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.

The grimoire sits open on Helena's desk, ancient pages covered in handwritten instructions for ritual that's supposed to break curse but reads more like instructions for elaborate suicide, all warnings about blood price and permanent consequences and sacrifices that can't be undone once initiated. We've been studying this passage for three hours, Helena translating Latin that's archaic even by magical standards, Sienna cross-referencing with modern curse-breaking theory, all of us trying to decode what the final line actually means because vague prophecy is apparently how magic communicates and concrete instructions would be too convenient.


Chapter 75 - The Sacrifice Question