Chapter 1

The air in the abandoned warehouse was thick with the smell of rust and damp concrete. My arms ached, pulled tight by the zip ties that dug into my wrists. Across from me, Chloe Evans, my fiancé's young and pretty college mentee, was also tied to a chair. Her sobs were quiet and theatrical.

"Please," she whimpered, her wide, innocent eyes fixed on Liam. "Let us go. We'll give you anything."

Liam, my fiancé of ten years, the man I had built a tech empire with, stood pale and trembling before our kidnapper. The man, Marcus, was large and unimpressed. He held a gun with a casualness that was terrifying.

He ignored Chloe and pointed the gun at Liam. "I'm a simple man, Mr. Gallagher. I don't want your money. I want a show."

Liam swallowed hard. "A show?"

"A choice," Marcus corrected, a cruel smile spreading across his face. He gestured with the gun, first toward me, then toward Chloe. "You've got the loyal, brilliant fiancée who helped you build everything. A real partner."

He paused, his eyes lingering on Chloe. "And then you've got the cute, young thing. The one everyone's been whispering about. So, who is it? Who do you want me to save?"

My heart hammered against my ribs. It was a sick, twisted game, but a small, dark part of me was certain of his answer. He would choose me. He had to. We were a decade of love, of struggle, of shared dreams.

"Choose her," Liam said, his voice barely a whisper. He didn't look at me. He looked at Chloe.

The world tilted. The sound in my ears was a high-pitched whine. It couldn't be. I must have misheard.

"Her?" Marcus asked, feigning surprise. "You sure? You're choosing the mentee over the woman with your ring on her finger?"

"Yes," Liam said, louder this time, a desperate edge to his voice. "Save Chloe. Please. She's... she's fragile."

Fragile. The word was a slap. Chloe' s sobs intensified, but I could see a flash of triumph in her eyes before she buried her face in her hands.

Marcus laughed, a deep, ugly sound that echoed in the vast space. "Alright then. But a choice has consequences. To show me you're serious, you're going to kiss her feet. Beg her for forgiveness for getting her into this mess."

I watched in horror as Liam, the proud CEO, the man who commanded boardrooms, fell to his knees in front of Chloe. He crawled across the dirty floor and pressed his lips to her dusty, cheap sneakers. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. Forgive me. I'll protect you."

The humiliation was a physical blow. It wasn't my humiliation, but it felt like it. It was the death of a ten-year illusion.

"Liam, what are you doing?" My voice was raw. "Look at me."

He wouldn't. He kept his eyes on Chloe, his face a mask of pathetic devotion.

"Liam!" I screamed, pulling against my restraints. "I'm pregnant! We're having a baby!"

The words hung in the stale air. For a second, Liam froze. I saw a flicker of something in his eyes-shock, maybe even pain. Marcus raised an eyebrow.

But then Chloe spoke, her voice laced with venomous sweetness. "Ava, stop it. This isn't the time for lies. You're just trying to manipulate him."

Liam's expression hardened. He turned to me, his face a stranger's. "She's right. Why would you lie about something like that, Ava? Now? It's cruel."

He believed her. Just like that, he chose to believe the girl he'd known for a semester over the woman he'd promised his life to. The pain was so sharp it took my breath away.

"I'm not lying," I whispered, tears finally blurring my vision.

Marcus sighed dramatically. "Well, this is getting boring." He walked over to my chair. "Since your man chose to sacrifice you..." He kicked the back of my chair hard.

The world spun as I crashed to the concrete floor. The impact was a starburst of pain in my side and my head. I cried out, instinctively trying to curl around my stomach, to protect the tiny, secret life inside me.

I could hear Liam shouting, but not for me. "What are you doing? I told you to save her! Leave her alone!" He was talking about Chloe.

Through a haze of pain, I saw him scrambling to Chloe's side, trying to shield her with his body, even though Marcus wasn't moving toward her at all. He didn't even glance in my direction as I lay bleeding on the floor. My pain was an inconvenience. My life was disposable.

The wail of sirens grew louder in the distance. Rescue.

Marcus cursed and ran for a back exit. The moment he was gone, Liam was at Chloe's side, fumbling with her zip ties. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

He didn't look at me once. Not even as the police and paramedics stormed in. He hovered over Chloe, wrapping her in his expensive jacket, whispering reassurances. I was just a part of the scenery, a problem to be cleaned up.

A paramedic knelt beside me, his face grim. "Ma'am, can you hear me?"

I tried to answer, but the world was fading to black. My last conscious thought was a kaleidoscope of images: Liam proposing on a bridge in Paris, the blueprint for our first office, his smile as he called me his partner, his everything. And then, the image of his lips on another woman's shoe.

I woke up in a stark white hospital room. The beeping of a machine was a steady rhythm beside me. A dull ache throbbed in my head and a sharper, deeper ache resonated in my womb. I knew, with a certainty that was colder than any fear I'd ever felt, that I was alone now. The baby was gone.

A nurse came in, her smile gentle. "You're awake. You gave us quite a scare. Mr. Gallagher has been very worried."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Worried?"

"He's just stepped out to take a call. He left this for you," she said, handing me a tablet. "It's a press release from your company. He thought you'd want to see it."

I took the tablet with a trembling hand. The headline read: "Gallagher Tech CEO Liam Gallagher and Mentee Chloe Evans Rescued from Traumatic Kidnapping; Company Marketing VP Ava Monroe Steps Down for Health Reasons."

Stepped down. Not "is recovering." Stepped down. My job, the position I had earned, the career I had built alongside him, was gone. Wiped away in a single, sterile press release. He hadn't even waited for me to wake up.

I stared at the wall, the press release glowing in the dim room. The grief for my child was a hollow cavern inside me. The pain of Liam's betrayal was a fire. But underneath it all, something else was taking root. A cold, quiet calm.

It was the calm of absolute loss. When you have nothing left to lose, you have nothing left to fear.

He had taken my love, my future, my child, my career. He had left me with nothing.

I picked up my phone. My fingers flew across the screen, deleting his contact, our photos, every digital trace of our ten years together. I blocked his number.

He thought he had broken me. He thought he had discarded me. He was wrong. This wasn't an end. It was a beginning.