Chapter 1 Chapter 1

A week before my wedding to my childhood sweetheart, Derek, I was kidnapped. I was a wealthy heiress, and the ransom was set at $80 million.

But Derek refused to pay. Instead, he and his assistant, Krystal, used the money to launch their business empire.

While they cut ribbons at galas, I was brutally tortured for fifteen days. When I finally escaped, I stumbled upon their charity event, naked and broken. He pushed me away, furious that I had ruined his public image.

He then used a secret DNA test to turn my family against me, had me committed to a psychiatric hospital, and left me there to rot for three years.

He built his success on my ashes, leaving me with nothing but scars and a broken mind.

Now, after years of healing, I've found peace with my adopted daughter, Lily. But he's back, begging for forgiveness. He doesn't know the torture left me infertile, and he has no idea what I'm willing to do to protect the only family I have left.

Chapter 1

Heather Smith POV:

The words burned through my phone screen, hotter than any fire I'd ever escaped. I gripped the lukewarm coffee cup, my knuckles turning white, but the heat from the ceramic did nothing to calm the chill spreading through my veins.

I was waiting. Waiting in line at the adoption center, a mundane Tuesday afternoon, doing what I did every day. Lily' s school was nearby, and her after-school art club ran late. I always picked her up myself. It was my routine, my peace. My new life.

My thumb had been idly scrolling through meaningless online chatter. Celebrity gossip, political rants, cat videos. The usual white noise of the internet. I rarely paid attention. Most of it felt distant, trivial, like a foreign language I no longer cared to understand. My world had shrunk to a manageable, quiet size.

Then, a name flashed. A familiar handle. A name I hadn't seen, or tried not to see, in three years.

Krystal Peck.

My breath hitched. It was a physical jolt, like someone had punched me in the stomach. My eyes, which had been skimming, locked onto the post. It was a picture, first, of Krystal, radiant and smug, draped in silk, a diamond necklace glittering at her throat. A necklace I recognized. My design. My engagement gift from Derek.

Then, the caption. My stomach dropped.

Krystal had just gone viral. Her post was a sickening confession, wrapped in a veneer of triumph. She bragged. Not subtly, not indirectly. Bragged with raw, unbridled malice about how she had "saved" Derek from me. From my family. From my "toxic" influence.

She detailed how she had "advised" Derek. Advised him to delay the ransom payment. Advised him that my family was better off without me. That I was a liability. A burden.

The words swam before my eyes, each one a fresh cut. Delay. Ransom. Liability.

Three years ago, those words had meant something very different. Three years ago, they had been the prelude to weeks of brutal, dehumanizing torture. They had been the reason I was publicly shamed, then locked away in a psychiatric hospital. Krystal' s post wasn' t just a memory; it was a cruel, delayed provocation, a victory lap danced on my grave.

She wasn' t just detailing her manipulation. She was celebrating it. Celebrating the choice that led to my broken body, my shattered mind. She even mentioned the "difficult but necessary decision" to have me committed, presenting it as an act of mercy, a way to "protect" Derek' s future.

And then, the kicker. A line that made my coffee cup slip, thankfully catching it before it fell. "Look at us now, Derek and I. Stronger than ever. Proving that true love and ambition always find a way."

True love. Ambition. My mind reeled. It was a pre-meditated, calculated humiliation, timed to perfection. A cruel "I told you so."

The post had thousands of comments. Heart emojis, fire emojis, "Queen!" and "Goals!" plastered everywhere. It was pinned to the top of her profile, a glittering testament to her audacity.

I looked at the picture again. The necklace. It lay perfectly on her collarbone, a custom piece Derek had commissioned for me, a delicate silver vine with tiny, intricate leaves. I had sketched that design myself, a symbol of growth and resilience. Now, it was hers. A trophy.

Her caption continued, "He was always destined for greatness. I just helped him see that some dead weight needed to be shed." Dead weight. That was me. "And some white-gloved pretenders needed a reality check." That was my family.

She recounted their "struggles" together, building their empire. The public knew the story of Derek Garcia, the self-made titan who rose from the ashes of a scandal, propelled by his brilliant assistant, Krystal Peck. They didn't know the ashes were me. The story she told omitted the ransom money. Omitted the fact that my family' s fortune was the bedrock of his "self-made" empire. Omitted the fact that I was still chained, starving, and beaten while he was cutting ribbons.

A soft chime from the adoption center door. It was almost time for Lily. My sanctuary. My reason.

My fingers, still trembling, scrolled further down the comments. Someone had found an old article. A grainy picture. Me. Pre-kidnapping. Pre-torture. Pre-psych ward. Happy. Smiling. Standing next to Derek, my hand resting on his arm, the silver vine shimmering at my neck.

Then, another image. A still from a news report, taken days after my "escape." My face, bruised and swollen, my eyes wide with terror, wrapped in a thin blanket. Next to it, Krystal, impeccably dressed, her arm linked through Derek' s, a look of serene concern on her face. A stark, brutal contrast. The comments below that image were a mix of pity for "the poor heiress who snapped" and praise for "the strong woman who stood by her man."

The humiliation. It was a ghost that never truly left, always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce. It had been broadcast to the world, a public spectacle of my undoing. And now, Krystal was replaying it, frame by sickening frame.

My vision blurred. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the images, the memories. I needed to breathe. I needed to focus. Lily.

The post, Krystal's evil ode to her ambition, vanished from my screen. Deleted. The virality had probably caught up to her. Or perhaps Derek, ever the image sculptor, had intervened.

But before I could even process the sudden disappearance, my phone buzzed with an unfamiliar notification. A message. From an unknown number.

It was just one word.

"Heather?"

My heart did a painful flip in my chest. That single, soft inquiry. It was a name, spoken not by a stranger, but by someone who knew me intimately. Only one person had ever called me that, with that particular inflection, that particular possessiveness.

Derek.

I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the delete button. The message felt like a phantom limb, reaching out from a past I had painstakingly amputated. It felt like a betrayal, even now. Like a ghost trying to drag me back into its haunted house.

It was too late. All of it. Too late for apologies, too late for explanations, too late for whatever twisted form of redemption he might be seeking. The peace I had built, brick by painful brick, was too precious to risk.

My thumb came down. The message disappeared. Along with it, a faint, lingering echo of a world I no longer belonged to. I tightened my grip on the coffee cup, then forced myself to stand, to walk towards the bustling entrance where Lily would soon emerge. The past was a foreign country, and I had no desire to visit its ruins. Not anymore. I had a daughter to pick up. A present to live. A future to protect.