He Faked Amnesia To Break Our Vows

I was sealing our wedding invitations with crimson wax when I heard my fiancé through the slightly ajar study door.

Ethan wasn't reciting the poetry he'd written for me over the last seven years. He was outlining the logistics of his betrayal.

"If I fake amnesia after the 'accident' tonight, I can delay the wedding without the family stopping the merger," Ethan laughed, ice clinking in his glass.

"And Ava? The Canary?" his friend asked.

"Ava is property. You maintain property; you don't have fun with it. While she plays nurse, I get a medical exemption to sleep with Chloe."

My world shattered. I fled into the rainy night, blinded by tears, until headlights turned my world upside down.

I woke up in the wreckage, my arm shattered, tasting blood. Ethan arrived moments later.

But he didn't run to me.

He stepped right over my bleeding body to comfort Chloe, who had a minor scratch on her forehead.

"I've got you, baby," he cooed to his mistress, looking at me with nothing but cold annoyance. "Don't worry about her. She's tough."

He left me in the street.

By the next morning, the narrative was set: The tragic Don had lost his memory of his fiancée, but miraculously remembered his 'true love,' Chloe. He evicted me from our penthouse while I was still in surgery.

He thought he had won. He thought the Canary would just die in the cold.

He forgot one thing. I knew where he hid the bodies-literally.

I walked into his staged public proposal, slammed my ring on the table, and left a note under it.

*I remember everything. And so do you.*

Then I boarded a plane with his secret incriminating journal in my bag. The empire was about to burn.

Chapter 1

Ava Miller POV

I was sealing the envelope for our wedding invitation with hot wax when I heard my fiancé outlining the logistics of his betrayal.

The wax was crimson. Blood red. It dripped onto the heavy cream paper, pooling into the crest of the Reed family. A lion holding a rose. I pressed the brass seal down, my movements practiced and perfect.

That was what I was. Practiced. Perfect. The future Mrs. Ethan Reed.

For seven years, I had been the envy of every socialite in New York. Ethan wasn't just the heir to a business empire that operated in the city's grayest shadows; he was a poet. A tortured soul. Or at least, that was the man he showed me.

I looked at the stack of invitations. Five hundred guests. The Plaza Hotel. It was the fairytale ending to a romance that started in the library of Columbia University.

He used to slide poems across the table to me. Sonnets about my eyes. Haikus about my laugh. He told me I was the only pure thing in his dark world. He told me he needed me to breathe.

I believed him.

I was the canary in his golden cage. I sang when he asked. I dressed how he liked. I ignored the whispers about his family, the "business," the *Omertà* code of silence that ruled his life. I told myself it was just background noise. I told myself that as long as Ethan loved me, the darkness couldn't touch us.

I picked up another envelope. My hand trembled slightly. Not from fear, but from excitement. Two weeks. Just two weeks until I was officially his.

The door to his study was ajar. It was usually locked.

I stood up to close it. I didn't want to disturb him; he'd mentioned important calls with the family lawyers.

I walked across the plush carpet, my footsteps absorbed by the wool. I reached for the handle.

"Knock it off, Leo. I'm serious."

Ethan's voice cut through the gap. It wasn't the soft, melodic voice he used with me. It was hard. Cold. Metallic.

"So, let me get this straight," Leo's voice crackled through the speakerphone. "You're actually running the amnesia play?"

I froze. My hand hovered over the brass knob.

"It's the only way," Ethan said. I could hear the clink of ice against glass. Scotch. He was drinking. "If I have amnesia, I can delay the wedding without cancelling it. The family won't let me cancel. Not with the merger pending."

"And the girl? The canary?" Leo asked.

"Ava?" Ethan scoffed. The sound was like a physical blow to my stomach. "Ava will do what she always does. She'll wait. She'll nurse me. She'll cry pretty tears by my bedside."

I couldn't breathe. The air in the hallway suddenly felt thin, vacuumed out by his cruelty.

"And while she's playing nurse," Ethan continued, his voice dripping with amusement, "I get a hall pass. A medical exemption. I can't be held responsible for who I sleep with if I don't remember who I'm engaged to, right?"

"You're evil, man," Leo laughed. "Is this about the influencer? Chloe Vance?"

"Chloe is... fun," Ethan said. "She's wild. Ava is just property. You don't have fun with property. You maintain it."

My knees gave out. I grabbed the doorframe to stop myself from sliding to the floor.

Property.

Seven years of love poems. Seven years of devotion.

Property.

"So, the accident happens tonight?" Leo asked.

"Tonight," Ethan confirmed. "I'll take the Porsche. A little fender bender. A bump to the head. And then, freedom."

I backed away. One step. Two steps.

I turned and ran. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I had to get out of this house. Out of this cage.

I snatched my keys from the console table. My vision was blurred. I stumbled out the front door into the rainy New York night.

