Chapter 1

Liam once gave me the world, he bought an entire private island and named it 'Ava's Isle' just because I once mentioned I liked the sunset there. He acquired a failing art gallery, renovated it, and filled it with only my paintings for my first solo exhibition, ensuring every major critic in the country was there to see it. He learned to bake my favorite lemon tarts, a secret family recipe I never shared, by hiring a private detective to track down my great-aunt in Italy.

His love was a grand, sweeping force, so powerful it felt like the only solid thing in my life, a devotion so extreme it bordered on obsession, and I mistook it for safety. It was a beautiful, gilded cage, and I didn't see the bars until it was too late.

The balance of our perfect world shattered on a Tuesday afternoon. I was in the nursery, rocking our six-month-old son, Leo, to sleep. Liam walked in, his face pale, his usual warm smile gone. He didn't look at me or our son, his eyes were fixed on a point somewhere over my shoulder.

"Chloe is pregnant," he said, the words dropping into the quiet room like stones.

I froze, my hand stilling on Leo' s back. "What? Chloe? Your sister?"

"She's my adopted sister," he corrected me automatically, his voice cold and distant. "And yes. She says the child is mine."

The words didn't make sense. Chloe, the sweet, doe-eyed girl who followed Liam around, the aspiring influencer whose feed was full of inspirational quotes and demure selfies. The girl who called me 'sis' and always complimented my art, even when her eyes held a flicker of something else.

"Liam, that's impossible," I whispered, my voice trembling. "It's a lie. She' s manipulating you."

"It doesn't matter if it's a lie or not," he said, finally looking at me, and the man I knew was gone, replaced by a stranger with eyes of ice. "What matters is that she believes it, and she's threatening to go to the press. A scandal like that would ruin me, but more importantly, it would destroy her. I won't let that happen."

His cold logic was a slap in the face. He wasn't worried about our marriage, about me, about the son sleeping in my arms. He was worried about protecting Chloe.

"So what are you going to do?" I asked, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach.

"You are going to help," he stated, not asked. "Chloe needs to disappear from the public eye for a while. She'll move in here, and you will help me create the illusion that you are the one who is pregnant again. We will stage a tragic miscarriage later, and by then, Chloe will have 'given the baby up for adoption.' No one will ever know."

I stared at him, horrified. "You want me to lie? To pretend to be pregnant to cover up your... your affair?"

"There was no affair," he snapped. "And you will do this. For Chloe." He took a step closer, his shadow falling over me and Leo. His voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. "Or what, Ava? You'll leave me? Take my son? Don't forget, I have the best lawyers in the world. I can make it so you never see Leo again. I can paint you as an unstable, struggling artist, an unfit mother. I built your career, I can tear it down with a single phone call. Who do you think a judge will believe?"

He gestured to our son, sleeping so peacefully, completely unaware that his father was using him as a weapon against his mother. "He looks so fragile, doesn't he? It would be a shame if he had to grow up without his mother. Or worse, if something happened to him in a messy custody battle." The threat was clear, monstrous in its casual cruelty. He would take my son, my life, my everything, all to protect Chloe.

Tears streamed down my face as I clutched Leo tighter. "Liam, please," I begged, my voice cracking. "This isn't you. Think about us. Think about our son. I love you. Remember the gallery? The island? You said you loved me." I was searching for the man who had wooed me, the man who had promised me forever.

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable, but there was no warmth, no flicker of the love I was so desperately trying to find. "That man is gone, Ava," he said flatly. "There is only Chloe now. She needs me. You will do as I say." He turned and walked out of the nursery, leaving me shivering in the cold reality of his betrayal. My heart didn't just break, it disintegrated. The man I married was a facade, and the real Liam was a monster loyal only to his twisted obsession with his adopted sister.

A month later, Leo fell ill. It started with a simple fever, but it quickly grew worse. The doctors diagnosed a severe respiratory infection and prescribed a course of strong antibiotics. I administered his medication religiously, sitting by his crib day and night, praying for his fever to break. But he only got weaker. His small body struggled for every breath. Chloe, living with us now, would often come into the nursery, offering to help, her face a mask of sweet concern. She would hold the medicine dropper, telling me to get some rest, her touch gentle and reassuring. I, exhausted and desperate, let her.

One night, I was watching the baby monitor from the kitchen when I saw Chloe creep into Leo' s room. She thought he was asleep. I watched, my blood turning to ice, as she took the medicine bottle, emptied a small amount into the sink, and topped it up with water from the tap. She was diluting his life-saving medication.

I screamed and ran, shoving her away from the crib. "What did you do?" I shrieked, my hands shaking as I grabbed the bottle.

Liam ran in, drawn by the noise. Chloe immediately burst into tears, collapsing against him. "Liam, she's going crazy! She accused me of trying to hurt Leo! I was just checking on him!"

"I saw you!" I sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at her. "I saw you watering down his medicine! You're trying to kill my son!"

"Ava, that's enough!" Liam's voice was like a whip crack. He held the crying Chloe, glaring at me as if I were the monster. "She's pregnant and fragile. You're upsetting her. You're exhausted and not thinking straight. Go to bed."

He dismissed my frantic accusations without a second thought, his loyalty completely and blindingly with Chloe. He wouldn't believe me. No one would. Two days later, my son, my sweet, innocent Leo, died in my arms in a cold, sterile hospital room. The official cause was complications from the infection, the antibiotics just weren't strong enough. A devastating, crushing weight of grief fell over me, so heavy I could barely breathe. I had failed to protect him.

The night after the funeral, I couldn't sleep. The house was a tomb, silent and suffocating. I walked past Liam's study and heard his voice, low and gentle. I pressed my ear to the door, my heart a dead weight in my chest. He was on the phone with Chloe.

"Don't cry, sweetheart," he was murmuring. "Everything will be okay. I'll take care of you. I know it's hard, but soon it will all be over, and we can be a proper family. I love you, Chloe. I've always loved you."

The words were a final, bitter poison. He had never spoken to me with such tenderness, not even when our son was dying. My grief curdled into a cold, hard knot of despair. There was no justice here, no love left for me. Only pain. An endless, unbearable ocean of pain. I walked to my art studio, the one he had built for me, and found the contact information for my old friend, Dr. Ben, a therapist who specialized in experimental trauma treatments. I sent him a single text: I need to forget. Everything. The decision was clear and sharp in my mind. If I couldn't escape the man, I would escape the memories. I would erase him, and Chloe, and the unbearable memory of my son's cold hand in mine. I would burn it all from my mind.