Chapter I. The Last Turkey in Greenwich

Greenwich, Connecticut. A quintessential Nor'easter was raging, shrouding this community—which boasted the highest density of hedge fund managers in America—in a deathly, silvery silence.

Inside the kitchen of the Alvarez family's mock-Georgian estate, the air was heavy with the scents of sage, roasted chestnuts, and a suffocating anxiety. Vanessa Tate had been standing here for forty-eight hours. Her fingers were slightly swollen and red from handling freezing ingredients for so long. Those hands, which should have been wielding the most precise scalpels in a Harvard Medical School laboratory, were currently gripping a Zwilling boning knife, administering the final sutures to a twenty-pound organic turkey.

"Good God, Vanessa, are you stitching a corpse? Don't bring that disgusting filth you learned at public medical school into my kitchen."

A shrill voice pierced the busy hum of the kitchen. Lucy Garcia, her mother in name only, stood there wearing an ill-fitting burgundy velvet gown. It was an out-of-season piece Vanessa had bought at Bergdorf Goodman last year; on Lucy, the strained seams revealed a distinct, nouveau riche awkwardness.

Vanessa didn't look up. Her needlework remained terrifyingly steady, the stitches fine and even, as if she were performing a heart valve repair. "It's called a lock-stitch; it seals in the juices. Besides, this is the Thanksgiving dress rehearsal. It must be perfect."

"Nobody cares about your juices!" Lucy snatched a can of cranberry sauce from the counter and slammed it onto the Italian Carrara marble. "I told you to go to Whole Foods for the premium stock, and what is this? Trader Joe's? Do you think when Dominic wakes up, he'll eat this cheap garbage that only the middle class consumes?"

Vanessa finally paused. She raised her head, her amber eyes devoid of ripples, holding only a numbness bordering on clinical detachment. "Lucy, Dominic has been in a coma for three years. According to the neurologist's orders, he will be on a liquid diet when he wakes. This turkey is for the greedy lawyers on the board; they can't tell the difference between a wild turkey and a farm-raised one."

"You dare talk back?" Lucy raised her hand, but before the slap could land, a commotion erupted from the foyer.

The manor, previously heavy with deathly inertia, seemed suddenly injected with high-voltage current. The butler stumbled in, running, forgetting all protocols of high-society etiquette. "He's awake! The Young Master is awake! Mr. Alvarez moved his fingers!"

The chef's knife in Vanessa's hand hit the cutting board with a sharp *clang*. Three years. One thousand and ninety-five days and nights. She had kept vigil by the bedside of that man covered in tubes, cleaning his body, reading him the *Wall Street Journal*, massaging his atrophied muscles.

She untied her apron, not even pausing to fix her slightly disheveled hair, and sprinted toward the master bedroom on the second floor.

However, before the heavy mahogany doors of the master suite, she was blocked by two burly bodyguards.

"Move. I am his wife." Vanessa's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a piercing chill—the aura of someone accustomed to giving orders in an emergency room.

"Apologies, Mrs. Tate." The bodyguard's face was expressionless. "Miss Carmela is inside. Dr. Smith says the patient requires quiet and can only see his closest relations."

The door wasn't fully closed. Through the crack, Vanessa witnessed a blinding scene.

The man who had slumbered for three years, Dominic Alvarez, was leaning against the headboard. He was as pale as a marble statue, but those deep, dark eyes were open. Though weak, they still held their innate, oppressive intensity.

And sitting by his bedside was Vanessa's younger sister, Carmela. She was dressed in an impeccably tailored Chanel tweed suit, her makeup exquisite enough for a *Vogue* photoshoot. She held Dominic's hand, tears hanging from her eyelashes with calculated precision, like expensive diamonds.

"Dom, you're finally awake... I thought I was going to lose you." Carmela's voice trembled, full of performative flair, laced with a deliberately practiced Locust Valley Lockjaw accent.

Dominic's gaze was unfocused, seeming to search for purchase after the long darkness. He looked at Carmela, his voice raspy as coarse sandpaper. "Was it you... the one who held my hand in the darkness... the one who told me stories?"

Vanessa's heart constricted violently. For three years, the person who had sat by his bed all night telling stories was her.

Carmela paused for a split second, then revealed a smile that was both tragically beautiful and triumphant. She leaned down and kissed the back of Dominic's hand. "It was me, Dom. I was always here."

Dominic closed his eyes briefly, then gripped Carmela's hand back with shocking strength, as if seizing his only salvation. "I knew it was you, my red rose."

Outside the door, Vanessa felt a wave of nausea.

Just then, the sound of a shutter clicking echoed. A photographer from *Vanity Fair*, somehow granted access, was frantically snapping photos of this pair of "star-crossed lovers."

Lucy had squeezed in behind Vanessa unnoticed. She shoved her hard, whispering maliciously, "See that? That is a fairytale. You? You're just a placeholder nanny. Get back to your servant's quarters. Don't let the reporters capture your pathetic look and disgrace the Alvarez family."

Vanessa stumbled, catching herself against the wall. She watched the door slowly close before her eyes, completely shutting out the light and warmth within.

She didn't cry. As a top cardiothoracic surgeon, she had long ago learned how to excise necrotic tissue.

And now, her marriage was nothing but a piece of rot that had to be cut away.