Chapter 1Crown of Thorns

Everyone in this city knows the two families that run the underbelly, the Hawthornes and the Sterlings, are bound by generations of arranged marriages.

As the sole heiress of the Sterling family, I was engaged to Caleb Hawthorne before I could even form a complete sentence.

An engagement that became a city-wide joke the moment photos of Caleb in bed with a college girl went viral.

The story they spun was that the girl, drunk and heartbroken in some downtown dive bar, had mistaken Caleb for a male escort and bought him for the night with a wad of cash.

Everyone expected her to be found in the river.

But Caleb just laughed.

"The way she cried," he'd told the papers, a smirk playing on his lips, "it was interesting."

From that moment on, he was addicted to her. He paraded her around the city, a whirlwind of public trysts and whispered scandals.

It all came to a head three months later, when the college girl showed up on my doorstep with a swelling belly.

When I confronted Caleb, his voice was calm, dismissive.

“Chloe is innocent, Ava. All she wants is my love, nothing more.”

“Don’t worry,” he’d added, as if it were a comfort. “You can play games, but the position of Mrs. Hawthorne will always be yours.”

I had to laugh.

Caleb, you have it all wrong.

It was never me who needed you to become the lady of the Hawthorne estate.

It was always you who needed me to become the master of it.

* * *

Caleb found me in the study, where I was finalizing the guest list for the Memorial Gala. He placed a cup of steaming tea beside my hand.

“Ava,” he began, his voice soft. “Add Chloe’s name to the list for next week’s gala.”

The tip of my fountain pen dug into the polished mahogany of the desk, leaving a deep, black wound.

The gala to honor the memory of my parents. And he wanted me to invite his mistress?

I lifted my head, my eyes locking with his. “Caleb, do you really think I’m that much of a pushover?”

“Of course not.” He looked at me, his dark eyes holding the same deep affection they always had. It was a look I used to treasure. Now, it just felt like a well-practiced lie. “Chloe is carrying a Hawthorne child, after all. We can’t keep her hidden away forever. The gala is the perfect opportunity for her to be introduced to the family.”

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Ava, you’ve always been the reasonable one.”

Reasonable. The word he used when he meant compliant.

I picked up the teacup, its warmth a stark contrast to the ice in my veins, and poured the entire contents onto the Persian rug at his feet.

“This is me being reasonable,” I said. “Are you satisfied?”

He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he reached for my hand. “Did you burn yourself?”

His warm fingers traced my skin, and a wave of nausea rolled through me. I snatched my hand away.

“Stop this charade, Caleb. Cut the act!”

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, a patronizingly fond smile on his face. “Ava, getting angry isn’t good for you.”

That look—the one you give a misbehaving child—made the fire in my chest roar to life. I grabbed the silver letter opener from the desk and brandished it at him, my voice a low growl.

“I am not joking. And I said no.”

The tenderness in Caleb’s expression finally evaporated. He stepped forward, reaching for the blade. “That’s dangerous. Give it to me.”

“Get away from me!”

In the struggle, the sharp edge of the opener sliced across my palm. A clean, deep line of red split the skin. We both froze. Blood welled up, dripping one by one onto the pristine invitation cards, staining his name and mine a brilliant crimson.

Just then, his phone buzzed on the desk—a special ringtone I’d never heard before. Chloe’s ringtone.

Caleb’s eyes darted from my bleeding hand to the glowing screen of his phone.

He answered it.

“Hey, Chloe.” His voice was a gentle murmur. “Don’t cry. I’m just taking care of a few things. I’ll be back with you soon.”

I stood there, watching the blood flow freely from my palm, listening to him soothe another woman with a tenderness that cut deeper than any blade. Every word was a fresh twist of the knife.

He waited a long time, so long the blood on my skin began to grow tacky. Finally, he hung up. Ignoring my wound, he let out a heavy sigh.

“Ava, Chloe said she doesn’t want to make things difficult for you. She won’t come.”

He paused, letting the silence hang in the air.

“But,” he continued, “if you attend as the sole hostess, she’ll feel like an outsider. It will upset her.”

I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “So?”

He looked at me then, his gaze steady, and delivered the final blow, one word at a time.

“So, the Memorial Gala is canceled.”

He said it so simply. “That way, no one has to go.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Canceled? The Memorial Gala?

It wasn't just a party. It was the anniversary of my parents' deaths. It was the Hawthorne family's most sacred, blood-bound promise.

Ten years ago, on September 9th, a brutal turf war had erupted, threatening to wipe the Hawthornes off the map. My father, seeing his oldest allies on the brink of collapse, sent every soldier, every asset, every gun the Sterling family possessed. He saved the Hawthornes, but in doing so, he signed our own death warrant.

By sunrise, the great Sterling family was annihilated. The only one left was me, an eight-year-old girl in a blood-soaked dress.

I remember Caleb’s grandfather, the Old Man, holding me, his body shaking with sobs. He led the entire Hawthorne clan to my parents’ graveside and knelt. He swore an oath before their tombstones to cherish me as his own granddaughter.

He made a blood pact.

The day I came of age, I would marry the Hawthorne heir. The family would never, ever forget the debt they owed.

And now, this gala—a tradition bought with the lives of my family, this engagement forged from destiny and death—was being erased. All because Chloe didn’t like it.

Caleb ignored the blood draining from my face. He reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, placing a soft, familiar kiss there.

“Ava, don’t worry,” he murmured, his voice laced with the same hollow reassurance. “She just wants the baby. It won’t affect your position as Mrs. Hawthorne. At all.”

“Next month, when I officially take over as Head of the House, I promise, I will marry you.”