Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered was the searing heat, a pain so absolute it burned away thought, leaving only a raw, screaming nerve. Mark' s face floated above me, twisted not with concern, but with a cold, triumphant sneer. Chloe was beside him, her arm linked through his, her expression a perfect mirror of his contempt.

"Thanks to you, I had the perfect seed money," Mark' s voice echoed in the cavern of my memory, a venomous whisper against the roar of boiling oil. "You' re useless now. Don' t stand in the way of my and Chloe' s empire!"

Then came the push. My world dissolved into an agony I couldn't have imagined, a final, horrifying baptism of fire.

It had all started with a different fire, six months earlier. I was Ava Miller, a chef whose only dream was poured into the walls of my restaurant, "The Gilded Spoon." I had just received a local award, a confirmation that my years of relentless work were paying off. I drove to the restaurant that night with a bottle of champagne, ready to celebrate with my staff.

But I was met with towering orange flames and thick, black smoke clawing at the night sky. Firefighters shouted, hoses snaked across the pavement, and a barrier of yellow tape kept a horrified crowd at bay.

"My husband! My husband is inside!" I screamed, pushing against the tape, my mind blank with terror. "Mark Davis! And his protégé, Chloe White! They were having a meeting!"

Then, through the smoke, a figure emerged, coughing and stumbling. It was Mark. He collapsed into my arms, his face smudged with soot.

"Ava," he gasped, clinging to me. "I couldn' t get to Chloe... the roof came down. I had to choose. I chose you."

His words, his desperate, soot-stained face, shattered the wall of resentment that had grown between us. His ambition, his cutting reviews that felt more like attacks than critiques, his emotional distance-it all melted away in that single, selfless declaration. He chose me. He still loved me.

The Gilded Spoon was a total loss, a pile of ash and debt. I was destroyed, but Mark was my rock. He held me as I cried, whispering plans for a new future.

"This is a sign, Ava," he said, his voice smooth and convincing. "We' re meant for something bigger. New York. A fresh start. We' ll open the most talked-about restaurant in the city. Together."

Believing in our rekindled love, I let him guide me. I drained my life savings, every penny I had. I spent weeks preparing business plans, meeting with loan officers, and leveraging the last of my reputation to secure a massive loan. I signed everything over to the joint venture Mark had created. I worked tirelessly, fueled by the promise of our shared dream.

Six months later, with our New York plans solidifying, I received a package. It was a small, unassuming cardboard box. Inside, nestled in cotton, was a severed human finger, a man' s wedding band still on it. Mark' s wedding band.

My blood ran cold. A note, typed in stark block letters, lay underneath.

"YOUR HUSBAND MADE SOME BAD INVESTMENTS. $1 MILLION TO COVER HIS FAILURE, OR THE NEXT PACKAGE WILL BE HIS HEAD."

Panic seized me. I called the number on the note, my hand shaking so badly I could barely press the digits. A distorted voice answered, flat and merciless. They wanted the money in a week.

I didn't call the police. The note had warned me not to. Desperate, I began a frantic campaign to raise the money. I borrowed from my parents, from old friends, from anyone who would listen to my panicked pleas. I sold my car. I took on three grueling jobs, working nearly 20 hours a day, my body screaming in protest, my mind a frayed wire of terror.

I managed to scrape together $300,000. It wasn' t enough, but it was all I had. I called the number again, begging for more time, promising I would get the rest.

The voice on the other end was quiet for a moment. Then it said, with chilling finality, "Too late. Your husband is dead."

The world fell out from under me. The grief was a physical blow, but I had no time to process it. The next day, two men in a black van grabbed me off the street. They were the creditors. They told me Mark' s debt was now my debt.

They forced me into a dark, terrifying world of human trafficking. I was a commodity, sold and used to pay off a debt that was never mine. I was starved, beaten, broken. My spirit withered until I was just a ghost in a body that no longer felt like my own.

Near death, in a filthy warehouse that smelled of decay, they brought me before their leader. And standing beside him, looking healthy and impossibly smug, were Mark and Chloe.

The sight of them, alive and together, didn't register at first. My mind couldn't bridge the gap between my grief and this impossible reality.

Mark just smiled. It was a slow, cruel smile that I now understood completely.

"Ava, Ava, Ava," he said, his voice dripping with condescending pity. "Always so trusting. There were no bad investments. There were no creditors. Just me."

He gestured to the men around us. "These are my new business partners."

Chloe stepped forward, her eyes glittering with malice. "That $300,000 you scraped together? A lovely little bonus. But the loan you secured for our 'New York venture' ? That was the real prize."

It was then I saw the large industrial vat behind them, steam rising from its surface. The acrid smell of boiling oil finally hit me.

"Thanks to you, I had the perfect seed money," Mark sneered, his words a direct echo from the nightmare that was my life. He stepped toward me, his face a mask of pure evil. "You' re useless now. Don' t stand in the way of my and Chloe' s empire!"

He shoved me. Hard.

And I fell, screaming, into the scalding, liquid fire. My world exploded into pure, white-hot agony.

Then, nothing.

Until I smelled smoke. A different smoke. Wood, not oil. I felt a familiar heat, not scalding, but baking. My eyes snapped open.

I was on the floor of my burning restaurant, The Gilded Spoon.