Chapter 1

Ethan Miller stared at the unsigned contract. Federal Witness Protection. A new name, a new life, a ghost existence. All to burn down the Blanchard family and Mayor Thompson, the men who had ordered his father' s murder. David Miller, investigative journalist, silenced on the verge of exposing their city-wide smuggling ring. The cost of this path was everything. His career as an architect, his name, his past.

And Ava.

He had to erase Ethan Miller, and by extension, erase Ava Chennault from his life. It was the only way to keep the Blanchards' veiled threats against her from becoming real.

This was his commitment. A perilous, life-altering mission. His old life would be ash.

The weight of it settled in his chest, heavy and cold.

He drove back to the small apartment he still shared with Ava, a place once filled with music and laughter, now a mausoleum of what was. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open.

Sounds drifted from the bedroom. Ava' s soft laugh, then a deeper, male murmur. Julian Boudreaux. His childhood friend.

It wasn' t the first time. It had become a pattern, a soundtrack to his private hell.

He stood in the dim living room, the unsigned contract a lead weight in his jacket pocket. Humiliation, sharp and bitter, rose in his throat. He was a ghost in his own home, witnessing his own replacement.

Ava emerged from the bedroom, her silk robe loosely tied. Julian followed, a smug look on his face that Ethan wanted to wipe off.

She saw Ethan. Her eyes, once warm for him, turned to ice.

"Oh, you' re here," she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

She walked to her purse, pulled out a wad of cash, and threw it on the coffee table.

"For your services. Now get out. We want to be alone."

The money lay there, a stark symbol of his perceived worth in her eyes now. A paid servant. A discarded lover.

The command was demeaning. The gesture, a physical expression of her contempt.

Ethan' s jaw tightened. He ignored the money.

"Ava, why him? Why Julian?"

His voice was quiet, a stark contrast to the storm inside him. He needed to understand, even though understanding wouldn' t change his path. It was a question about their shared past, the love they had, the betrayal she felt.

Ava laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "Why Julian? He' s here. He' s kind. He' s not a sellout who abandoned everything for money and ambition."

The words were designed to wound, and they did. Each one a reminder of the facade he' d so carefully constructed.

A memory, unbidden, flashed through Ethan' s mind. New Orleans, years ago. College. Ava, her dark hair flying, laughing as they ran through a sudden downpour in the French Quarter. Her music, his designs, their dreams intertwined. They were the golden couple, their passion a bright, burning thing everyone admired. Their apartment then, a tiny, vibrant space, always filled with her melodies and his blueprints.

Then the shadow fell. His father, David, getting too close to the Blanchards. The first, subtle threats. Then the explicit ones, mentioning Ava.

The day he broke up with her. He remembered the confusion in her eyes, the way her hand trembled when he told her he was taking a job with a construction firm known as a Blanchard front. He' d painted himself as ruthless, ambitious, a man she no longer knew. He' d seen the heartbreak shatter her face.

She' d followed him that day, desperate for an explanation, her car swerving. Then the screech of tires, the sickening crunch. A hit-and-run. Orchestrated by the Blanchards, a more direct warning.

He saw her in the hospital, pale and broken. The doctors said she needed a rare, complex surgery, a specialized organ transplant. A kidney. Her life hung in the balance.

He was a match.

He didn' t hesitate. His inheritance from his father, every last cent, went to anonymously cover the astronomical medical bills, the best surgeons, the private care. And under the tightest secrecy, arranged through contacts his father had cultivated, contacts who owed David Miller, Ethan became her anonymous donor. He gave a part of himself, literally, to save her. He woke up in a different hospital, pain searing his side, a piece of him gone, given to her so she might live. He did it under the duress of her impending death, his love for her overriding every other instinct except the need to protect her life.

The full truth, the reason for it all, was a horror he kept locked away. His father hadn' t just been threatened; he' d been brutally murdered. A message. Ethan had found him. The image was seared into his brain. The Blanchards thought they' d silenced the Millers. They didn' t know Ethan had copies of his father' s most critical files, the ones David had entrusted to him days before his death. He was the sole witness to their ultimate depravity, the only one left to carry the torch. That was why he had to become a monster in Ava' s eyes, to push her away, to keep her safe while he dismantled the empire that had destroyed his family and threatened hers.

Now, in their once-shared living room, Ava' s eyes were full of contempt.

"Why did you do it, Ethan? Why did you throw us away for them?" Her voice was softer now, a genuine question beneath the anger.

He looked at her, at the pain he had caused, a necessary pain to shield her from a greater one. He could end her suffering with a few words, tell her the truth. But the Blanchards were always listening, always watching. Her life was still on the line.

He hardened his expression, letting the villainous mask settle.

"I told you. Money. Power. You wouldn' t understand."

He chose her hatred. It was a bitter pill, but it was safer for her. He saw the last flicker of hope die in her eyes, replaced by a cold, hard certainty of his corruption.

It was a sacrifice he had to keep making, every single day.