Chapter 5

The newspaper fluttered from my numb fingers, landing softly on the highly polished floor. Dax. Charley. Their faces, intertwined in a forced smile, stared back from the glossy page. The headline screamed: "Tech Mogul Dax Roth Weds Longtime Assistant Charley Hood in Secret Ceremony." Secret? My stomach churned. Secret from me, his wife? The date stated was two months ago. Two months ago he was still sharing my bed, whispering sweet nothings.

My mind raced, a frantic blur of images: Charley' s sweet birthday wishes, Dax' s whispered lies on the phone. The sheer audacity of their deception punched the air from my lungs. I ripped the paper, then another, then another, until the elegant living room was buried under a snowstorm of shredded lies.

I grabbed my car keys, my vision blurring with rage. I drove, the city streets a maze of flashing lights and angry horns. I didn't care. I needed to see them. I needed to understand.

I found them at their "new" home – a sprawling penthouse I didn't recognize, gleaming against the New York skyline. The front door was ajar. I pushed it open, my heart a hammer against my ribs.

They were there, in the living room, a picture of domestic bliss. Dax, laughing, his arm around Charley. Her head rested on his shoulder, her hand resting over a slight bump on her belly. My blood ran cold. The bump. It was small, but unmistakable.

"Dax!" My voice ripped through the air, raw and broken.

He spun around, his face draining of color. Charley shrieked, pulling back, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.

"Alysa?" Dax stammered, stepping in front of Charley, shielding her. Just like he always did.

"You bastard!" I screamed, the words tearing from my throat. "You married her? You have a child with her?" My gaze dropped to Charley's hand. On her finger, a sapphire ring. The very ring I had shown Dax years ago, saying it was the most beautiful stone I' d ever seen. He had told me it was "too flashy."

"What are you doing here?" Dax demanded, his voice suddenly cold, protective. "You shouldn't be here."

"I shouldn't be here?" I laughed, a harsh, desperate sound. "I' m your wife, Dax! Your wife!" My eyes focused on the faint love bite on Charley's neck, barely hidden by her collar. A fresh wound. One he had given her. It was a tangible mark of his betrayal, searing itself into my brain.

Something snapped. I lunged at Charley, my hands flying, fueled by a rage so potent it consumed me. "You snake! You lying, scheming bitch!"

Charley shrieked again, stumbling back. "She's crazy, Dax! Get her away from me!"

Dax, with a strength I hadn't known he possessed, roughly shoved me away. I fell, hitting the edge of a coffee table with a sickening thud. A sharp pain bloomed in my abdomen.

"Don't you dare touch her!" Dax roared, his face contorted with fury. He knelt beside Charley, cradling her. "Are you alright, darling? Is the baby okay?"

The baby. His baby. Our baby. My baby. The thought pierced through the haze of my anger. The kick. My first baby kick. Just this morning. The sudden, agonizing cramp in my belly intensified.

"Our baby, Dax," I gasped, clutching my stomach. "We were having a baby."

He looked at me then, his eyes wide with a fleeting horror. But it was fleeting. He quickly turned back to Charley, his concern for her overriding everything else.

The pain intensified, a searing fire. I looked down. Blood. My blood. Dark and viscous, spreading across my dress.

"No!" I screamed, a guttural sound of pure agony and despair. "My baby! Our baby!"

I woke up in a hospital bed, the sterile white walls mirroring the emptiness inside me. The doctor's words were a blur. Miscarriage. Too much stress. Too much trauma.

Dax walked in, his face carefully composed. He held a bouquet of white lilies, a gesture of hollow remorse. He sat beside my bed, taking my hand. It felt cold, detached.

"Alysa, I'm so sorry," he murmured, his voice gentle. "I didn't know. I swear..."

I yanked my hand away. "You killed him, Dax!" I screamed, my voice raw. "You and your whore! You killed our baby!" I thrashed, hitting him, scratching, tearing at his expensive suit. The nurses rushed in, sedating me.

When I woke again, Dax was gone. But Charley was there, sitting by my bedside, a smug smile playing on her lips. She held a single rose, its petals a vibrant, mocking red.

"Dax told me to look after you," she purred, her voice sweet as poison. "He's so worried. Especially after you lost the baby."

My blood ran cold. "You knew," I whispered, the realization dawning on me. "You knew I was pregnant."

She chuckled softly. "Of course. Did you really think Dax would share everything with you and not me? I heard you talking to your doctor. Such a shame, isn't it? Losing a baby like that. Especially when Dax and I are so excited for ours."

