Chase Sterling always felt like furniture. The kind you don't notice, the kind that's easy to shove in a corner and forget. He was used to it: people looked right through him, brushed him off like lint. But it only takes one phone call to erase a lifetime of being overlooked. When his estranged family meets a tragic end, Chase suddenly finds himself in charge of the sprawling Sterling fortune. Turns out, riches aren't the only thing the family left him. There's a curse running through his blood, warping love into something hungry and dangerous, impossible to escape.

Vivian Ashford never set out to blow Chase's life to smithereens. Just one decision (a sharp, ruthless move at graduation) was all it took to set their worlds spinning out of control. While Vivian soaks up the Hollywood limelight and collects red-carpet headlines, Chase slips into his new role as Manhattan's most intimidating heir. But no matter how far they run, something keeps yanking them back together, like a stitch in an old wound that refuses to heal.

I'm in my mansion's library trying to drink away the memory of tonight's party disaster when she appears. Helena Sterling, standing in my doorway like she materialized from shadows, looking exactly as she did in my hallucination except now I know she's actually here, physically present, real in ways that make my contaminated perception worse instead of better.


"You're not invited," I say, not bothering to stand, too exhausted and drunk and curse-damaged to perform social niceties.


"Neither were you when you broke into Vivian's apartment. Yet here we both are, uninvited but expected." Helena moves into my library without permission, examines my books with casual interest. "You've been collecting occult texts. Trying to understand what you've tampered with. That's smart. Also pointless. No amount of research reverses contamination once it's progressed this far."


Chapter 121 - Helena Intervenes