He framed me for his mistress’s miscarriage, but the moment she confessed six years later, he saw the horrific scars his silence caused.

Daniel took in the scene in half a second: Natalie screaming on the floor amidst shattered glass and scalding liquid, her skin blistering red, and me standing behind the counter, frozen, my hands wet from the sink.

"Natalie!" Daniel roared, dropping to his knees beside her.

"Daniel! She did it again!" Natalie shrieked, burying her face into his expensive lapel, her tears soaking his shirt. "I just wanted to help her! I felt so guilty that she was living like this... I offered her five thousand dollars, and she threw the boiling coffee at my face! I barely blocked it with my arm!"

Daniel looked up at me.

His eyes were no longer gray; they were the color of lead, burning with an incandescent, murderous fury. It was the exact same look he had given me six years ago at the bottom of the grand staircase while Natalie lay in a pool of blood.

"You sick, twisted bitch," Daniel snarled, his voice vibrating with an intensity that rattled my teeth. "Six years wasn't enough to cure your malice? You couldn't leave her alone?"

Maeve came running out of the kitchen with a cleaver in hand. "Hey! That blonde psycho grabbed the pot herself! I saw it through the order window!"

"Shut up!" one of Natalie’s bodyguards barked, flashing a badge and a concealed carry holster. "Step back!"

Daniel stood up, his tall frame looming over the counter. He reached across and grabbed me by the collar of my faded t-shirt, hauling me forward until my chest slammed against the stainless-steel pass-through.

"I tried to be merciful," Daniel spat, his breath hot against my face. "I tried to give you a roof, clothes, a chance to rebuild your pathetic life! And this is what you do? You attack her again?"

"Let go of me," I whispered.

"I should have left you to rot in Danbury!" he roared. In his blind fury, his fingers twisted into the fabric of my shirt and yanked sideways.

*Rrrrriiiip.*

The cheap, threadbare cotton tore from the neckline all the way down the left seam, peeling back across my shoulder, my collarbone, and down my entire back.

The diner went dead, suffocatingly quiet.

Daniel’s words died in his throat.

His hand stayed frozen in mid-air, clutching the shredded scrap of cloth. His eyes dilated, the pupils shrinking to tiny black pinpricks as he stared at what lay beneath the shirt.

It wasn't smooth, pale skin.

It was a nightmare in flesh.

Across my left shoulder was a thick, jagged ridge of keloid tissue where an infected puncture wound from a rusted pipe had healed without antibiotics. Running diagonally down my spine were four distinct, violent cigarette burns, dark brown and cratered, spaced exactly two inches apart.

And across my ribs, carving a jagged path over my shoulder blade, was a massive, puckered brand—the result of a boiling pot of prison kitchen lye thrown directly onto my naked back while two guards watched from the catwalk.

The skin was mottled, tight, discolored in shades of angry purple, dead white, and scar-tissue pink. It didn't look human. It looked like the charred hide of an animal that had survived a slaughterhouse fire.

Daniel’s face drained of every ounce of blood. His lips parted, trembling, as the air fled from his lungs.