Chapter 1

"Stop, Jocelyn. Please, don't go."

I grabbed her arm, my voice tight. The lavish decorations for our engagement party, the ones I spent weeks planning, felt like a joke. White roses and fairy lights meant nothing now.

"Let go of me, Ethan."

Jocelyn's voice was ice. She didn't even look at me. Her eyes were fixed on the black SUV waiting at the end of the long gravel driveway of her family's ranch.

"It's our party. Everyone is here. For us."

"Matthew collapsed," she said, ripping her arm from my grasp. "He's in the hospital. I have to be there."

"I'll go with you. We'll go together, after we..."

She finally turned to look at me, and her expression was pure contempt. It was a look I knew well.

"You? Why would I want you there? You're my charity case, Ethan. A stray I picked up. Do you really think you compare to Matthew?"

Her words were sharp, meant to cut. They always were.

"You're a lapdog I keep around because it's convenient. Now be a good dog and stay."

She snapped her fingers. Two of her family's security staff, men built like refrigerators, stepped forward. They each took one of my arms, their grips like steel vices.

I struggled, but it was useless. "Jocelyn, don't do this."

She just laughed, a sound completely empty of warmth. "Don't make a scene. It's pathetic."

She turned and walked away, her designer dress swishing as she hurried to the car. She didn't look back once. She left me standing there, restrained at our own engagement party, like a common criminal.

As the SUV's taillights disappeared down the road, a cold, synthetic voice echoed in my mind, a voice only I could hear.

[Objective Failure: Secure Jocelyn Chadwick's commitment.]

[Subject has abandoned the final checkpoint.]

[Protocol initiated: Memory Wipe Sequence. Countdown: 3 hours.]

My body went limp in the guards' hold. The fight was over. It was all over.