She leaned closer, her eyes gleaming with malice. "You know, Dax has been giving you placebos for months. He didn't want a child with you. He wanted my child. He just needed to make sure you didn't get pregnant while he was... tying up loose ends."

My mind reeled. Placebos. The prenatal vitamins he had insisted I take, so lovingly, every morning. It was all a lie. He had controlled my body, my future, for months. The monster. He wasn't just a cheat. He was a manipulative, calculating demon.

"You're lying!" I shrieked, tears streaming down my face.

She just smiled, a chilling, triumphant smile. "Am I? Ask him. He'll tell you. He said you were getting too emotional, too clingy. He needed to get rid of you, but he wanted to do it cleanly. He was trying to protect you from yourself." She paused, her voice dripping with venom. "And now, you can't even have children, can you? After that little tantrum, your womb is ruined. Dax's words, not mine."

My world shattered. My parents gone. My baby gone. My husband, a monster. My best friend, his accomplice. My heart, a hollow cavity filled with nothing but ice and hate.

And then the public shaming began. Dax, the master manipulator, leaked stories to the press. Alysa Bailey, the unstable heiress, suffering a breakdown, attacking his "innocent" assistant, trying to ruin his life. My father's company, already struggling, was ruthlessly taken over by Dax, his name stripped from the legacy. All my assets, the stock he had so lovingly "given" me, were transferred to Charley. I was left with nothing but my fury and my broken body.

I was held captive in our Hamptons estate, not by chains, but by Dax's men, by his lies, by the surveillance cameras he had installed. He would visit, playing the concerned husband, pretending to care, while Charley, my former best friend, would strut through the house, flaunting her growing belly, mocking my misery.

One day, she stood over me, her belly prominently displayed. "See, Alysa?" she cooed. "This is what a real woman's body does. You're just a barren husk. Dax doesn't want you anymore. He never did."

I screamed. I clawed. I did everything I could to hurt her, to hurt him. But they were always stronger. Dax would just watch, detached, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "See, Alysa?" he'd say, "You're just proving my point. You're unstable. Unfit."

Then came the final blow. He released a video. A video of me, in my most vulnerable, desperate moments, screaming, crying, trashing the house. He had edited it, twisted it, made me look like a madwoman. It went viral. I became a national joke, a cautionary tale. The mad heiress, driven insane by her husband's success.

My father's friends, my own friends, turned away. The world believed Dax's narrative. I was alone. Utterly, completely alone.

Until that last night. The pain in my abdomen had eased. The rage, however, still thrummed beneath my skin. I had taken to wandering the grounds, a ghost in my own home. I stumbled upon an old, forgotten shed. Inside, dusty and neglected, was a crate of explosives, leftover from a renovation project years ago. My father' s project.

A terrifying idea, born of desperation and revenge, began to form. I would burn it all down. Like the first lie, like the first betrayal, it would all end in fire.

But then, a faint flutter. Again. Not the phantom pain of my lost child. This was different. A tiny, insistent tremor. A whisper of life. My hand flew to my belly. Could it be? After all Charley had said? After the placebos?

I found an old pregnancy test kit in a forgotten bathroom drawer. My hands trembled as I took it. Two pink lines. Faint, but undeniably there.

A miracle. A tiny flicker of hope in the abyss of my despair. I wasn't barren. I wasn't alone. I had a second chance. And I would protect this life with every fiber of my being.

The plan changed. Burn it down, yes. But not with me in it. I would fake my death. Dax would think I was gone, another tragic victim of my own madness. He would never look for me. He would never look for our child.

That night, as the flames engulfed the Hamptons estate, I drove away, a new life kicking faintly within me, a silent promise of a future he would never touch. I watched the inferno in my rearview mirror, the inferno that consumed my past, and carried me into my unknown future.

The sound of Emma' s laughter, echoing from the dining room, pulled me sharply back to the present. Brenda was still watching me, her eyes filled with concern. "Alice?"

I forced a smile, my heart still pounding with the echoes of that terrible past. "I'm fine, Brenda. Just... a lot on my mind." I got up, my body aching with the phantom pains of old wounds. "I need to go check on Emma."

As I walked away, I felt Dax's eyes on me again, from the shadows near the entrance to the dining room where his family was eating. He stood there, statue-still, his gaze glued to Emma, who was now chattering happily with Cristopher. A chilling premonition settled over me. Our paths had crossed again. And this time, I knew he wouldn't let go so easily.