Chapter One

Is there a price for freedom? For love? For family?

Aileen Hark will pay it, a thousand times over. It doesn't matter the choices or the repercussions or the person she must turn into to survive. All that matters is that her family, her lovely parents, are taken care of.

That is why she will turn away from the hand that reaches out and take the one that has promised to care for her ailing parents. Even if that hand is as soft as its cruel. She will endure. She will paint smiles on her face to keep her cagers happy, lest she makes them to unhappy.

That cold pale hand will haunt her dreams.

She dreams of red peonies. She dreams of her.

Dreams of her.

*"Come to me, giuvaier prețios. I will wait for you."*