Chapter 2

Ethan never showed.

Instead, a man in a sharp suit did, one of Ethan' s army of lawyers, I presumed. He handled my discharge with quiet efficiency, offering me a hotel suite, a car, a credit card with no limit. Everything but the man himself.

I refused it all, except the car keys.

The doctors protested, they said my body was weak, that I needed observation, physical therapy. I ignored them. Every cell in my body screamed one name.

Lily.

I got in the car, a new model with a dashboard that glowed and a silent engine, and I drove. The city was different, taller, shinier, but the roads were the same. I knew the way to Blackwood Preparatory, the school Ethan and I had picked out for Lily when she was just a toddler, dreaming of a future we thought we would share.

As I pulled up to the ornate iron gates, I saw them.

A knot of teenagers, their expensive uniforms crisp, were gathered near the entrance. They were laughing, a cruel, sharp sound.

In the center of their circle was a girl.

She was thin, with long, dark hair that fell over her face, hiding it from view. She clutched her books to her chest like a shield, her shoulders hunched as the others shoved her, not hard enough to knock her over, just enough to be humiliating.

I felt a strange, painful tug in my chest.

Something about the way she stood, the fragile line of her neck, was so deeply familiar it hurt.

I killed the engine and got out of the car, my legs unsteady. I stayed by the school wall, watching from a distance, a cold dread coiling in my gut.

One girl seemed to be the ringleader. She had blonde hair, a condescending smirk, and a designer handbag that probably cost more than my first car.

She stepped forward and snatched a book from the girl' s arms, letting it fall open into a muddy puddle.

"Oops," the blonde girl said with a fake gasp. "Clumsy me."

The other teens laughed louder.

The girl with the dark hair didn' t say a word. She just bent down to pick up her ruined book.

That' s when the blonde bully leaned in, her voice low but carrying on the afternoon air.

"You know, my mom says your dad only keeps you around out of pity. A sad little reminder of his dead wife."

The girl froze, her hand hovering over the book.

The blonde smirked, enjoying the effect of her words.

"Face it, Lily. Your mom' s dead, and your dad wishes you were too. Soon he' ll marry my mom, and I' ll be the daughter of this house. You' ll be nothing."

Lily.

The name hit me like a physical blow. It sucked the air from my lungs.

My Lily. My baby.

The world went red.

The confusion, the fear, the fifteen years of lost time-it all burned away, incinerated by a single, volcanic blast of rage.

This was my child. And they were hurting her.

I didn' t run. I didn' t shout.

My actions were cold, precise.

I walked toward them.

The teenagers, caught up in their sport, didn' t notice me until I was right there. I moved through their circle as if they were ghosts, my eyes locked on the blonde girl who was still sneering down at my daughter.

I reached out and my hand closed around her wrist.

Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with surprise and annoyance.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

My grip tightened. I could feel the delicate bones under her skin.

For the first time in fifteen years, I felt a flicker of my old self, the woman who built an empire from nothing, the woman who never, ever backed down.

And she was furious.