Rising From Ashes: The Broken Wife's Return

Karen lay on the tangled sheets of the California King bed. The expensive silk felt like ice against her bare skin. Her eyes tracked the movement of Israel's hands.

He stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, the morning light catching the sharp angles of his jaw. He didn't look at her. He slid a platinum Patek Philippe cufflink through the buttonhole of his crisp white shirt. The click of the metal snapping into place sounded like a gunshot in the dead silence of the master bedroom.

His face was a mask of absolute detachment.

Karen pushed herself up. The quilt fell away from her shoulders. She reached out, her fingertips trembling as they moved toward the tense muscles of his back. She just wanted to touch him. One last time.

Israel shifted his weight. He stepped sideways, smoothly evading her hand before she could even make contact. He walked to the full-length mirror, adjusting his collar.

Karen's hand froze in mid-air. Her stomach dropped. She slowly pulled her arm back and gripped the bedsheet, her knuckles turning stark white.

Israel reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket. He pulled out a folded legal document and tossed it onto the walnut nightstand. It landed with a heavy thud.

The bold black letters at the top of the page glared at her: Non-Disclosure Agreement Termination Confirmation.

Karen's lungs tightened. She couldn't pull in a breath. She looked up, staring at the reflection of the ruthless man in the mirror.

"Ayla arrived in Los Angeles last night," Israel said. His voice was flat. It held no emotion, no hesitation.

Karen's throat burned. She opened her mouth, her voice shaking. "Israel..."

He turned around. His dark eyes swept over her, looking at her the way someone looks at a carton of milk that has passed its expiration date.

"Don't cross the line, Karen," he warned.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She ignored the warning. She leaned forward, driven by a pathetic, desperate instinct, and lifted her face to ask for a goodbye kiss.

Israel turned his head away in disgust. Her lips only brushed against the cold, hard line of his jaw.

He picked up his suit jacket from the back of the chair. Without another word, he turned his back on her and walked toward the heavy oak door.

The door clicked shut. The lock engaged with a sharp snap. The sound sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

Karen collapsed back onto the pillows. A suppressed sob tore through her chest, echoing off the empty walls.

Then, a violent vibration rattled the glass of the windows.

It was the deafening, mechanical roar of heavy machinery tearing into the earth.

Karen shot up from the bed. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

She threw off the covers. She didn't bother finding her slippers. Her bare feet hit the freezing Afghan rug as she stumbled toward the window. She grabbed the heavy velvet curtains and yanked them apart.

The bright California sun stabbed her eyes, but the scene below made the blood freeze in her veins.

Two yellow industrial bulldozers were tearing through the backyard. Their heavy metal tracks crushed the rose bushes into the mud.

Her eyes darted to the southeast corner of the lawn. The soil there meant everything to her.

The Dogwood tree was gone.

The tree she had planted with her own hands. The tree she watered every single day. It was gone.

In its place was a massive, ugly crater in the dirt. It looked like someone had ripped the heart straight out of the earth.

Karen's eyes widened in pure terror. A broken scream ripped from her throat.

She grabbed a silk robe, throwing it over her shoulders as she ran. She sprinted out of the bedroom and bolted down the spiral staircase, her bare feet slapping against the marble steps.

She shoved open the glass doors leading to the patio. Her feet sank into the cold mud and sharp wood chips covering the grass.

A crew of men in hard hats were dragging the thick trunk of the Dogwood tree toward a massive, red industrial woodchipper.

Karen threw herself at the foreman. She grabbed his neon vest, screaming over the noise of the machines. "Who told you to do this? Stop!"

The foreman looked at her with cold indifference. He raised a thick finger and pointed toward the front gates.

A black Maybach was just pulling out of the driveway. The license plate read IF 1.

Israel.

Karen lunged toward the roaring red woodchipper.

Two massive security guards stepped in front of her. They grabbed her arms, their grips like iron vices, pinning her in place.

Karen thrashed against them. She kicked at the mud. She watched in horror as the final section of the Dogwood trunk was shoved into the machine's metal teeth.

A horrific grinding noise filled the air. Wood chips spewed out of the exhaust pipe like dirty snow, scattering across the ruined lawn.

Karen's legs gave out. She dropped to her knees in the wet dirt, her fingers digging frantically into the mud.

Her hands shook violently as she pulled her phone from the pocket of her silk robe. She dialed Israel's private number.

It rang for a long time. Finally, the line connected. The smooth, quiet sound of jazz music playing inside the Maybach drifted through the speaker.

"Why?" Karen choked out, her voice raw and shredded. "Why did you destroy it? It was all I had left."

A low, cruel laugh came through the phone.

"I know exactly what that tree was, Karen," Israel sneered. His voice dripped with jealousy and contempt. "Dr. Blair Moran gave you that little token of affection, didn't he?"

Karen stopped breathing.

"I will not allow the proof of your emotional infidelity to grow in my backyard," Israel stated.

Karen's brain short-circuited. Blair. He thought the tree was from Blair.

She opened her mouth to scream the truth. She wanted to tell him that buried beneath those roots was the urn containing the ashes of their unborn child. The baby she lost. The baby he never knew about.

