Chapter 1The Brother Who Built My Hell

I spent three years living like a stray dog in a back-alley bordello, convinced my soul had slipped through a seam in the universe and landed in a feudal nightmare.

It had happened only days after the Aldridge family brought me back to their gated estate in Connecticut. One night I went to sleep in silk sheets; the next, I woke up on a damp straw mattress, an indentured plaything in a filthy, candlelit den of mud and blood. For three agonizing years, I learned to crawl. I learned to kneel at the polished boots of men who reeked of gin and cruelty, begging for scraps of breath, knowing that a single misstep meant a shattered bone or a leather crop peeling the skin from my spine.

The only thread keeping my mind tethered to sanity was the young lord.

He was a nobleman who visited the parlor—a man with the exact, aristocratic face of my older brother, Harrison Aldridge. In that living hell, he was the only soul who treated me like a human being. When the others tore me apart, he brought medicinal salves. He sat beside my pallet, slipping a warm, honeyed pastry from the inside pocket of his wool coat into my trembling fingers, listening patiently while I wept into his chest, choking out how desperately I wanted to go home.

I clung to him like a dying woman clings to an altar. I swore to myself that if I ever woke from this nightmare, if I ever returned to the modern world, I would throw my arms around Harrison’s neck and tell him how his likeness had kept me alive.

Until that final afternoon.

Garrett, the sadistic heir to a political dynasty in that wretched world, had beaten me within an inch of my life. When he grew tired of my weeping, he dragged me out by the hair and tossed me into the freezing courtyard like a discarded rag doll.

The cold seeped into my cracked ribs. Blood pooled beneath my cheek, turning the pristine white snow into a mottled, bruised purple. Through swollen eyelids, I caught sight of the young lord standing near the courtyard gate. My savior. My protector.

He was smiling.

He pulled a silver lighter from his coat, flicked a flame, and casually offered a cigarette to the men who had just broken my body. When he spoke, the archaic cadence was gone. In its place was the flat, familiar drawl of Harrison Aldridge:

"Her wild streak needed breaking anyway. Sienna’s bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life because of her." He took a long drag, the smoke drifting into the freezing air. "Three years in the gutter ought to settle the score for Sienna. Shut the system down. Sienna texted me—she said she’s bored of watching."

In the blink of an eye, the swirling blizzard dissolved.

The stone walls, the mud, the falling flakes—all of it flickered and died, replaced by the sterile, blinding neon of a private research laboratory.

I lay strapped to a central pod, staring at my brother’s immaculate silhouette across the control room. And right there, beneath the hum of cooling servers, my heart finally gave up.

My consciousness drifted upward, floating near the acoustic ceiling tiles.

In the simulation chamber below, the residual projection of the snowstorm slowly faded over my physical form. Garrett stepped forward in his designer sneakers, nudging my limp forehead with the toe of his leather boot.

"She passed out already? We barely got started today."

Damian dusted fake frost from his cashmere sleeves and turned toward Harrison, who sat by the monitoring deck sipping Earl Grey. "Gotta hand it to your little stray, Aldridge. She took a beating. Three years ago she crawled back to the quarters with three cracked ribs and still kept breathing." He let out a low chuckle. "Did you see her fingers clawing at the synthetic snow when Garrett threw her out? That desperate, pleading look—God, it was almost pathetic enough to make you feel bad."

Brooks, the enforcer they’d brought in to play the palace guard, twirled a braided leather whip between his fingers. The tip was still stained with my biological matter from the sensory-feedback rig. "I still remember the first time she tested positive in the reproductive cycle sim. She knelt in the gravel, kissing my shoes, begging me not to flush the fetus. One dose of abortifacient and she was rolling on the flagstones, screaming until her vocal cords shredded. Sounded like music."

They sat around the server consoles like frat boys dissecting a video game.

"Pity she caught that pelvic infection in Year Two," Garrett said, clicking his tongue. "The necrosis ruined her skin. Used to be so smooth."

Harrison set his porcelain teacup onto the glass desk, the chime of fine china sharp and final. Steam clouded his cold, handsome features. "Enough. The original plan was to sever the motor nerves in her legs so she’d know what it feels like. But Sienna didn't want her sister in a chair like her. Sienna forgave her, so the game is over."

Garrett frowned, taking a step back toward the pod. "Come on, Harrison. Give us a couple more days. We’re not done. By the third year, she was doing whatever we told her. Every session had a new trick."

Harrison stood up. He adjusted the lapels of his tailored overcoat, his jaw setting hard. "I said it’s over."

The authority in his voice silenced them instantly. They exchanged sullen, sheepish glances and stepped back.

"Turn off the neural feed," Harrison commanded the technician in the glass booth. "Sienna says she’s tired of watching the stream."

The last ambient projections evaporated, leaving behind four stark, soundproof walls. Harrison turned on his heel and walked out, his leather soles clicking against the linoleum.

Not one of them looked back at the monitor where my vitals had flatlined.