Chapter 2

Maya POV

I didn't make breakfast.

Instead, I spent the morning systematically erasing myself.

I stood in the cavernous walk-in closet, surrounded by endless rows of designer gowns and shelves of Italian leather shoes.

Everything Liam had bought me.

Everything that was supposed to be a token of affection but was, in reality, a leash.

I took the ruby necklace off its velvet stand.

Then the sapphire earrings.

Finally, the diamond tennis bracelet he gave me after he missed my birthday last year.

I placed them all into a large cardboard box, my movements mechanical, detached.

My chest felt hollow, as if someone had reached inside and scooped out my heart with a rusted spoon.

I looked at the vanity.

My wedding ring sat there.

A five-carat diamond that used to catch the light and make me smile.

Now, it looked like a shackle.

I picked it up.

It was ice cold against my skin.

I dropped it into the box.

The sharp clink of metal on metal echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.

I carried the box down the hall to his study and left it on his desk.

Right in the center.

I wanted him to see it.

I wanted him to know that his currency no longer worked here.

I spent the rest of the day moving my personal things-the books I bought myself, the cheap, comfortable clothes I wore before I met him-into the guest room.

Liam came home long after midnight.

I heard the front door open, followed by the heavy thud of his footsteps on the stairs.

He smelled pungently of whiskey and cigar smoke when he pushed open the guest room door.

He didn't even ask why I wasn't in our bed.

"Rough night," he slurred, loosening his tie.

He walked over to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and leaned down to kiss me.

I turned my head.

His lips landed on my cheek.

It took everything in me not to scrub the spot.

My stomach lurched.

A physical revulsion so strong I tasted bile at the back of my throat.

"You okay?" he asked, not really caring about the answer.

"Fine," I said. "Just tired."

He nodded, already turning away.

"Negotiations dragged on," he lied, the falsehood slipping easily from his tongue. "The Russians are being difficult."

He didn't notice the bare finger on my left hand.

He didn't notice the boxes in the corner.

He was too full of his own importance to see the woman he claimed to own.

The next morning, he was gone before I woke up.

On the kitchen counter, there was a check.

It was for fifty thousand dollars.

No note.

No "I love you."

Just money.

I stared at the paper.

*Money is how we measure loyalty,* he had told me once.

Now it was how he paid for his sins.

He was buying my silence.

He was buying my blindness.

I left the check where it was.

I saw his phone sitting on the counter next to his keys.

He was upstairs in the shower.

The screen lit up.

A message from "Sinclair."

*Last night was wild. Miss you already.*

My hands didn't shake.

I was past shaking.

I heard the water stop running upstairs.

I stepped back from the phone just as Liam came bounding down the stairs, buttoning his cuffs.

He grabbed his phone, checked the screen, and his jaw tightened.

"I have to go," he said, snatching his keys. "Family emergency."

"Of course," I said.

"Buy yourself something nice," he said, gesturing to the check.

Then he was gone.

I heard the roar of his engine fading down the driveway.

One of the maids, Elena, was dusting the hallway.

She didn't see me; I had become a ghost in my own home.

She was on the phone.

"Yes, he went straight to the club," she whispered conspiratorially. "The one on 5th. That girl works there."

I walked back to the guest room.

The room spun.

I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself.

Nausea rolled over me in a violent wave.

I ran to the bathroom and retched into the sink until there was nothing left.

I sat on the cold tile floor, wiping my mouth.

This wasn't just stress.

I knew my body.

I grabbed my purse and drove to a clinic three towns over.

A place where no one knew the name Liam Ricci.

The doctor was a kind woman with grey hair and gentle eyes.

She ran the tests.

She came back with a clipboard and a soft smile.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Ricci," she said. "You're six weeks pregnant."

The room went silent.

The air conditioning hummed excessively loud in the stillness.

I looked at the ultrasound photo she handed me.

A tiny, grey smudge.

A life.

In another life, it should have been the happiest moment of my existence.

I had wanted this for years.

But now?

Now it felt like a tragedy.

I drove home in a daze.

I parked the car and sat in the driveway for an hour.

This child was half him.

This child was the heir he always wanted.

If I told him, he would never let me leave.

He would lock me in this house and turn me into a broodmare.

I walked inside.

The house was empty.

Liam wasn't home.

He wouldn't be home tonight.

He was with her.

I walked into the kitchen.

The check was still on the counter.

Fifty thousand dollars.

The price of a wife.

I picked it up.

I tore it down the middle.

Then again.

And again.

I let the pieces flutter to the marble floor like confetti.

I placed a hand on my flat stomach.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the tiny spark of life inside me.

I had a choice to make.

A choice that would either save me or destroy me.