The night I was born, someone tried to kill me.
They said a girl had no place in the D'Angelo empire.
They threw me away before I ever opened my eyes.
And twenty years later…
I accidentally slept with their heir—
the man who would destroy me if he ever learned the truth.
But before all of that…
before the lies, the blood, the secrets…
there was her.
My mother.
And the moment she realized I was born doomed.
⸻
FLASHBACK
Marliese sat on the edge of the silk-covered bed, trembling so hard her teeth clicked. The golden room glowed around her, but nothing in that mansion ever felt warm.
Not with him in it.
The Don—no one dared to speak his real name—stood in front of her. Tall. Beautiful. Terrifying. Blue eyes colder than the winter he grew up in.
Every step he took toward her made her pulse break rhythm.
He touched her swollen stomach gently… too gently.
Marliese flinched.
He noticed.
His lips brushed her belly, cold and possessive.
His voice dropped like steel dragged across marble.
"Remember what happened the last time you gave me a girl?"
Her breath caught.
Her tears burned.
She nodded.
His smile widened—angelic and murderous.
"This one better be a boy," he murmured.
"My heir. My legacy. The D'Angelo throne doesn't pass to something useless."
Something useless.
A girl.
His breath ghosted over her skin as he whispered:
"If you give me another daughter… I'll throw her down the stairs myself. Like I did the last one."
The world stopped.
Her heart didn't just freeze—it fractured.
He grabbed her chin, forcing her to face the ice in his eyes.
"Do you hear me?"
She nodded.
She had no choice.
"Good."
He kissed her cheek like he hadn't just promised murder.
Marliese understood then:
Her child wasn't a baby to him.
It was a weapon.
And if it wasn't a son…
it wasn't allowed to live.
⸻
WEEKS LATER
He was away—thank God—when her labor began.
No hospitals.
No nurses.
No chance of escape.
The Don kept everything inside his mansion,
where secrets went to die.
Marliese screamed through contractions, gripping the sheets so hard they tore.
"Push," a midwife whispered. "The baby—she's crowning—"
A tiny cry cut the air.
Then silence.
The midwife froze.
Color drained from her face.
Finally, she whispered the word that shattered Marliese:
"It's… a girl."
"No. No—give her to me!"
She clutched the newborn to her chest.
So small.
So perfect.
So doomed.
"He will kill her," Marliese sobbed. "Please. Don't tell him."
The midwives shook their heads, terrified.
"If the Don finds out we lied… he'll kill all of us."
They weren't wrong.
Which left her only one choice:
Escape.
Tonight.
Or die with her baby.
⸻
THE ESCAPE
Delphine—the head maid—appeared beside her, eyes blazing.
"Go," she whispered. "Take her. Run."
"Marliese… he'll kill you for this," she cried.
Delphine's jaw clenched.
"I'm already dead to him. When the time comes, you'll repay me. You and that child… you will destroy him together."
Marliese didn't understand.
But she ran.
Rain hammered the world as she slipped through the mansion's back gate, newborn wrapped in a thin blanket. Her body trembled from blood loss, fear, and pain.
Behind her—
alarms.
Lights.
Engines roaring to life.
He knew.
He had come home early.
And now he was hunting her.
Her face spread across city screens within minutes.
WANTED.
REWARD: MILLIONS.
No one would hide her.
No one would risk it.
She ducked behind dumpsters, sprinted through alleys, tucked herself under dripping bridges—every shadow looked like him.
The baby whimpered.
"I'm sorry," Marliese cried. "I can't protect you from him forever…"
If he caught her, the baby died.
If she was killed, the baby died.
No money.
No allies.
No time.
Her heart cracked as she kissed the newborn's forehead.
"You deserve a life," she whispered. "A chance. I can't save you… not while he's chasing me."
Hands shaking, she placed the baby beneath a rusted metal awning—the only dry spot in the alley.
Thunder shattered the sky.
"I pray someone kind finds you," she sobbed. "I pray you live. I pray you survive him."
She stepped back.
And left.
Her baby's cry followed her into the storm.
⸻
By morning, Marliese had vanished.
But the child hadn't.
She survived.
She grew.
She lived a life he never intended.
And the Don never knew…
that the daughter he tried to kill
before she ever opened her eyes—
still exists.
Aurielle Duval.
The hidden D'Angelo heir.
The girl born to destroy him.