Chapter 1

The heavy glass of the award clattered against the marble floor, the sound echoing in the cavernous, empty office. It didn' t shatter. It just lay there, a testament to its own durability, much like Ava had once thought she was.

Victor Thorne kicked it with the toe of his expensive leather shoe, sending it skittering across the polished surface until it hit the far wall with a dull thud.

"Is this what you were crying over? This piece of junk?"

He loomed over her, a tall, dark shadow against the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Three days. In three days, her company, 'Nexus,' would officially cease to exist. He had forced her to sign the dissolution papers an hour ago, his hand guiding hers with cruel pressure.

Ava didn' t look up from the floor where she sat, her back pressed against a cold metal desk leg. Her body ached with a fatigue that went deeper than muscle, settling into her bones. This was the final blow in a war that had lasted four years. A war she had lost from the very beginning.

"It wasn' t junk," she whispered, her voice raw. "We won that at the innovation summit."

Victor laughed, a short, ugly sound. "Innovation? You call that little app innovation? It was a toy."

He crouched down in front of her, his movements fluid and predatory. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. His eyes, the color of a stormy sea, held no warmth, only a chilling satisfaction.

"You' re pathetic, Ava. Crying over a dead company when you should be thanking me. I' m the one who keeps your mother' s experimental treatments funded. I' m the one keeping your father from rotting in a supermax prison."

Each word was a deliberate, calculated strike. He was reminding her of the chains that bound her to him. Her father, Dr. Miller, a brilliant inventor, framed for corporate espionage. Her mother, wasting away, kept alive only by a thread of hope that Victor controlled. This was why she had married him. This was why she had endured.

Celeste Dubois, Victor' s glamorous business rival and very public lover, strolled into the office. She stopped a few feet away, a perfectly manicured hand on her hip, a smug smile playing on her lips. She was the reason for this. To appease her, to prove his loyalty in their latest joint venture, he had demanded Ava destroy her own creation.

"Having a little moment, are we?" Celeste' s voice was like honey laced with poison. "Don' t be so dramatic, Ava. It was just a startup. They fail all the time. Now Victor can give you a job in one of his marketing departments. You' d be good at fetching coffee."

The humiliation was a physical thing, a hot flush that spread up Ava' s neck. She looked from Celeste' s triumphant face to Victor' s cold one. He didn' t defend her. He didn' t even look at her. His gaze was fixed on Celeste, a silent confirmation of their alliance.

Ava' s mind flashed back through the years of torment. The public shaming at galas, where Victor would praise Celeste' s achievements while dismissing Ava as a decorative wife. The canceled contracts and smeared articles that sabotaged every professional attempt she made. The escape attempts, each one ending in recapture and a new, more inventive form of punishment. She remembered the first night, their wedding night, when he had left her alone in their massive, cold suite after telling her exactly what her life would be: a living payment for her father' s sins.

She had fought. For four years, she had fought, schemed, and tried to find a way out. But he was always one step ahead, his network of influence a suffocating web. Now, looking at the dead award on the floor, she felt the last bit of fight drain out of her. There was nothing left to struggle for. He had taken everything.

Victor stood up, pulling her to her feet with a rough tug on her arm. His grip was painfully tight.

"Look at you," he sneered, his eyes raking over her disheveled form. For a split second, a flicker of something unreadable crossed his face as he noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hand trembled. It was gone as quickly as it came.

His anger returned, hotter than before. "You think this is pain? My parents died because of your father. My dreams were destroyed. I had to build this empire from their ashes, in a world of shadows and spies that I never wanted. What you' re feeling now is just a fraction of the interest on your family' s debt."

He shoved her towards the door, his hand still clamped on her arm. "Get up. We' re leaving. Celeste and I have a dinner to get to."

The words were a dismissal, a final confirmation of her irrelevance. As he pushed her out of the office, the office that had been her only sanctuary, her only piece of herself, she didn' t resist. The physical pain in her arm was nothing compared to the vast, empty void that had opened up inside her. He was right. She was pathetic. And she was done fighting.

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