Chapter 1

I had loved Kade Cordova for ten years, but our marriage was a transaction he despised. He hated me, flaunting his affair with his lover, Kendall, for the world to see.

Then, Kendall framed me for corporate espionage. Blinded by hatred, Kade didn't even question it. He had me thrown into a pre-trial detention center.

In the cold visitation room, he gave the guards a simple, chilling order.

"Teach her a lesson."

They ripped my clothes open and violated me as he watched, his eyes filled with disgust. But that wasn't enough. Kendall faked a miscarriage and blamed me. Enraged, Kade forced himself on me, vowing to use my body as a vessel to replace the child I had "murdered."

The final blow came when Kendall went to my ailing mother and cruelly detailed every humiliation, causing a heart attack that killed her.

I had lost everything. My love, my dignity, and now my mother. All because of lies I couldn't disprove and a man who refused to see the truth.

Standing on a bridge with nothing left to live for, I let go. But I didn't die. I woke up with no memory, saved by a kind stranger. For five years, I lived a new, happy life. Until the day the man who destroyed me found me again.

Chapter 1

Aria Moore had loved Kade Cordova for ten years. A decade of her life dedicated to a man who looked at her with nothing but ice in his eyes.

Their story wasn' t a romance; it was a transaction, signed and sealed by their grandfathers.

Aria's father, a brilliant but unassuming engineer, was the true mind behind Cordova Tech's revolutionary core technology. He was a man of loyalty, not ambition. On his deathbed, he signed away the patents to Kade's grandfather, Harden Koch. In return, Harden gave his word of honor: he would ensure Aria's family was cared for, always.

Harden was a man who valued legacy and honor above all else. After Aria's father died, that debt weighed on him. To settle it, and to secure the brilliant legacy of Aria's father within his own family's bloodline, he made a decision that would shatter three lives.

He forced his grandson, Kade, to marry Aria.

Aria, caught in the whirlwind of her unrequited love, had naively hoped this forced union might be a chance for Kade to finally see her. She was wrong.

Kade, the arrogant and brilliant CEO of Cordova Tech, resented the marriage with every fiber of his being. He saw it as a cage, a betrayal of his own freedom, and he saw Aria as the embodiment of that cage.

His resentment was a fertile ground for his ambitious lover, Kendall Figueroa, to plant her poison.

On their wedding night, a night that should have been a beginning, Kendall orchestrated an end. She drugged Kade. He stumbled into the bridal suite, his mind a fog, and in that haze, he and Aria were intimate for the first and only time. While he was passed out, Kendall had him moved to her own room across the hall.

Kade woke up next to Kendall, his head pounding, a fabricated story whispered in his ear. He was told Aria had found him repulsive, had thrown him out, and that he had sought comfort with the only woman who truly wanted him.

He believed the lie.

That belief ignited a deep, simmering hatred for Aria. It confirmed every resentment he felt. He saw her not as a wife, but as a deceitful, scheming woman who had trapped him and then humiliated him.

From that day forward, his cruelty knew no bounds.

He flaunted his affair with Kendall, parading her in public, making sure every tabloid captured their passionate embraces. He wanted the world to see how little his wife meant to him. Aria became the laughingstock of the city, the unwanted Mrs. Cordova.

But public humiliation wasn't enough for Kendall. She saw Aria as a persistent obstacle, a reminder of her own tenuous position. With cold calculation, she framed Aria for corporate espionage, planting false evidence that made it look like Aria was selling Cordova Tech's secrets to a rival.

Kade, blinded by his hatred and Kendall' s lies, didn't even question it. The accusation fed his narrative of Aria as a traitor. He didn't wait for a trial. He used his immense power to have her thrown into a pre-trial detention center, a place where rules were suggestions and brutality was a currency. He gave a simple, cold order to the guards.

"Teach her a lesson."

And they did.