Chapter 1

My five-year marriage to Dallas Fischer, a tech billionaire, was a blur of high-society parties and fake smiles, until the fifth year ended with the death of our first child.

The official story was a miscarriage, a tragedy, but then I overheard Dallas confessing to his mistress, Alanna, that he had paid a doctor to induce an abortion and dispose of our son's ashes.

He revealed his plan to humiliate me by leaking an intimate video on our anniversary, claiming I was responsible for his ex-fiancée Hannah's suicide five years ago. He had orchestrated our entire relationship as an elaborate revenge plot.

My world shattered. The man I loved, the life we built, was a lie. He hated me, had murdered our child, and was now going to destroy me.

But I wouldn't let him. The game had just begun.

Chapter 1

The first year of my marriage to Dallas Fischer was a blur of high-society parties and fake smiles. The fifth year ended with the death of our first child.

The official story was a miscarriage. A tragedy. Dallas, the grieving tech billionaire, retreated to a private wellness center in the mountains, a place of silent monks and serene contemplation, to mourn. He told me he needed to pray for our son' s soul.

I believed him. For five years, I had believed every word he said.

He' d been gone for a week, and the silence in our New York penthouse was a crushing weight. I couldn't stand it anymore. I needed to be with him, to share our grief, to hold his hand while he prayed.

So I drove the three hours upstate, the winding mountain roads a blur through my tear-filled eyes. I didn' t call ahead. I wanted to surprise him, to show him we were in this together.

The wellness center was a collection of minimalist wooden buildings nestled among tall pines. It was quiet, almost holy. I found the small, private cabin assigned to Dallas at the edge of the property, overlooking a steep cliff. The door was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open gently, expecting to find him kneeling in prayer.

Instead, I saw a woman. She was on her knees on the floor, her back to me. A man stood over her. I couldn't see his face, but his hand was tangled in her long, dark hair.

My first thought was that I had the wrong cabin. I started to back away, embarrassed. These people were in a private moment.

Then I heard the man' s voice. It was a low, familiar rumble that had once been my comfort.

"Is that enough for you, Alanna?"

My heart stopped. Dallas. It was Dallas.

The woman, Alanna, tilted her head back, and my breath caught in my throat. She looked just like Hannah Bradley. Exactly like her. The same dark hair, the same serene face that had graced the covers of wellness magazines. Hannah, Dallas' s ex-fiancée. The one who killed herself five years ago.

"Dallas, what you' re planning... it' s cruel," Alanna whispered, her voice trembling. "Leaking that video of her on your anniversary? Won't you face any consequences for destroying her like that?"

Dallas laughed, a cold, sharp sound that was nothing like the laugh I knew. He tightened his grip on her hair, forcing a gasp from her.

"Consequences?" he said. "Autumn Villarreal deserves everything she gets. She deserves to be humiliated in front of the entire world."

He let go of her hair and she slumped to the floor. He spoke again, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper.

"She took Hannah from me. She sent that wedding invitation knowing it would break her. So I will take everything from her. Her reputation, her family' s name, her sanity."

My mind reeled. The video. He had a video of me. An intimate one. And he was going to post it online for everyone to see. On our anniversary.

"What about the baby?" Alanna asked, her voice small.

Dallas' s face twisted into a sneer. "That little bastard? I paid the doctor a fortune to induce the abortion and make it look like a miscarriage. I had its ashes thrown in the trash where they belong."

The world went silent. My legs turned to stone. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The air in my lungs felt like poison.

Induced abortion.

Thrown in the trash.

The man I had loved, the man I had married and built a life with for five years, had murdered our child.

His trip to this peaceful, holy place wasn't about mourning. It was a cover. A lie. Just like our entire marriage. It was all an elaborate, five-year plot for revenge.

He blamed me for Hannah' s death.

Hannah Bradley was a wellness influencer, a guru of calm and inner peace. She and Dallas were the golden couple of New York's old-money scene. He was obsessed with her. He bought an entire mountain in Colorado because she said she liked the view. He built a temple for her because she found a new faith. He was ready to give up his playboy ways for her.

Our families, the Villarreals and the Fischers, had arranged my marriage to Dallas to merge our corporate empires. It was a deal, a transaction. I hated it, but I was a daughter of my family, and I did my duty. My mother insisted I send the wedding invitations myself. It was proper etiquette, she said.

So I did. I sent one to Hannah Bradley.

I never imagined she would slit her wrists in her bathtub the day she received it.

Dallas had been out of the country. He flew back to find her body floating in a pool of blood. She left a note, not for him, but for the world, a curse upon the union that had betrayed her. She died to make him miserable for the rest of his life.

I stood frozen in the doorway, the pieces of my life shattering around me. The loving husband, the shared grief, the future we were supposed to have-all of it was a lie. He hated me. He had always hated me.

And now, he was going to destroy me.

I crept away from the door, my body moving on autopilot. I got back in my car and drove, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the wheel. I didn't cry. I was beyond tears.

I drove all night, the ugly truth replaying in my head.

He never loved me. He murdered our son.

He was going to ruin me.

A cold, hard resolve began to form in the pit of my stomach.

No, he wasn't. I wouldn't let him.

The game had just begun.