Chapter 3

Harper POV

I became an actress. My stage was the sprawling, oppressive silence of the Stark mansion, and my audience was the man who had systematically murdered my soul.

I played the part of the grieving, submissive wife perfectly. I nodded demurely when Eli spoke. I avoided eye contact with Cody whenever he entered the room. I let Florence make snide comments about my "fragility" without flinching.

But in the shadows, I was working.

I had a degree in neuroscience before I became Mrs. Stark. Eli liked to forget that. He liked to think of me as a trophy-pretty, polished, and vacant. That arrogance was his blind spot.

I used the library computer, bypassing the family firewalls with a VPN I had coded myself during the long, sleepless nights. I wasn't looking for a divorce lawyer. You don't divorce a Don. You escape him, or you die.

I found Casey Long on the dark web. Rumors called him the "Shadow Doctor." He was a neurosurgeon who had been blacklisted for unethical experiments, now operating out of a hidden clinic in the unseen corners of the city. He specialized in trauma. Specifically, the removal of it.

I sent him a message. Encrypted.

Subject: A clean slate.

Body: I have the Stark ledger codes. I need a procedure. Total wipe.

The reply came three hours later.

Meet me. The old shipyard. Midnight.

I spent the next week gathering leverage. I copied files from Eli's private server onto a micro-drive. Names, dates, bribes. Enough to send him to prison for three lifetimes. I didn't plan to use it-I planned to buy my freedom with it.

The night of the escape, I staged the scene.

I wrote a note. It was vague, tear-stained. I can't live without Leo. I'm going to be with him. It was the perfect narrative. The grieving mother, unable to cope. Eli would believe it because it fit his view of me as weak.

I left the tracker bracelet on the nightstand next to the note. I had hacked the signal to loop a "stationary" status for the next six hours.

I slipped out through the servants' entrance in the pouring rain.

But I wasn't careful enough.

A car idled at the end of the driveway. The headlights flared on, blinding me with sudden, accusing brilliance.

Kasey stepped out from the passenger side. Florence was in the driver's seat.

"Going somewhere?" Kasey asked, a gun hanging loosely in her hand.

They didn't tell Eli. They didn't want him to bring me back. They wanted me gone.

"Get in," Florence ordered. "We're going to help you with your 'suicide', Harper. It would be a shame if you chickened out."

They drove me to the old industrial bridge on the edge of town. The river below was swollen and raging, a black ribbon of death cutting through the night.

Kasey marched me to the edge. The wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes.

"You should thank us," Kasey shouted over the wind. "You're miserable. Eli is tired of you. We're just speeding up the inevitable."

"He'll know," I said, my voice steady despite the terror clawing at my throat. "He'll know you did this."

"He'll think you jumped," Florence called from the car. "Tragic. Poetic."

Kasey smiled. It was the last thing I saw before she shoved me.

"Say hi to Leo for me."

I fell.

The water hit me like concrete. The cold seized my muscles instantly, driving the breath from my lungs. I tumbled in the dark, churning current, swallowing mouthfuls of filth.

I fought. I kicked. I clawed at the water. I wasn't going to die. Not like this. Not for them.

My hand struck something hard. Driftwood. I clung to it, gasping for air as the river swept me downstream, away from the bridge, away from the Starks.

I washed up on a muddy bank miles away. I was freezing, broken, half-dead.

A figure emerged from the treeline. A man in a dark coat. He held a scanner in his hand.

"You're late," a voice said.

It was Casey Long. He hadn't just waited for the meeting; he had been tracking the micro-drive signal I carried in my pocket.

He knelt beside me, checking my pulse. His hands were warm, precise. He didn't look like a criminal. He looked like a weary angel.

"They... pushed me," I chattered, my teeth clacking together uncontrollably.

"I saw," he said grimly. He lifted me into his arms effortlessly. "Rest now. You're safe."

The world blurred into a haze of motion and shadows. He took me to a basement clinic that smelled of antiseptic and ozone. He stitched my cuts. He warmed my blood.

When I was stable, he stood over me. Behind him was a machine that looked like something out of a science fiction nightmare.

"Are you sure about this?" Casey asked. His eyes were grey and filled with a strange sadness. "The procedure... it's irreversible. You won't remember the pain, but you won't remember the love either. You won't remember your son."

I closed my eyes. I saw Leo's face. Then I saw Cody smashing the snow globe. I saw Eli's indifference.

"I don't have a son," I whispered. "My son is dead. And the woman who loved him died in that river."

I looked at Casey. "Take it all away. Make me blank."

He nodded slowly. He placed a mask over my face.

"Count backward from ten."

"Ten," I said.

The machine hummed. Blue light filled my vision.

"Nine."

The pain in my chest began to fade.

"Eight."

Leo's face blurred into soft static.

"Seven."

Eli's name dissolved on my tongue.

"Six..."

Then, there was only silence. And for the first time in years, the silence wasn't heavy. It was white.