Chapter 2

The world tilted on its axis. The noise of the club, the smell of smoke, the sight of the money-it all faded into a roaring in Ava's ears.

Liam.

The Gambler.

They were the same person.

The revelation didn't crash down on her like a wave; it seeped into her bones like ice water, a slow, creeping paralysis. Her mind frantically tried to reject it, to find some other explanation. But there was no other explanation. There he was, whole and healthy, lounging like a king in a palace built on her suffering.

"What... what is this?" Ava's voice was a hoarse whisper, barely audible.

Scarlett laughed, a sound that was both beautiful and cruel. She ran a perfectly manicured finger down Liam's chest.

"It's exactly what it looks like, sweetie. You've been funding our little life here. And for that, we thank you."

Liam's smirk widened. He looked Ava up and down, his gaze lingering on her worn-out dress, her thin frame, her pale face. It was the look of a man inspecting a piece of property, and it made her skin crawl.

"I have to admit, you've been more... resilient than I expected," Liam said. "A true workhorse. But a stand-in is just a stand-in. You could never be the real thing."

He gestured toward Scarlett. "This is my Scarlett. The woman a man builds an empire for."

The woman... who looked so much like her. It was a twisted, funhouse-mirror version. The same dark hair, but styled perfectly. The same eye shape, but expertly lined with makeup. The same bone structure, but with a healthy, well-fed glow that Ava hadn't seen on her own face in years. He had found a replacement, a polished and perfect upgrade.

Ava's mind flashed back. Four years of hell. The gut-wrenching decision to sell her father's comics, his only legacy. The shame of begging for high-interest loans. The humiliation of the loan sharks banging on her door, terrorizing her and Leo. The endless, exhausting shifts at the diner and cleaning offices. Her hands, perpetually chapped and sore. Her body, weak and aching.

All of it. For him. For this.

So he could sit here with this woman, dripping in gold, surrounded by the money she had bled for.

"The torture video..." Ava choked out the words. "You were screaming."

Liam chuckled. "Special effects are a wonderful thing. A little makeup, some good acting. I've always been a performer, you know that."

He had always been a performer. The charming artist who swept her off her feet. The devoted husband. The desperate, tortured victim. It was all a role. And she had been his most devoted audience.

Then, a new, more horrifying thought pierced through the fog of her shock.

"The blood," she said, her voice trembling with a dawning, sickening realization. "You said you needed blood. Our blood type... it was for you."

Liam's expression shifted. The smirk faded, replaced by a flicker of irritation. It was Scarlett who answered, her voice dripping with condescending pity.

"Oh, you poor thing. Did you really believe that?" She leaned forward, her eyes glinting. "The blood wasn't for him, darling. It was for me."

Scarlett held up her arm, showing a faint, almost invisible scar on the inside of her elbow.

"I have a very rare blood type. And a delicate constitution," she said with a sigh. "Sometimes I need a little... top-up. And Liam, being the wonderful man he is, found a perfect, compatible donor. A walking blood bank, really."

A walking blood bank.

The words echoed in the silent, screaming space of Ava's mind.

She thought of the dizzy spells. The constant fatigue that went bone-deep. The times she nearly fainted at work. The nurses at the clinic who told her she needed to rest, to eat more iron. She had pushed it all aside, telling herself it was for Liam's survival.

But it was for her. This woman. This replacement.

She had been draining her own life force, twice a week, to keep Liam's mistress healthy and glowing.

Her gaze fell on the stacks of cash on the floor. Her money. The money that should have gone to Leo's doctors, to a better apartment, to food that wasn't stale bread and instant noodles. It was here, being used as a footstool by the woman who was stealing her life's blood.

Ava looked back at Liam, searching his face for any sign of the man she thought she had married. There was nothing. Just a cold, calculating stranger.

"Leo," she whispered, the name a prayer and a curse. "Our son. He's sick, Liam. He's been sick for four years."

Liam waved a dismissive hand.

"Children get sick. It's inconvenient, I know. But you're a strong woman, Ava. You've handled it."

Handled it.

The word was so casual, so utterly devoid of feeling. He spoke of their son's constant struggle for health as if it were a minor household chore she was responsible for. He had never once asked about Leo in his desperate phone calls. Not his first steps, not his first words, not the fevers that left him gasping for air in the middle of the night. His only interest in their son was as an extension of her, another tool to be used.

The love she had felt for him, the desperate, all-consuming love that had driven her for four years, curdled into something black and bitter. It was a foul taste in her mouth. She felt like a fool. A used, broken, discarded fool.

Her sacrifices weren't noble. They were pathetic. Her devotion wasn't love. It was a sickness.

He hadn't been a victim. He was the monster. He wasn't The Gambler's prisoner. He was The Gambler.

And she had been his greatest gamble, the one he had bet on and won, over and over again.