I got into my car. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely turn the ignition.

Property.

I pulled out of the driveway, tires screeching against the wet asphalt. I needed to go to Maya's. She would know what to do. Maya always knew what to do.

I didn't see the black SUV running the red light at the intersection.

I didn't see it until the headlights filled my world with a blinding, sterile white.

Then, there was only the sound of metal screaming against metal, and the world turning upside down.

Ava Miller POV

The airbag tasted like dust and burnt rubber, gritty against my tongue.

My ears were ringing-a high-pitched, drilling whine that drowned out the rain drumming on the roof of my overturned car.

I was hanging upside down. My seatbelt dug into my chest, a vice crushing my ribs. My left arm was bent at an angle that made me nauseous just looking at it. Pain radiated from my shoulder in hot, pulsing waves, stealing my breath.

"Ava!"

I heard my name. It sounded far away, filtered through water.

"Ava, can you hear me?"

I blinked, fighting the black spots dancing in my vision. Through the spiderwebbed windshield, I saw boots. Expensive leather boots.

Ethan.

He was here. He had come for me. Relief washed over me, momentarily numbing the pain. He didn't mean what he said on the phone. He couldn't have. He was here to save me.

"Ethan..." I croaked. My throat felt full of glass shards.

"She's in here!" Ethan yelled. But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking past my car, his eyes wild.

I tried to turn my head, ignoring the scream of protest from my neck. A few yards away, another car was crumpled against a lamppost. A red convertible.

Chloe Vance's car.

"Chloe!" Ethan shouted. He sprinted past my window. He didn't even pause. He didn't glance at the blood dripping from my forehead.

"Ethan, please," I whispered. The pain in my arm flared, sharp and blinding.

I watched, helpless, as my fiancé wrenched the door off the hinges of the red convertible with a roar of adrenaline. He pulled Chloe out. She was crying, clinging to him. She looked fine. Not a scratch marred her perfect, tanned skin.

"My neck," she wailed. "Ethan, my neck hurts."

"I've got you, baby," Ethan said. His voice was thick with panic. Real panic. The kind he never showed for me. "I've got you. The ambulance is coming."

He cradled her in his arms, kissing her hair desperately.

"What about her?" Chloe pointed a shaking finger toward my car.

Ethan glanced at me. For a second, our eyes met.

I saw nothing in his gaze. No love. No worry. Just annoyance. Like I was a stain on his favorite shirt-an inconvenience to be scrubbed away.

"Don't worry about her," Ethan said, loud enough for me to hear. "She's tough. She's fine."

He turned his back on me.

Darkness crept into the edges of my vision. The pain was too much. The heartbreak was worse.

I let go.

*

When I woke up, the walls were white. The sharp smell of antiseptic stung my nose.

"She's awake," a voice said. Sharp. Angry.

Maya.

I tried to sit up, but a heavy cast weighed down my left arm. My head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache.

"Don't move," Maya said, rushing to my side. Her eyes were red-rimmed. "You have a concussion and a compound fracture. You've been in surgery for six hours."

"Ethan?" I asked. The name slipped out before I could stop it. Old habits die hard.

Maya's face hardened into stone. "He's not here, Ava."

"Is he hurt?"

"He's fine," Maya spat. "He's currently in the VIP suite on the top floor. With *her*. Apparently, Miss Vance has a sprained wrist. A tragedy."

The memory of the phone call rushed back, cold and sharp. *Property. Hall pass.*

"He planned it," I whispered, the realization settling in my chest like lead. Tears pricked my eyes. "He wanted to fake amnesia."

Maya froze. "What?"

"I heard him. Before the crash. He was talking to Leo. He called me his property."

Maya gripped the bed rail, her knuckles turning white. "That son of a bitch. I told you. I warned you about the Reeds. They don't love, Ava. They possess."

Just then, the door opened.

It wasn't Ethan. It was a man in a gray suit. I recognized him instantly. Mr. Sterling. The Reed family lawyer.

"Miss Miller," he said, not making eye contact. He placed a folder on the bedside table with a soft *thud*.

"Where is Ethan?" I asked.

"Mr. Reed is... indisposed," Sterling said smoothly. "He has suffered significant memory trauma from the accident. He does not recall the last seven years."

The lie. The script. He was actually doing it.

"He remembers Chloe Vance though, doesn't he?" Maya challenged, stepping between me and the lawyer like a shield.

Sterling ignored her. "Mr. Reed has instructed me to handle his affairs while he recovers. As you are not legally family, the Reed estate will not be covering your medical expenses."

"What?" Maya shouted. "She was in an accident involving him! She's his fiancée!"

"*Former* fiancée," Sterling corrected, his tone devoid of warmth. "Since Mr. Reed has no memory of the engagement, it is effectively null and void."

