Introduction

For three years, I poured every ounce of myself into Liam's tech dream, working multiple jobs to keep a roof over our heads.

Tonight was the night I'd finally tell him my own life-altering secret: I was Ava Vance, the long-lost, presumed-dead heiress to the colossal Sterling-Vance empire.

I believed in him, utterly.

But he didn't walk in alone.

He arrived with a stunning, polished woman named Chloe, arm-in-arm, and then dropped the bomb: she was his fiancée, and her father was his lead investor.

He looked at me, his eyes cold and dismissive.

"I'm leaving you," he stated flatly, then mocked our entire relationship, calling me just a "housekeeper" and an "embarrassment."

When Chloe spilled wine on herself, Liam forced me to my knees to apologize to her like a maid.

The ultimate betrayal came when he returned later, poisoned me to destroy my voice, and dragged my limp body into our cold, damp basement dungeon to keep me quiet.

From my prison, I overheard them coldly plotting to frame me as delusional and commit me to a psychiatric hospital forever.

The man I had loved and sacrificed everything for was a monster, systematically ripping away my very existence.

Every lie, every calculated cruelty, twisted into a horrifying full picture.

But they seriously underestimated the woman they thought they'd silenced.

Just as two thugs came to haul me away, I found the strength to activate the emergency beacon hidden in my Sterling-Vance necklace.

They believed I was a "lost cause," but they were about to face the terrifying wrath of the Sterling-Vance empire.