The Twin Serpent Pact: An Heir Who Shares Pain

At the auction in North City, Isabella Hawthorne was shot through the left shoulder by Katerina.

Everyone thought the head of the Hawthorne family would go down.

But she only pressed a hand to the wound and said coldly, "Keep bidding."

Meanwhile, Katerina, on the second floor, suddenly dropped to one knee, her face pale with pain.

That night, at a meeting of the Hawthorne family, someone slapped a doctor's report down in front of Isabella.

"If the head of the family can't even control her own pain, how can she run the Hawthornes?"

Elsewhere, the old guard of the Moretti family scoffed in public. "So our queen is being made to suffer at the hands of a Hawthorne woman."

To keep from losing their power, the two women had no choice but to meet in secret.

Three minutes a day, in a dark room, their wrists touching, guns aimed at each other.

Isabella said, "Touch anything above my neck and I'll cut off your hand."

Katerina smiled. "Hide the hand that's got you trembling like this first."

Then, on the third night, the pain suddenly stopped.

But in Katerina's palm, Isabella felt an old scar just like her mother's.