The river water pierced like ice.

Isabella Valentine plunged into the inky darkness.

She squeezed her eyes shut, surrendering to the slow descent.

Water pressure crushed her chest as suffocation clawed at her throat.

"Death will set me free," she thought.

The Ulrich surname made her retch.

Being a murderer's daughter shattered her completely.

Water flooded her nostrils, searing pain spreading through her lungs.

Uncontrollable coughing wracked her body, gulping more liquid agony.

Her eardrums throbbed. Darkness swallowed her vision.

So this was the torment of dying.

Survival instinct erupted. She thrashed violently toward the surface.

"Help!" she gasped between choking breaths.

A dark figure splashed into the water.

A gray-haired old man moved with surprising agility.

He dragged Isabella toward shore by her arm.

"Don't touch me!" She writhed against his grip.

Ignoring her protests, he hauled her onto the bank and began CPR.

"Cough! Cough!" Isabella's eyes rolled back from the force.

As he leaned in for mouth-to-mouth, garlic breath assaulted her.

"Get off!" She slapped him away.

The man blinked. "Weren't you trying to kill yourself?"

"None of your damn business!"

"My son works at the crematorium. Want an introduction?"

Rage whited out Isabella's vision.

A Valentine heiress being set up with a mortuary employee?

Fumbling for her phone, she dialed Ethan Sullivan with trembling fingers.

"I'm dying. I need to see you one last time."

Cold laughter answered. "I'll collect your corpse after you stop breathing."

Her heart turned to stone.

Next she called Theodore Valentine.

"Dad, I'm—"

"Go find your murderer father!" The line went dead.

Finally, she rang the Valentine matriarch.

"Grandmother, I almost drowned..."

Thirty minutes later, the elderly woman arrived.

"That bitch Sophia ruined our family!" Isabella sobbed.

The matriarch embraced her, immediately calling Theodore.

Silence. Then:

"Mother, she's not my daughter. Hammer Ulrich's bastard."

The old woman's face darkened.

Her cane came down on Isabella's back.

"Filthy impostor! Twenty years of lies!"

Blows rained like hail.

Isabella scrambled away, knocking over an IV stand.

Glass shattered as medicine bottles hit the floor.

"Forgive me, Grandmother!" She groveled on her knees.

A kick sent her sprawling. "Get out of my house!"

Nurses froze at the scene.

The refined Valentine heiress now cowered like a beaten dog.

Curled in the corner, Isabella dug nails into her palms.

Hatership burned through her veins.

Hatred for Sophia. For Ethan. For everyone.

But most of all, for the man whose tainted blood ran in her veins.