Chapter 4

I drove for what felt like hours, tears blurring the road ahead. I finally pulled over on a deserted stretch of highway and let out a scream that tore from the depths of my soul. I screamed until my throat was raw, pounding my fists against the steering wheel. The pain, the rage, the humiliation-it all came pouring out.

When the storm passed, an eerie calm settled over me. The tears stopped. The shaking subsided. In the silence of the car, a decision formed, cold and sharp as a shard of glass.

I was done. Done being their victim. Done being their secret.

I took out my new, untraceable burner phone. I booked a one-way ticket to a small, remote town in New Zealand, a place where no one would think to look for the wife of a media mogul. The flight was in two days.

Then, I began the process of erasing Adelaide Cole. I went online and started systematically deleting every social media account, every online profile, every digital breadcrumb that connected me to my life. I was becoming a ghost.

The next morning, I walked into the downtown office of Kaitlin Riley, the sharpest, most ruthless divorce attorney in the city. I had hired her weeks ago, on a gut feeling, a tiny flicker of self-preservation I didn't even understand at the time.

Kaitlin was all business. "Are you sure about this, Adelaide?" she asked, sliding a thick stack of papers across her mahogany desk. "This document relinquishes your claim to the Steele family trust. You're walking away from billions."

"I'm sure," I said, my voice steady. I picked up the pen and signed my name without a moment's hesitation. The money was a chain, not a prize.

"And this," Kaitlin continued, pushing another document forward. "This states you waive any and all rights to marital assets. The penthouse, the cars, the art collection. Everything."

"I don't want any of it," I said. "It's all tainted." I signed that one too. I wanted nothing that had been bought with their lies.

Kaitlin watched me for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she leaned forward and pushed a small digital recorder across the desk. "There's one more thing you need to hear."

I looked at her, confused. "What is it?"

"Your phone," she said. "The one you gave me last week. You said you suspected Knox might be cheating. I had my tech guy do a full data recovery. He found a deleted audio file. It was recorded automatically during a call."

She pressed play.

Douglas Steele's voice filled the room, cold and precise. "...the lake house, on Jase's birthday. It' s the perfect time."

Then, Knox's voice. "Are you sure this is necessary, Dad? It feels extreme."

"We can't have her making a scene when we finally cut her loose," Douglas replied. "The merger is too important. A small dose of a sedative in her morning coffee. Something to make her feel unwell, keep her in bed all day. By the time it wears off, the celebration will be over, and you'll be back. She'll be none the wiser."

A long pause. Then Knox spoke, his voice laced with resignation. "Fine. In her coffee. At the lake house."

The recording stopped.

The lake house. Our lake house. The one place I thought was ours, a sanctuary from his family. The place where he had proposed to me. They were going to drug me in our home.

A single tear escaped my eye and fell onto the document in front of me, blurring the ink of my signature. They weren't just going to leave me. They were going to drug me, to incapacitate me, to ensure I couldn't interfere with their perfect little family celebration. The betrayal was deeper and more sinister than I could have ever imagined.

My sadness curdled into a white-hot rage.

"Give me the divorce papers," I said, my voice dangerously quiet.

Kaitlin slid the final document over. Divorce. Irreconcilable differences.

With a hand that was now perfectly steady, I signed my name one last time. I pushed so hard the pen tore a small hole in the paper.

Adelaide Cole was officially finished.