Chapter 3

Ava POV

I became a ghost in my own house.

Ethan never noticed.

He mistook my silence for grief over my father. He interpreted my distance as depression. And he preferred it that way.

It made me easier to ignore while he texted Olivia under the dinner table.

I watched him. I studied him with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a parasite.

He was arrogant. He thought he had me completely under his control. He thought I was still the sweet, naive girl he had once rescued from the subway grate.

He didn't know that the girl was gone.

"Ethan," I said one morning over coffee. "I've been thinking about the estate planning. With Dad gone, and the baby coming... we should organize the assets."

He barely glanced up from his tablet. "I have lawyers for that, Ava."

"I know," I said, keeping my voice perfectly steady. "But there are some papers for the new property investment you wanted to make. And the medical consent forms for the delivery. I organized them for you."

I slid a stack of papers across the marble island.

He hated paperwork. He trusted me to handle the domestic details.

"Just sign here, here, and here," I said, pointing to the sticky notes.

He signed. He didn't read. He was too busy typing a message on his phone that I knew was going to her.

He signed the authorization for the asset transfer.

He signed the uncontested divorce agreement that I had buried in the middle of the stack, cleverly disguised as a property liability waiver.

He signed the medical consent form that unknowingly gave me full autonomy over my reproductive choices without the need for spousal notification.

"Thanks, babe," he said, capping his pen. "I have to run. Late meeting."

"Okay," I said. "Have a good day."

He kissed my cheek. His lips felt like ice.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, I moved.

I had an appointment at 10:00 AM.

I went to the clinic alone. The walls were a blinding, sterile white. The nurses were professionally kind.

I didn't cry.

I couldn't bring a child into this. I couldn't bring a child into a world where its father wished it was someone else's. I couldn't let my baby be a prop in his twisted shrine.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done. It felt like I was carving a piece of my own heart out.

But it was necessary.

I left the clinic empty.

I went straight to the bank. I executed the transfers he had authorized. I moved my inheritance from my father and half of our joint liquid assets into an offshore account he couldn't touch.

I packed a single bag. Just clothes. No jewelry. No gifts he had given me.

When Ethan came home that night, I was sitting on the couch, reading a book.

"You look pale," he said, loosening his tie. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Just tired," I said.

"You should rest," he said dismissively. "The baby needs you to be strong."

He said the word 'baby' with a possessive gleam in his eyes. He wasn't thinking about a child. He was thinking about his second chance at a life with Olivia's features.

"I will," I said.

He went to his study. To his shrine.

He had no idea that the ink on our divorce papers was already dry. He had no idea that the future he was planning had already been erased.

He thought he was the mastermind. He didn't realize he had already lost the game.