Chapter 3

"A divorce?" Mark scoffed, a smirk playing on his lips. "After everything I've done for you, for your family?"

"What you've done?" I felt a bitter laugh escape me. "You mean let me rot in prison for your crimes?"

"Ava, be reasonable," Harold Bishop interjected, his tone patronizing. "Mark saved the company. He saved the family name."

"My name," I shot back, "was dragged through the mud to save his."

I looked at Mark, really looked at him. The man I loved, or thought I loved, was a stranger. Manipulative. Cowardly.

"You promised me, Mark," I said, my voice low, shaking with a rage I hadn't known I possessed. "You stood in that sterile lawyer's office, tears in your eyes, and you swore you'd wait. You swore my sacrifice meant something."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Things change, Ava. Ten years is a long time."

"Ten years I spent on a concrete slab, thinking of you, of us," I said, the memories flooding back. The stench of bleach and despair. The endless, monotonous days. The nights I cried myself to sleep, clutching the faded photo of us from before, when Bishop Developments was just a blueprint and a shared dream.

My architectural genius, they' d called it. I poured my soul into those designs, late nights fueled by coffee and ambition, Mark by my side, or so I thought.

"I designed the foundations of this company, Mark. My ideas, my work. You were the face, the salesman. But the core, the innovation, that was me."

He waved a dismissive hand. "Ancient history, Ava. The company has evolved. I have a team now."

"A team that works off my original concepts," I countered. "The very concepts tied to the Harrison Tower project. The one with the fraudulent permits. Your fraud, Mark. Your embezzlement."

He flinched. "The court decided you were responsible."

"Because you and your parents convinced me to plead guilty!" I was almost shouting now. "You said it was the only way to protect our future. But you were already building a new one with her." I gestured towards Tiffany, who watched with a detached sort of pity.

"I did what I had to do for the legacy," Mark said, puffing his chest out slightly. "My parents deserved grandchildren. The Bishop name needed to continue."

"And my name? The Rodriguez name? What about that?" I looked at my parents.

My mother looked away, tears welling in her eyes.

My father, Carlos, stepped forward, his face flushed. "Ava, enough! Mark has been good to us. He gave Leo a job. He supports us. You are being ungrateful."

Ungrateful.

The word hit me harder than a physical blow.

I had sacrificed my freedom, my career, my reputation, and I was ungrateful.

The depth of their betrayal, his calculated cruelty, it was all so clear.

He hadn't just moved on. He had meticulously erased me while I paid for his sins.

The pain was immense, but beneath it, a cold fury began to solidify.

"I want a divorce, Mark," I repeated, my voice devoid of the earlier tremor. "And I want my share."

"Your share of what?" he sneered. "A prison record?"

"My share of the company I helped build," I said, meeting his gaze. "The company whose crimes I took the blame for."