Chapter 3

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind me.

“Giselle? What are you doing sitting on the floor, sweetheart? You'll get sick.”

Before I could react, Connan crouched behind me.

His arms wrapped around my waist out of habit, and his chest rested gently against my back.

The same embrace I'd missed for ten years.

The same embrace that now made my skin crawl.

“There’s a Black Dragon anniversary banquet tonight,” Connan said casually. “Go get dressed. You're coming with me. Everyone's expecting to see the Donna by my side, and I don't want you hiding at home anymore.”

I frowned without thinking. “How am I supposed to go looking like this? Have you seen me lately? I don't even recognize the woman staring back at me anymore.”

I looked down at my hands.

The skin was rough. My face had lost its color years ago. The woman staring back at me in the mirror looked nothing like the happy Donna from before prison.

Ten years had taken everything from me.

Connan gently turned me to face him.

His dark eyes stayed on my face as if I was still the most precious woman in the world.

“Silly girl.” He smiled and brushed my messy hair behind my ear. “You're still beautiful to me. I don't care what prison did to you. In my eyes, you'll always be the only woman worthy of standing beside me as my Donna.”

His thumb slowly stroked my cheek.

He smiled so gently that, for a moment... I almost believed him again.

The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.

“Connan...” I looked into his eyes. “If you woke up... why didn't you clear my name sooner? Even one year earlier would've changed everything. Six months earlier. Anything. Why did you leave me there for so long?”

His smile faded just a little, then he sighed.

“But you're out now, aren't you?” he said calmly. “Everything is over, Giselle. What difference does it make if it happened a little sooner or a little later? You're home now, and that's all that matters.”

I stared at him. The what? Did he really just say that?

A little sooner. A little later.

To him, ten years were nothing. But to me… It was ten years of fists crashing into my body!

Ten years of being starved. Ten years of crying myself to sleep. Ten years of wishing I'd die before morning came.

Every single day felt endless. Every hour felt like torture. And he asked me… What difference did it make?

Something inside my chest cracked.

I wanted to ask him why. I wanted to scream. But before I could say another word, he was already losing interest.

“Don't think about it so much.” He reached into his suit pocket and took out a small velvet box. “I had this brought in from a private auction. The moment I saw it, I thought it would look perfect on your wrist. Go on. Let me put it on you. Consider it a little apology, and stop making yourself upset over the past. I just want to see you smile again.”

Then his phone suddenly rang.

He glanced at the screen, and a smile spread across his face so naturally that it didn't even look forced.

It was real.

He answered immediately as he walked toward the door. “Yeah, I got it for you. You'll love it when you see it. No, she doesn't know.”

My heart sank. He didn't even look back at me and before leaving the room, he tossed out one last sentence.

“Get ready. The driver will be here in an hour, and I don't want to be late.”

The door closed.

His voice faded down the hallway.

“I know, sweetheart... I miss you too.”

I stood alone in the middle of our bedroom.

The ruby bracelet rested quietly inside its velvet box on the bed.

My gaze lingered on it for a long time. It was supposed to be proof of his love. But all I could see was the price of ten stolen years.

Somehow...

The truth hurt far more than the prison ever did.

….

The Black Dragon anniversary banquet was nothing like the prison I'd spent the last ten years in.

Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead. Expensive champagne flowed like water. Powerful Mafia Dons, Capos, politicians, and business tycoons filled the grand ballroom, laughing as if the world belonged to them.

It probably did.

The moment Connan and I walked inside, the room fell strangely quiet.

Then the whispers started.

“That’s Donna Hawksley?”

“I heard she just got out of prison.”

“She looks so different.”

“I heard the inmates tortured her for years. They made her crawl on the floor, treated her like a dog, and did all kinds of sick things to her.”

I kept my chin up and stared straight ahead. I just kept walking.

Before I could take another step, someone suddenly crashed into me.

“Giselle!” A woman threw her arms around me so tightly I almost lost my balance. “Oh my God... it really is you! I missed you so much. I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you got out. I wanted to come, but I've been so busy these past few days. I've been counting the days until I could finally see you again.”

Kathleen.

My fraternal twin sister.

The girl who shared my childhood.

The one who visited me in prison whenever she could.

The one who sat across the glass every visit, smiling through her tears as she told me stories about the outside world.

When she got accepted into Harvard to study medicine, she cried as she apologized for leaving.

She promised she'd come back as soon as she graduated.

I told her not to worry.

I wanted at least one of us to have a future.

My eyes filled with tears as I hugged her back.

“I missed you too... Your visits were the only thing I looked forward to. Every story you told me reminded me there was still a world waiting outside those prison walls.”

Then I smelled her perfume.

My body froze.

No...

It couldn't be!

I breathed in again.

The sweet floral scent was exactly the same. The same perfume that lingered on the silk nightgown hanging in Connan's closet.

Slowly... I looked up.

Long blonde curls rested over Kathleen's shoulders, soft, shiny, and perfectly cared for.

My chest tightened so hard I could barely breathe.

The woman Connan called his little blonde. The woman who helped him fake his death. The woman who stole ten years of my life. The woman who'd been sleeping in my house...

Was my own twin sister.