Chapter 1

The first time my husband tried to have me killed, he used our eight-year-old daughter as the bait.

After I discovered his affair with a woman whose college tuition I was paying, he staged our daughter's kidnapping to lure me into a trap.

I woke up in a hospital, my legs amputated, my womb removed, a permanent cripple.

My husband, Eugene, played the part of the grieving spouse perfectly, promising police he' d find the monsters responsible.

But I overheard him whispering to our daughter in the hallway.

"You were so brave," he praised her. "You made Mommy believe you were in danger. It was the only way to stop her from leaving us."

Her reply destroyed what was left of my soul.

"I like Brenna better anyway. She's prettier than Mommy."

They thought they had broken me, leaving me a shattered shell of a woman. So I let them believe it. I faked my own suicide and vanished. Now, three years later, I've returned. Standing on two legs of polished steel, I'm the CEO of a robotics empire, and I'm here to burn their world to the ground.

Chapter 1

Evelyn POV:

The first time my husband tried to have me killed, he used our eight-year-old daughter as the bait.

But that night, I didn't know. That night, I was just a wife who had discovered her husband was sleeping with another woman. A woman I had paid to go to college.

Brenna Williams.

The name tasted like ash in my mouth. It was supposed to be a name synonymous with hope, a testament to the Ryan family's philanthropic spirit. The Brenna Williams Scholarship was the first initiative I had launched myself, a program designed to lift ambitious young women out of poverty and into a future they deserved. Brenna, with her fiery red hair and a story of Appalachian hardship that could bring tears to a stone, was its inaugural recipient.

Our first. Our brightest.

And now, her name was a glowing beacon on my husband's phone screen, which he' d foolishly left on the marble countertop of our kitchen island.

B: Can't wait for tonight. Wear that blue shirt I like. xoxo

I picked up the phone. My hands were steady, a strange calm settling over the tremor that had started in my chest. Eugene' s passcode was Hollis' s birthday. Of course it was. He always did love playing the part of the doting father.

The message history was a novel of betrayal. Weeks of it. Months. Sweet nothings, sordid plans, and pictures I would never be able to unsee. Pictures of him in that blue shirt. Pictures of her in our bed.

My world, once a gilded cage of old-money tradition and quiet charity events, collapsed into a silent, screaming void. The air was thick, heavy. I couldn' t breathe.

When Eugene walked in, whistling, smelling of the expensive cologne I' d bought him for our anniversary, the void in my chest solidified into a block of ice. He was handsome, charismatic, the self-made man who had charmed his way into one of New York's oldest families. My family. He smiled, that brilliant, camera-ready smile that had once made my knees weak.

"Hey, babe. What' s for dinner?"

I held up his phone. "Lies, apparently."

The smile vanished. His face, usually a mask of easy confidence, went pale.

"Ev, I can explain."

"Don' t," I said, my voice flat. "Just... don' t. I want a divorce, Eugene."

Panic flashed in his eyes. Not the panic of a man who was about to lose the love of his life. It was the terror of a man about to lose his access key. The penthouse, the summer home in the Hamptons, the seat on the board of my father's foundation, the entire life he had so carefully constructed upon the bedrock of my family's wealth.

"You' re overreacting," he said, his voice dropping to that low, placating tone he used when I questioned his more extravagant expenses. "It' s not what it looks like."

"It looks like you' re sleeping with a twenty-two-year-old girl. A girl whose tuition I am paying."

Before he could spin another lie, my own phone rang. It was my mother. The society grapevine worked faster than fiber optics.

"Evelyn, what is this I' m hearing? You can' t be serious," she began without preamble, her voice crisp with disapproval. "A divorce? In this family? Have you lost your mind?"

"Mother, he cheated on me."

"Men have appetites, Evelyn. You know this. You handle it. Quietly. You do not blow up a decade of marriage and drag the Ryan name through the mud over some little dalliance."

I felt a cold laugh bubble up in my throat. "A dalliance?"

"You are a Ryan. You are better than this petty jealousy. Think of Hollis. Think of our reputation. You will fix this." The line went dead.

I looked at Eugene, who had the decency to look slightly ashamed, but the shame was quickly replaced by a flicker of resentment. He hated being reminded of his dependence on my family.

"Your mother is right," he said, seizing the opportunity. "We can work through this. I was just... mentoring her. She comes from a difficult background. She needed guidance."

"Guidance?" I repeated, the word tasting like poison. "Is that what you call it? Her lipstick on your collar wasn' t 'mentoring,' Eugene." I' d seen it last week and had chosen to believe his flimsy excuse about a clumsy intern. The memory was humiliating.

"She' s a kid, Evelyn! You' re getting worked up over a child who looks up to me. You' re almost forty. Don' t you think this is a little undignified?"

