Chapter 1

Prescott Global Corp was dying, my father, David Miller, told me, his voice heavy. The Prescotts, an old family with a sprawling but failing conglomerate, needed a lifeline. Miller Energy, my family' s company, was that lifeline. They proposed a merger, a multi-billion dollar bailout. There was one condition, a condition my father agreed to because he thought it was my deepest wish. I, Savannah Miller, had to marry Ethan Prescott. I had loved Ethan for ten years, a foolish, unseeing love.

So, I agreed, a sacrifice for a dream I thought I wanted, and a sacrifice to save a legacy, using my family's money.

The wedding night was at the remote Prescott family hunting lodge, a grand, isolated place. Ethan suggested a game, his eyes gleaming with something I didn't recognize then. He blindfolded me. Laughter echoed, not just his, but his friends', his "crew." Then hands, not Ethan's, were on me. The blindfold stayed. The assault was brutal, shared by several of his intoxicated, depraved friends. I was a toy, broken for their amusement.

A month later, a tiny, naive hope grew in me. I was pregnant. I went to find Ethan, to share what I thought would be happy news. I found him at a high-stakes poker game with his crew. Their voices were loud, careless. They were betting, betting on who the father of my unborn child was. Each man recounted his "turn" with me that night, laughing. My world shattered.

I confronted Ethan, my voice shaking but my heart filled with a cold rage. He didn't deny it. He scoffed. He said my family' s bailout, our marriage, had forced his true love, Tiffany Vance, to leave the country. A lie, I knew later Tiffany was in on it all. He sneered, "You think this is over? I'll make your life hell until Tiffany forgives me for marrying you." His eyes were cold, remorseless.

"I want a divorce," I choked out.

Ethan laughed, a cruel, sharp sound. He pulled out his phone. He showed me a video. The wedding night. The assault. My humiliation, stark and clear.

"Leak this," he said, his voice soft, menacing, "and your family, your reputation, everything is destroyed."

Then he dragged me to the basement of the lodge. To a reinforced panic room. He locked me in. "You'll stay here until you learn your place."

Eight months I was in that steel-lined box. Eight months of darkness, despair, and fading hope. He showed the video to my parents. The shock, the grief, made them gravely ill. Ethan visited me once, near the end. He told me, his face a mask of triumph. He told me he would take over Miller Energy, for Tiffany. As I lay dying, alone, during a premature, unassisted childbirth, his gloating words were the last I heard.