Chapter 1

My name is Sarah. I remember the cold.

Not the chill of winter, but the cold of a stainless-steel table under my back.

My sons, Michael and Gabriel, they were gone.

Veronica, my husband David's sister, wanted what I had. "Legacy Fertility," they called it. A family trait. My children were almost guaranteed, healthy.

Veronica couldn't give her husband, Senator Harrison, an heir. So she took mine.

She believed their "vital essence," their very life, could help her.

A quack "expert" performed something monstrous on my seven-year-old twins.

I heard their screams. Then silence.

David, my David, led us there. To that abandoned clinic. For his ambition, for Veronica's promise of a better life.

He held me down.

Then it was my turn. They wanted my ovarian tissue. The procedure was brutal, botched.

They left me in that desolate place, bleeding out, my insides torn.

I saw Veronica later, on a flickering news report. Pregnant. Glowing. Senator Harrison at her side, beaming. He never knew.

I died on that filthy floor, a vow of revenge frozen on my lips.

Then, warmth. Sunlight.

My eyes snapped open.

I was in my own bed. The cheap floral comforter, the one I hated.

A small weight on my chest. Michael. His soft breathing. Gabriel was curled beside me, thumb in his mouth.

They were alive. Young. So small.

My hands flew to my stomach. Flat. Not pregnant with John Jr. yet. This was before.

The calendar on the wall. October 14th.

The day. The very day David was supposed to take us to that "family picnic" at the Harrison estate. The start of the end.

The memory slammed into me. The car ride. The way David avoided my eyes. The isolated building deep in the woods.

Veronica's voice, cold and precise, "It's for the family, Sarah. You understand."

David's hand, clamped over my mouth.

The terror in Michael's eyes. Gabriel's small whimper.

The glint of instruments in the dim light.

My heart hammered. This wasn't a dream. This was real. A second chance.

I remembered Veronica, her face triumphant. "The Harrison legacy needs an heir, Sarah. And I will provide one. Your fertility, your children's essence... it will be mine."

She had stood there, watching them experiment on my boys.

David, her younger brother, had been her eager accomplice. He wanted into the Harrison inner circle, a taste of their power. He sold us for it.

I saw it all again. The blood. The pain. My own body, discarded.

Veronica, rising on my family's ashes, her belly swelling with a lie while mine was emptied by her greed.

No. Not again.

This time, I wouldn't just survive. I would take everything she had, everything she wanted.

Her husband. Her position. Her future.

My revenge would be absolute. My children would live.