Chapter 1

My left leg had been brutally broken. Alexander Sterling blew through three red lights and drove me to the hospital like a madman. In the hallway outside the operating room, I heard him shouting himself hoarse, begging the doctors to save my leg because I was a dancer.

But the anesthesia wore off too soon. As cold instruments clattered and bone-deep pain drowned me, I heard the lead surgeon arguing with Alexander. "Didn't you say we were only teaching her a lesson, just enough to keep her offstage for a while? For a top dancer, wrecking her leg is crueler than killing her."

Alexander's voice lost every trace of warmth, cold as an ice-honed blade. "Letting her finish that farewell performance was already the brightest moment she'll ever have. Sophie needs a sister who'll never compete with her for the principal dancer spot again. Claire owes her that."

*****

The sharp pain in my left leg jolted me awake. No, the surgery wasn't over. I could feel someone manipulating my bones, marrow-deep pain twisting through me like steel needles, while my limp body refused to move and my eyelids felt heavy as lead.

The anesthesia had failed, but my body still wouldn't move. Under the icy surgical light, I could only force my eyes open to a slit and make out figures in green scrubs above me. Metal clinked, a drill buzzed, and then someone spoke.

"The bone is shattered. The joint surface is completely wrecked. Even if it heals, there's no way she'll ever handle intense dance training again." An unfamiliar man sounded regretful. "She's only twenty-six, right? What a damn shame."

Another voice rang out, so familiar it made my heart seize. "Letting her finish that farewell performance was already the brightest moment she'll ever have." It was Alexander Sterling, my fiance of seven years. "What Sophie needs is a sister who'll never fight her for the principal dancer spot again. It's what Claire owes her."

My mind went completely clear. Sophie Evans, my younger sister—the Royal Theatre's youngest soloist, the so-called prodigy who debuted at sixteen, won international gold at nineteen, and went abroad for advanced training at twenty-two. Everyone said she'd be the next Grace Young, the pride of our dance world. And I was her sister. Her Shadow.

"Alexander Sterling, are you out of your mind?" the unfamiliar man asked in a lowered voice, but he couldn't hide the shock. "I thought you only wanted to teach her a lesson, just enough to keep her offstage for a while. With the bone shattered like this, how the hell is she supposed to dance again?"

"If she can't dance, even better." Alexander sounded as calm as if he were talking about the weather. "Sophie will be back next month to compete for the principal dancer position at the Royal Theatre. Claire's existence has always been a thorn in her side."

"So you just—"

"I owe Sophie." He cut the man off. His tone finally shifted, but into a ruthlessness I had never heard before. "Seven years ago, if Claire hadn't needed that international competition, Sophie would've never given up the lead in Peacock. She wouldn't have gotten hurt during rehearsal and missed that selection."

"That was ages ago..."

"She left home because of that and spent seven years alone overseas." Alexander's voice dropped, filled with a tenderness and guilt I had never once heard from him before. "Do you know how much she carried by herself all those years?"

"But you've been with Claire for seven years..."

"So what?" He let out a cold laugh. "If I hadn't been trying to make it up to Sophie, she would've never left in anger back then. Letting Claire have those seven years of 'love' was already Sophie's greatest mercy."

Tears slid silently down my face and soaked into the sheet beneath me.