He tapped the folder with a manicured finger.

"This is an eviction notice for the apartment. The lease is in Mr. Reed's name. You have forty-eight hours to vacate the premises."

"She can't walk!" Maya screamed. "She just had surgery!"

"Forty-eight hours," Sterling repeated. He turned on his heel and walked out.

I stared at the folder.

My arm was broken. My head was spinning. My heart was shattered into a million pieces.

And the man I loved had just thrown me away like garbage to make room for his mistress.

Ava Miller POV

Pain, I realized, brings a terrible kind of clarity.

For seven years, I had existed in a haze of rose petals and carefully curated poetry.

I had mistaken Ethan's possessiveness for passion. I had interpreted his brooding silence as depth.

The eviction notice sitting on the bedside table was a bucket of ice water to the face.

"Ava?" Maya's hand hovered over my uninjured one, her touch gentle. "We can fight this. I know a lawyer. We can sue for the medical bills, for the distress..."

"No," I said. My voice was raspy, like sandpaper over stone, but it was steady.

I stared up at the sterile white ceiling. In my mind, I traced the crest stamped into the wax seal of the notice. The lion holding the rose.

The lion hadn't protected the rose. It had devoured it.

"If I sue, I stay trapped in his orbit," I said. "I remain his victim. His property."

"So what? You just let him get away with it?" Maya asked, her eyes wide with incredulity.

"No." I turned my head to face her, the movement stiff. "I let him believe he's won. Ethan is arrogant. He thinks I'm fragile. He expects me to beg."

I tried to push myself up. The room tilted dangerously, but I gritted my teeth until the spinning slowed to a stop.

"Tell me about the rules, Maya. The ones you always whisper about. The Omertà."

Maya pulled a chair closer, the metal legs scraping against the linoleum. She looked at me differently now. The pity was evaporating, replaced by a flicker of genuine respect.

"Omertà isn't just silence," she explained, her voice low. "It's about order. A Don protects his own. He keeps his chaos behind closed doors. He doesn't air dirty laundry to humiliate his blood or his sworn partners."

"And Ethan?"

"He's being messy," Maya said, shaking her head. "Faking amnesia to parade around with an influencer? It's sloppy. It lacks discipline. The old guard, the men who sat at the table with his father... they won't respect this. If they find out he's lying, he looks weak. And in this world, if he looks weak, he loses the territory."

A plan began to coalesce in the hazy corners of my mind. It wasn't about revenge. Not yet. It was about survival.

"I need to disappear," I said. "Not just move apartments. I need to vanish completely."

"Where?"

"Portland," I said. It was the first place that surfaced in my memory. Rain. Grey skies. Coffee. A world away from the neon glare of New York.

"I still have that design degree I never used. I can start over."

"You need money," Maya pointed out pragmatically. "He cut your cards an hour ago."

"I have something," I said, a cold resolve settling in my chest. "In the apartment. Hidden."

*

I discharged myself the next morning, signing the papers against medical advice.

Maya helped me into her car. Every pothole sent a jolt of liquid fire shooting up my arm, but I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted iron, refusing to make a sound.

When we reached the apartment, it felt like walking into a mausoleum.

The air was stale. My clothes still hung in the closet, ghostly silhouettes of the woman I used to be. The wedding invitations sat on the desk, the red wax hardened like dried blood.

I walked straight to the bookshelf.

"What are you looking for?" Maya asked, frantically grabbing suitcases and sweeping my clothes into them.

"Leverage," I muttered.

I bypassed the jewelry box and reached for a vintage copy of *The Great Gatsby*. It was hollowed out.

Inside, there was no cash, no diamonds. Just a small, leather-bound notebook.

It was Ethan's journal from college. Before the title of "Don" was heavy on his shoulders. Before the mask was fused to his skin.

I hadn't read it in years. I had kept it because I thought it was romantic-a piece of his soul that only I held.

Now, I gripped it like a weapon.

I didn't open it. Not yet. I just shoved it deep into my bag.

"We need to go," Maya urged, struggling to zip a suitcase. "Sterling said forty-eight hours, but he sent a cleaning crew early. They're already in the lobby."

I took one last look at the apartment. The gilded cage.

"Let's go," I said.

We were reaching for the door handle when a heavy fist pounded on the wood.

*Bang. Bang. Bang.*

The sound vibrated through the floorboards.

"Ava!" A deep voice boomed. "Open up."

It was Mark. Ethan's head of security. The man who used to drive me to the spa, who used to smile and call me "Miss Ava."

Now, his voice carried the weight of a threat.

"He knows," I whispered to Maya, my heart hammering against my ribs. "He knows I'm not crying in a hospital bed."

I gripped the strap of my bag tighter. The hard edge of the diary pressed against my side.

"Open the door, Ava!" Mark shouted.

"Mr. Reed wants his ring back."