people's homes. But tonight, the grandeur did nothing to mask the tension that crackled through the halls like static before a storm.
Bonita stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, her arms crossed, her jaw set. She watched Adrian descend in a sleek black suit, his tie undone, his expression carved from stone.
"You're really going to let that bitch walk free?" Bonita's voice cut through the silence, sharp and accusing. "You know I have just as much power to terminate her as you do, right?"
Adrian's jaw tightened. He continued down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous foyer.
"We've talked about this, Bonita." His voice was low, controlled, the voice of a man who had learned to leash his rage because unleashing it would destroy everything. "And if you do anything—anything—I will make sure you never drive my Lamborghini again."
Bonita's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
Adrian paused at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the banister. "When Mom comes back, tell her to check my office. I left the designs there."
He didn't wait for a response. He walked out the door, letting it slam behind him.
The Bugatti Veyron purred to life in the driveway, its engine a low growl that promised speed and danger. Adrian pulled out his phone as he drove, his thumb finding the contact he needed.
"Laz. Did Tiffany reach out to you?"
"Yes, Boss. I gave her the dress and the bag."
Adrian merged onto the main road, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. "Yeah. And Laz—I need you to send some shadow bodyguards. I think I'm being followed."
There was a pause on the line. "You mean... right now, Sir?"
"No, not right now." Adrian's grip tightened on the steering wheel. "But when I was on campus earlier, someone was watching me. And don't tell me it's the girls—I know when I'm being watched."
"I'll take care of it, Boss. Enjoy your date."
The call ended. Adrian pressed the accelerator, and the Bugatti shot forward into the flow of traffic, its taillights disappearing into the city's neon glow.
***
At Crestfall General Hospital, fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in shades of sterile white and institutional green. Frieda sat in the waiting room, her hands folded in her lap, her nails digging crescents into her palms.
The doctor emerged from the treatment area, a clipboard in his hands. He looked tired—the kind of tired that came from long shifts and bad news delivered on repeat.
"How is he, Doctor?" Frieda stood, her voice strained.
The doctor sighed. "He's going to live." He flipped through the papers on his clipboard. "His arm is casted now. He'll need to come back for dressings and check-ups. It's going to be a long time before he can use his hand again." He paused, glancing at the report. "That table that hit him—it must have been metal. His bone didn't just break. It shattered."
Frieda's hands curled into fists. Her knuckles turned white, the blood draining from them as rage pulsed through her veins.
"But for now," the doctor continued, oblivious, "we'll monitor him. You're his wife, correct?"
Something flickered in Frieda's eyes—a flash of calculation, of ambition, of a plan taking shape in the dark corners of her mind.
"Yes," she said. The word came out smooth, practiced, a lie wrapped in certainty.
The doctor nodded. "Good. Come sign some papers."
Frieda followed him down the corridor, her heels clicking against the linoleum, her shadow stretching long and distorted against the wall.
An hour later, Frieda stood behind the hospital building, far from the entrance, far from the security cameras, far from anyone who might see her. The area was secluded, dark, the kind of place where screams went unnoticed and secrets found fertile ground.
But darkness was Frieda's second nature. She had been born in it, molded by it, had learned to see clearly when others were blind.
Her phone was pressed to her ear, the screen glowing faintly against her face. A smile curved her lips—slow, deliberate, dangerous.
"Hey," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It's me."
The smile widened. In the darkness, her teeth gleamed white, and her eyes reflected no light at all.
"Let's talk about how we're going to destroy them."