Introduction

I married into the Sterling family, only to find myself alone on my wedding night, my husband, Mark Sterling, nowhere to be found. When he finally returned, he looked at me with disdain, sneering that I was "all ambition and no class," and admitted he was forced to marry me. My empire, built from nothing, suddenly felt worthless in his eyes.

Days later, I overheard his cruel laughter and words: "Ava? She' s utterly bland. Tasteless, really." My company, the "goldmine" he coveted, was just a means to an end. The last illusion shattered, and I signed the divorce papers I had discreetly prepared, leaving them on his desk as I fled the city.

Five years passed. I returned, a successful CEO of a global tech empire, and found him at a high-profile auction. Mark, arrogant as ever, tried to humiliate me by outbidding me on a car, convinced I was still the penniless woman he had discarded. He dragged me into the dirt, mocked me, and had me beaten for merely existing. The crowd, a chorus of old money and false smiles, reveled in my public humiliation, showering me with insults and even physical abuse.

Why did they believe all his lies? Why was my success met with such venom? Why did they choose to dehumanize a woman they knew nothing about, based solely on his word? I had built an empire, yet in his eyes and the eyes of this city, I was still just "worthless trash" without him.

But they didn't know the truth. They didn't know the power I now wielded, nor the influential man who stood silently by my side. As I lay there, bleeding and bruised, I knew this was just the beginning of my reckoning.