Introduction

The sterile scent of my forensic lab usually brought me comfort, an oasis where I rebuilt lives from bone. Tonight, it felt like a heavy shroud.

As a forensic artist, I was nearing completion on Case 734-a "Jane Doe" skull-when her face, slowly emerging from the clay, tightened my stomach with sickening recognition.

It was Eleanor Blackwood, my fiancé Ryan' s mother, vanished two years ago. I reached for my phone, hand trembling, to tell him the impossible truth: I' d found his missing mother' s remains.

Before I could dial, the lab door creaked open, revealing two ski-masked figures; a primal fear choked me. A foul-smelling cloth descended, and the world went black.

I woke to searing pain, the stench of blood, and pulsing music. My face a swollen mess, I was dragged to a brightly lit stage-a boxing ring built for a depraved spectacle.

Then I saw him, leaning against the ropes: Ryan, my fiancé, laughing, his arm wrapped around Chloe Davis' s waist, kissing her. He swept his eyes over the stage, over me, without a flicker of recognition. To him, I was just "entertainment."

"She' s a forensic artist! Think she can reconstruct her own face after tonight?" someone yelled, their words twisting my life' s purpose into a grotesque joke.

He drunkenly slurred about needing to "blow off steam" before our wedding, then, goaded by Chloe, bought me for ten thousand dollars, his eyes filled with hatred for the "toy" who dared to "disrespect" him.

He paid to destroy the woman carrying his child. And he was proud of it.