Chapter 4

Aliana POV:

The café was a dive, the kind of place with sticky tables and the lingering smell of stale coffee. In a secluded back booth, I slid the USB drive across the table to Debi.

"This is everything," I said.

She watched me, her impassive lawyer's mask firmly in place, as I laid out the entire five-year lie. The secret family. The gallery funded by my father. The plan to pass Leo off as our adopted son.

When I finished, her professional mask crumbled. Shock hardened into a righteous fury that mirrored my own.

"They will burn for this, Aliana," she swore, her voice low and vicious. "We'll take them for everything they have."

I shook my head. The movement was small, but absolute. "I don't want their money, Debi. I don't want anything from them." My voice was devoid of emotion, a flat line. "I want a clean break. I want to erase them."

Debi stared at me, understanding dawning in her eyes. She saw it then. This wasn't about revenge. It was about erasure. My own.

"I found something else," she said, her tone shifting. She slid a file across the table. "Ivan has a standing monthly prescription. A powerful, fast-acting sedative, purchased through a shell pharmacy owned by a Donovan associate."

The words hung in the air. The nights I'd felt unwell and slept for twelve hours straight. The weekends I was too fatigued to leave the house. The holidays I'd slept through.

It wasn't illness. It was a conspiracy.

I was being drugged. By my own husband. With the blessing of my own parents. So they could play happy family with Kiera and Leo.

Debi's face was grim. Her next words landed like stones. "They were going to drug you on your birthday, Aliana. So he could take the boy to the park without any questions."

And just like that, the final piece clicked into place. The tea. The special tea my mother always made me when I was 'stressed.'

A strange, cold smile touched my lips. "Then let them."

Debi's eyes widened.

"Let them play out their little scene one last time," I said. "And then I'll be gone."

An hour later, back in Debi's pristine office, the plan took its final, irrevocable shape. I signed the divorce papers. Then I signed the document Debi had drafted, renouncing the Donovan name and all claims to the family fortune, present and future. It was a legal suicide.

Under the name Hope Andersen, I booked a one-way flight to Portland, Oregon. For this evening. My birthday.

When I returned to the mansion, the gilded cage, Ivan was at his laptop in the study. He quickly minimized a screen when I walked in, but not before I saw it. The VIP services page for the Starlight Amusement Park.

A moment later, a text flashed on his phone, which he'd left face-up on the desk. A message from my mother.

Everything is set. Can't wait to celebrate Leo's big day!

That night, I lay in my bed alone, the space beside me a cold, empty void. I felt no grief. No anger. Only the vast, terrifying freedom that comes with absolute loneliness.

The girl who wanted a family was gone. In her place was a woman who was about to un-make one.