The confession stunned him. She’d betrayed him, the wretched, pitiable creature he’d shaped into his masterpiece? She dared to defy him? Fury and insanity surged through him and he lunged at her, the gun forgotten. It clattered to the floor between them.

Seeing her chance, Analise dodged the hands that came out to strangle her. She dove for the gun, scrambling to reach it. Enraged, he pounded his fist into her stomach, and she felt her rib crack. Clinging to life, she clawed at his arm while her crippled hand closed over the pistol.

Countering, Nathan manacled her wrist, squeezing on the fractured bone. She screamed, and the sound pierced the storm. She struggled not to pass out, to hold on to the gun. Tangled together, they rolled along the ground. He rose above her, eyes gleaming with madness, and he slammed her head into the wooden planks on the floor.

“I’ll kill you, bitch!”

Analise refused to die quietly. She fought to turn the gun, whimpering through the shards of pain radiating from her wrist, from her skull. Clinging to consciousness, she vowed, “No!”

There was a cacophony of sound, perhaps a blast or the tumult of the storm. It was then consciousness deserted her. Shame was her last clear thought as pain burst through her skull. Nathan had won and she had lost.

GROGGILY, SHE CAME to. She emerged from the agonizing darkness to find the gun in her hand. The metal felt cool where it rested in her palm. Odd, because she had always imagined searing heat. But Nathan had warned her that her imagination could not be trusted. Her strange mind, trained with precision to see words and patterns and images, played terrible tricks on her. It made her believe the impossible.

Her hand squeezed the gun’s grip spasmodically. She shivered, frozen to the bone. She crawled to Nathan, wanting him to be dead, praying he was alive. The body was still, lifeless. Red bloomed in obscene beauty along his left side. He stared up at her, the blue eyes unmoving and accusing. Her head throbbed and blood trickled down her neck. Dragging herself to the sofa, she managed to get to her feet. She swayed, the room spinning dizzily around her. She blinked, trying to orient herself.

A wink of silver caught her eye, abandoned on the hardwood, where it had fallen from his hand in the struggle. She staggered over to the ring that had left too many marks on her skin. She picked it up, a reminder of the price of freedom.

When the storm cleared, she called Sebastian. Together, they sent Nathan over the mountain, onto ancient rocks and clay that swallowed his body and her sin.

Then she walked out of her life.

Chapter 1

MAY 2004

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA