I shake my head, not knowing even where to begin explaining. “I can’t…humiliate myself again,” I tell him in a low, strangled voice.
He crosses to me and takes me by the shoulders. “We don’t have time for pride,” he tells me urgently. “Robin—none of us will think any less of you if you make a fool of yourself on TV, I swear. Not if we really can get that money.”
If only it was as simple as making a fool of myself on TV. And I know better than he understands that pride is something I can’t afford, not when my little sister is lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. Not when the alternative might be watching her fade away because I was too stubborn to accept help from the devil herself.
But it’s not just about pride, is it? It’s about what Eva did to me. How she made me feel things I’d never felt before, made me hope for impossible things, and then cast me aside the moment her grief demanded a sacrifice. It’s about the way she looked at me when she told me to leave—like I was nothing. Less than nothing.
A mistake she was correcting.
I exhale shakily, my hand trembling as I smooth Maisie’s blanket with careful, deliberate movements.
“Okay, Robin,” Adrian says, his voice gentle but insistent. “If you can’t do it, I will. I’ll ask her to consider casting me, instead.”
I let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “Oh, buddy. You—you can’t. You don’t understand.”
“Thenhelpme understand,” he pleads. “Because from where I’m standing, she looks like she could save Maisie, save all of us, and you’re turning her down for no good reason.”
God help me, I know how it looks.
Eva has the resources to give Maisie everything she needs. Like she said, she could make one phone call and have Maisie in life-saving surgery tonight.
All I have to do is say yes.
All I have to do is go back to that castle, back to those dark halls and silk sheets and the woman who made me feel alive and terrified at the same time.
All I have to do is sell myself again.
“She…hurt me,” I whisper, the words barely audible in the quiet room.
Adrian watches my face carefully. He seems to understand there’s more to the story than he’s heard, but all he can think about is the money. “Maybe…maybe this time will be different?”
Different? Eva Novak doesn’t change. She doesn’t soften or apologize or learn from her mistakes. She takes what she wants and destroys what threatens her, and I was foolish enough to think I might be the exception.
But as I look down at Maisie’s face, at the IV in her arm and the monitors tracking her vital signs, I see the truth.
It doesn’t matter what Eva does to me. It doesn’t matter how she breaks me or uses me or casts me aside when she’s finished. All that matters is giving Maisie a chance to live.
I can already see the trap Eva has set, can feel its jaws closing around me with mechanical precision. Maybe she planned from the start to toy with me like this. Maybe she didn’t.
Either way, I’m going back.
For Maisie, I’d walk into hell itself, which is exactly what I’ll be doing by letting myself get dragged back into Eva’s world.
But before I do, I need Adrian to understand the full story. Because being in Eva’s orbit is dangerous, and there’s every chance I won’t be coming back this time.
I take a long breath and look my brother in the eye. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Chapter 3
Eva
The Vegas Strip is as gaudy as it ever is, the red, yellow, blue flickers distracting from the empty promises of a city built on greed.
And yet here I am, back in this monument to human weakness.
I should be thinking about the meeting ahead. About Brie Colombo and her cronies. About the Gattos and their destruction.
Instead, Robin Rivers’ voice echoes in my mind like a song I can’t silence.
