He married the woman everyone called “the ugliest” daughter of a powerful family for money. But ON their wedding night, he found blood beneath her dress. She whispered, “My father did this.”

Manuel noticed.

That night at Pinecrest Estate, blood appeared on the back of Rosalie’s dress. She refused to see the physician her father had sent and locked herself inside her room.

Manuel stood outside.

“I won’t come in without permission,” he said. “But I need to know whether you’re injured.”

After a long silence, she opened the door.

The hidden key had pierced the fabric and cut her skin. But when Manuel saw her exposed back, the wound was not what shocked him.

There were old marks around her wrists, pale scars on her ankles, and long lines across her back.

“Who did this?” he asked, kneeling so he would not tower over her.

“My father,” Rosalie whispered. “And the doctors he paid to call it treatment.”

In that instant, Manuel understood.