The day he cut off my father’s hand was my birthday. Sebastian Croft did it right in front of me. When my father’s men retaliated, taking his leg, Sebastian just looked up, his smile stained crimson in the moonlight. “Kill me,” he dared them, his voice a rasp. “Because if you leave me breathing, the next time he lays a hand on her, I’ll take his other goddamn leg myself. Try me.” From that day on, my stepfather never touched me again. Sebastian said gardenias shouldn’t be stained with blood. He took the knife from my hand and, with one clean stroke, severed my father’s illegitimate sons from their inheritance. Everyone says Sebastian Croft is drenched in blood. But he never let a single drop touch his wife. Only I knew the truth. Only I had seen the thousand-plus pages of his private journals, where one name was written over and over, an obsessive prayer. The name of a woman as pure and flawless as a gardenia. The day I threw my wedding ring at his feet, he looked as if he’d been woken from a long dream. He lit the journals on fire, his laughter laced with a sorrow so deep it was terrifying. “Don’t worry,” he said, the pages curling into black ash. “She and I… that ship sailed a long time ago.” I slid the divorce papers across the table. “It can sail back.” He laughed and tore them to shreds. “For you and me, Audrina? It’s one bed for life, one coffin for eternity.” 1 The divorce papers burned, too. So that was it. For me and Sebastian Croft, it was one bed for life, one coffin for eternity. Even in death, our caskets would be pried open just enough to face each other, the first and last thing we’d ever see. The only thing we’d ever see. It was the vow we’d made at our wedding. He walked away, grinding the ashes of my petition under his heel without a backward glance. The next time I saw him was on the evening news. It was a night dark as ink, pouring rain, and against the gloom, a girl on a flight of steps was the only spot of white in the entire world. White dress, pale skin. A natural blush dusting the corners of her eyes. The moment the camera flash went off, Sebastian yanked her into his arms, pulling her under the umbrella so forcefully that only his own jawline was visible. That, and the girl’s bare legs as he swept her up onto his hip. He never allowed his face to be photographed by the press. And he sure as hell wasn't going to let them get a picture of his girl. Because he knew I’d be looking. Even from that fleeting glimpse, I got the screenshot. I sent it to my people. But there was nothing. Not a single face in any global database matched the girl. The best they could find was a potential student ID photo from an Ivy League university, but her face was obscured by a thick black redaction bar. Sebastian was protecting her. When I went back to find a replay of the news segment, it was gone. Scrubbed from the internet. All I had left was that one screenshot. The image of a girl with fear shimmering in her eyes, staring at the camera like a fawn caught in headlights as she burrowed into Sebastian’s chest. The veins on the back of Sebastian’s hand were bulging. I’d only ever seen him hold a woman that tightly twice. The first time was after our rivals murdered my mother and my uncles, dumping their bodies in the river. I was the one who dragged them out, one by one, from the bloody water. As the sun set, turning the sky to gore, the boy standing on the bank had held me just like that. He’d pressed his body against mine again and again, trying to warm my frozen limbs, his tears streaming as he begged me not to close my eyes. The second time was now, in front of a camera, terrified that the girl in his arms would be exposed. That she would fall into my hands. When he finally came home, I slid the photo across the marble tabletop. It stopped right in front of him. I sat opposite, staring out the window, and blew a slow, deliberate ring of smoke. “It’s never going to happen between her and me,” he said, his voice flat. He palmed the photograph, hiding it from view. I asked only one question. “The journal. A thousand pages. Who was she, and when?” “You don’t want to know.” His tone was devoid of any emotion. Moonlight spilled across the marble, but it couldn’t illuminate the expressions on our faces. The only sounds were the soft rustle of new divorce papers being pushed toward him, followed by the sharp, metallic click of a round being chambered. I lit another cigarette, the brief flare of the lighter catching my face. “Sign it.” A gust of wind billowed the curtains, scattering the papers. In the next instant, he was on me, his hand tearing at the silk of my dress. The fabric ripped away, revealing the gleam of moonlight on my polished steel prosthesis. “Audrina.” He plucked the cigarette from my lips. The silver of our two artificial limbs reflected the same cold light. “There is no one else on this earth,” he murmured, his voice low and intense, “who is a better match for you and me.” Sebastian didn’t sign the papers. For the next week, there wasn’t a single new lead on the girl. Only a name, gleaned from the charred remnants of his journal. Stella. But the girl herself couldn’t wait. She showed up at my door. Same white dress, same pale skin as the photograph. But this time, the natural blush at her eyes was overshadowed by the angry red love bites scattered across her neck and chest. “I’m pregnant,” she announced, her delicate hand resting on a barely-there swell. “It’s his.” My pen stopped moving across the financial report. She sat down in the visitor’s chair opposite my desk as if she owned the place. “You’ve probably seen the news. And you must know my name was in his journals long before he ever met you. He loves me, not you. If you can’t accept that, I’ll just have my private medical team move in here. With me being pregnant, who do you think Sebastian will kick out, Audrina? You, or me?” The heavy chair hit the floor with a muffled thud. The only sounds that followed were the girl’s gasp and the sharp, clean crack of my palm against her cheek. “You hit me!” Her eyes, already pink-tinged, went crimson with shock and disbelief. I smiled. Sebastian had kept her so well protected. This fall, this slap… it was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her. “No wonder you had the guts to show up here alone,” I said, advancing on her. She scrambled backward on the floor, terror finally dawning in her eyes. “No… stay away!” Her whimper struck a nerve. I loomed over her, watching the tears well up, and suddenly, the overwhelming sense of familiarity I’d felt since she walked in clicked into place. She was me. She was the eighteen-year-old me, the girl in the blood-soaked white dress, stumbling to the ground, begging them to stay away on the day my family was slaughtered. “Ah!” I grabbed a fistful of her hair, and her scream was a perfect echo of my own from all those years ago. The motion pulled her head back, exposing the delicate skin of her neck. And the butterfly-shaped birthmark, clear as day. Sebastian… he’d found another me.
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