"Don' t you dare," I whispered, the ice in my chest cracking. "Don' t you dare use my age against me after you' ve been screwing a girl young enough to be your daughter."

He flinched. The hit landed.

I knew then, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that it was more than just sex. I saw it in the way his jaw tightened, the protective instinct that flickered in his eyes. He didn' t just desire her; he felt something for her.

He had promised me. After the second miscarriage, when the doctors told us another pregnancy would be too risky, when my family started whispering about the lack of a male heir, he had held me. He' d sworn it didn' t matter. He' d said, "Hollis is all we need. You are all I need."

That was six months ago.

The memory was a ghost, mocking me.

"Get out," I said, my voice gaining strength.

"Evelyn..."

"I want you out of this apartment tonight. My lawyer will have divorce papers drawn up by morning. You will sign them, Eugene. You will walk away with nothing but the clothes on your back."

"You can' t do that."

"Watch me," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous tone. "Or I can send the full message history to Page Six. And your mother. Let' s see how your church group feels about your 'mentoring.' "

The color drained from his face. He looked at me as if I were a stranger, a monster he had never seen before. The fear in his eyes was pure, primal. He was a cornered animal.

And then his phone rang.

Not the one I was holding. His other phone. A burner phone.

He snatched it from his jacket pocket, his eyes wide with a new kind of terror. He answered, his voice a frantic whisper.

"What? Now? Are you insane?" He listened, his face crumbling. "No, no, don't hurt her. Please."

He looked at me, his eyes pleading, filled with a panic so real it bypassed all my anger and hit me straight in the gut.

"It' s Hollis," he choked out. "They have Hollis."

My world stopped. The floor tilted beneath my feet. "What are you talking about?"

He thrust the phone at me. "They took her from the park. They want... they want a ransom."

A rough voice crackled through the speaker. "You have one hour. West Side Highway, abandoned warehouse at Pier 76. Come alone, Mrs. Blair. Or your daughter pays the price."

And then I heard it. A small, terrified sob that ripped my soul in two.

"Mommy! Help me!"

It was Hollis' s voice. My baby.

"Hollis! Honey, I' m coming! Mommy' s coming!" I screamed into the phone.

The line went dead.

I didn' t think. I didn' t call the police. I didn' t question Eugene' s sudden second phone. All I could hear was my daughter' s cry. I grabbed my keys, my purse, my coat.

Eugene grabbed my arm. "Ev, wait, maybe we should call..."

"There' s no time!" I shoved him away and ran for the door, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "I' m coming, Hollis. Mommy' s coming."

The drive to the warehouse was a blur of rain-slicked streets and blaring horns. I parked the car, my hands shaking so hard I could barely turn off the ignition. The warehouse loomed before me, a skeletal silhouette against the stormy sky.

I ran inside, the cavernous space echoing with the drip of water from the rusted ceiling.

"Hollis!" I screamed. "Where are you?"

Figures emerged from the shadows. Three of them. Rough-looking men, their faces hard and unsmiling. They didn't look like kidnappers. They looked like hired muscle.

The one in the lead, a brute with a spiderweb tattoo on his neck, looked me up and down. He pulled a photo from his pocket, glanced at it, then back at me.

"Yeah, that' s her," he grunted.

Confusion warred with my terror. They surrounded me, their presence suffocating.

"Where is my daughter?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "I' ll give you whatever you want. Just let me see her."

The leader laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "The boss said you' d say that. He said to tell you the price is five million dollars."

Five million. The number was absurd. My family had money, but that kind of liquid cash wasn't just sitting in a bank account. It would take days, weeks, to pull together.

"I... I don' t have that right now," I stammered. "It will take time. Who is your boss? Let me talk to him. We can work something out."

The man' s face darkened with rage. "You think this is a negotiation?"

He lunged forward. A sharp, explosive pain erupted in my cheek as his fist connected with my face. I stumbled backward, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

I fumbled for my phone, my fingers frantically trying to dial 911.

Before I could press call, another man snatched it from my hand and smashed it against the concrete floor. The screen shattered, the last link to the outside world extinguished.

They closed in. A kick to my stomach sent me to my knees, gasping for air. Another to my back. Pain bloomed across my body, hot and blinding.

Through the haze of agony, a single thought kept me conscious. Hollis. They had Hollis. I couldn' t run. I couldn' t leave her.

"Please," I sobbed, crawling on the filthy floor. "Take me. Hurt me. Just let my daughter go. Please, she' s just a little girl."

They laughed. The sound was merciless.

The leader grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back. His boot slammed into my side, again and again. I heard a rib crack. I curled into a ball, trying to protect myself, but it was useless.

A final, brutal kick connected with my head. The world didn't fade to black. It shattered into a million pieces of pain, and then... nothing.

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