But her throat locked up. The years of his coldness, his absolute refusal to ever listen to her, formed a lump of glass in her airway. She couldn't make a sound.

Her silence only fueled his anger.

"Pour the concrete," Israel ordered coldly.

The line went dead. The dial tone hammered into her skull.

Behind her, the heavy engine of a cement mixer roared to life. Thick, gray sludge began to pour from the metal chute.

The wet concrete spilled into the deep crater, burying the mud, burying the wood chips, burying her baby.

"No!" Karen shrieked.

She ripped herself out of the guards' grasp and threw herself at the pit. She plunged her bare hands into the wet, heavy concrete. She clawed at the thick gray sludge, trying to dig down to the small urn.

The coarse gravel sliced into her cuticles. Blood welled up from her fingertips, swirling into the gray cement.

The foreman marched over. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up from the ground.

"Don't interfere with Mr. Fernandez's landscaping plans, lady," he warned.

Karen stared blankly at the smoothing surface of the concrete. The last physical trace of her child had been erased from the world. By its own father.

A black Range Rover pulled into the driveway. Arthur Coleman, Israel's Chief Executive Assistant, stepped out.

Arthur walked across the ruined grass, holding a black umbrella. He stopped in front of Karen and held out a crisp white envelope.

"You have two hours to vacate the premises," Arthur said. His voice was entirely professional. "Mr. Fernandez has instructed that the property be prepared for Ms. Conley's arrival."

Karen looked at Arthur's blank face. A hollow, terrifying laugh spilled from her bleeding lips.

She didn't take the envelope. She turned around. Her hands were coated in blood and gray sludge. She dragged her feet across the patio, walking back into the empty mansion like a corpse. She looked down numbly, watching thin lines of dark blood welling up on the soles of her bare feet. The sharp, splintered edges of the wood chips had sliced deep into her tender skin with every frantic step she took, leaving a trail of red behind her, but the agonizing numbness in her chest ensured she felt absolutely nothing.

Three days later.

Karen pulled the collar of her cheap black trench coat tighter around her neck. She walked down the marble hallway of an exclusive private club in Beverly Hills.

She had just finished a brief meeting with an independent film producer. She needed a job. She needed to survive.

She turned the corner toward the restrooms.

A woman in a pristine white Chanel haute couture suit blocked her path.

Ayla Conley.

Ayla turned around. The delicate, fragile smile on her face vanished the second she saw Karen. She handed her Birkin bag to her assistant, S. Page, and waved her away.

They were alone in the hallway. Ayla's eyes turned venomous.

She stepped forward, her red-soled heels clicking against the marble. She looked Karen up and down, taking in the cheap coat. She let out a sharp scoff.

"Look at you," Ayla whispered, her voice dripping with malice. "Just a cheap warming pan, thrown out with the trash."

Karen clenched her fists inside her pockets. "Keep your man on a tighter leash, Ayla. And stay out of my way."

Ayla's eyes gleamed. "Oh, Israel tells me everything. He even told me about that ugly tree in the backyard."

Karen's stomach twisted.

Ayla covered her mouth and giggled. "He said he shredded it just to make me smile. To clear out the garbage."

The string holding Karen's sanity together snapped.

She stepped forward, her eyes burning red. "Shut your mouth. Don't you ever talk about that tree."

Ayla's gaze suddenly shifted. She looked past Karen, staring at the reflection in the glass doors at the end of the hall.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure was approaching.

Ayla's lips curled into a wicked smirk. Suddenly, she threw herself backward.

Karen instinctively raised her hand to brace herself, her fingers miles away from touching Ayla's clothes.

Ayla let out a blood-curdling scream. She collapsed onto the marble floor.

The heavy oak doors burst open. Israel stormed into the hallway, the air temperature dropping the second he appeared.

Ayla lay on the floor, clutching her chest. She gasped for air, her face twisting in fake agony.

Israel's eyes widened in panic. He sprinted forward and dropped to his knees, pulling Ayla's fragile body into his arms.

"She pushed me," Ayla sobbed weakly, burying her face in his chest. "Israel, my heart..."

Israel snapped his head up. The look he gave Karen was pure, unfiltered hatred.

"I didn't touch her," Karen said, shaking her head and taking a step back.

Israel didn't listen. He didn't care. To protect the woman dying in his arms, he shot his arm out and shoved Karen out of the way.

The force of his push was brutal. Karen lost her footing.

She tumbled backward, falling down the three marble steps at the end of the corridor.

Her knee slammed into the sharp edge of the stone. A sharp, tearing pain shot violently through her ankle, radiating a burning agony all the way up her calf. Her elbow scraped raw against the floor.

She curled into a ball at the bottom of the stairs, gasping through the blinding pain.

Israel stood at the top of the steps, looking down at her like she was an insect.

"If anything happens to her heart," Israel snarled, "I will bankrupt your entire family."

He tightened his grip on Ayla. "I will have my legal team blacklist you from every studio in Hollywood. You will pay for this jealousy."

He scooped Ayla up into his arms and walked away, leaving Karen shivering on the freezing marble floor.