Vanessa tore Mia’s princess dress in front of the whole school.

The click of four laser sights converging on my chest was the only warning I received.

From the darkened alcoves along the ground floor, four security operators in charcoal uniforms stepped forward, their MP7 submachine guns trained directly on my vitals. I didn't drop my gun. To drop a weapon in front of Vanessa Sinclair was to invite an immediate bullet to the temple.

"Clara Thorne," Vanessa said, taking a sip from her glass as she slowly descended the grand spiral staircase, her silk gown whispering against the marble steps. "Former protective detail for the State Department. Dishonorably discharged after failing to protect an ambassador’s child in Bogota. You spent six years hiding in the Appalachian mountains playing the role of a righteous guardian. How pathetic."

"I kept her alive," I said, keeping my weapon steady, my eyes tracking her movements as she reached the bottom step. "Which is more than can be said for what you did to her."

"Kept her alive?" Vanessa laughed, a low, musical sound completely devoid of human warmth. "You preserved an asset. You fed her, you clothed her, you made sure she didn't jump off a bridge when my operatives made her life a living hell at school. I should wire a bonus to your off-grid account."

Mia stepped forward, placing herself directly between the laser sights and me. The men didn't fire; their targeting dots flicked from my chest to the floor, terrified of damaging the biological cargo they had been hired to secure.

"Where is Genevieve?" Mia demanded, her voice cutting through the salon like a diamond blade. "You brought me here for her. Where is she?"

Vanessa stopped three paces from Mia. Up close, the resemblance was monstrous. They had the same dark eyes, the same sharp jawline, the same aristocratic tilt of the head. But where Mia's face held the fiery vulnerability of a survivor, Vanessa's was an immaculate mask of stone.

"She is in the basement laboratory, darling," Vanessa said, reaching out with a manicured hand to touch Mia’s cheek.

Mia slapped her hand away with a violent, resounding crack.

Vanessa didn't flinch. A slow, terrifying smile spread across her lips.

"Good," Vanessa whispered. "Julian didn't turn you into a coward after all. That makes the procedure so much more rewarding. Genevieve is weak. She cries when the nurses insert the dialysis lines. She inherited her father's sentimentality. But you... you survived the high school. You survived the smear campaign, the broken lockers, the dress torn to ribbons before the entire town. You have teeth, Mia."

"Why did you do it?" Mia’s voice was barely a whisper, vibrating with an ancient, suppressed rage. "Why the dress? Why did you pay those girls to ruin my life in front of everyone?"

"Because an unbroken spirit rejects the graft," Vanessa said coldly, as though explaining an elementary mathematical formula. "Organ transplantation isn't merely biological, Mia. It is neurological. A child who believes she is loved, who believes she is safe, fights the anesthesia. She fights the harvest. But a child who has been publicly stripped of her dignity, who has been made an outcast, who has looked into the eyes of three hundred peers and seen only contempt... that child has already surrendered the will to live."

Vanessa took another step closer, leaning down so her lips were inches from Mia’s ear.

"I didn't just want your kidney, Mia," Vanessa breathed. "I wanted your marrow. I wanted your heart. Genevieve isn't dying of kidney disease. She is dying of total organ failure. And you are going to give her everything she needs to become the sole heir to my empire."

Before Vanessa could finish the sentence, Mia swung the steel tire iron she had concealed behind her back with all the fury of her sixteen stolen years.

The heavy steel slammed into the side of Vanessa's knee with a sickening, wet crunch of bone.

Vanessa shrieked—a piercing, animal sound of pure agony—as her leg buckled beneath her and she crashed to the marble floor, her crystal glass shattering into a thousand glittering shards.