Chapter 3

I stared at the paper in my hand, then up at Liam' s face. The sheer, unadulterated cruelty of his request stole my breath.

"Are you insane?" My voice was a low, dangerous growl. "She killed my mother. Your mistress, in your car, killed my mother. And you want me to sign this?"

"It was an accident, Ava," Liam said, his voice tight with impatience. "Chloe is fragile. She' s carrying my son. We can' t have her dragged through a police investigation. It' s too much stress."

He was talking about Chloe' s stress. My mother was dead. Lying in a morgue downstairs. And he was worried about Chloe' s stress.

"What about my stress, Liam?" I shot back, my voice rising. "What about my mother, who is dead on a cold slab because your precious Chloe was driving recklessly?"

"Don' t be so dramatic," he scoffed. "Your mother shouldn't have been standing in the middle of the road. And let' s be honest, what kind of life did she have? This is a tragedy, yes, but I' m prepared to be very generous."

He reached for his wallet. "I' ll give you money. Enough to take care of all the funeral expenses. Enough for you to live comfortably. Just sign the paper and let' s put this behind us."

He thought he could buy my silence. He thought he could put a price on my mother' s life.

A cold, hard fury I had never felt before settled in my chest. It was clarifying. All the love I thought I had for this man, all the hope I had harbored, turned to ash.

I looked him straight in the eye. And with slow, deliberate movements, I tore the waiver in half. Then I tore it again, and again, until the pieces were nothing but confetti in my hands.

I let them flutter to the floor between us.

"Get out," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "Get out of my sight."

Liam' s face darkened. For a second, I thought he might hit me again. But he just stared at me, his jaw clenched, before turning on his heel and storming away.

In the days that followed, I tried to find justice. I went to the police, but they were frustratingly slow. The taxi driver' s statement was on file, but there were no other witnesses. The street had no security cameras. Liam' s lawyers were already at work, creating a story that Chloe' s car had been reported stolen an hour before the accident. They were building a wall of lies that I couldn't break through.

The funeral was a blur of gray skies and quiet weeping. I stood alone by the graveside, feeling an emptiness so vast it threatened to swallow me whole.

As the small crowd dispersed, a black car pulled up. A man in a sharp suit got out. It was my uncle, my mother's younger brother, a man I hadn't seen in years. He ran a successful business empire overseas.

He walked straight to me and wrapped his arms around me in a firm, protective hug.

"I' m so sorry, Ava," he said, his voice thick with grief. "I came as soon as I heard. Your mother... she was a great woman."

His presence was a small island of comfort in an ocean of pain.

But the moment was shattered by another arrival.

Chloe.

She approached me, a look of sorrow on her face that was so fake it was grotesque. Liam was a few steps behind her, watching.

"Ava, I am so, so sorry for your loss," she said, her voice dripping with manufactured sympathy. She reached out to touch my arm.

I flinched away from her as if her hand were on fire.

Her expression hardened for a split second before the mask of grief fell back into place. "I know this is hard. But I want you to know, I forgive you."

"You... forgive me?" I asked, bewildered.

"For everything," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper so only I could hear. "For pushing me, for trying to hurt my baby. I know you' re just lashing out because of what happened to your mom. It' s not your fault."

She was gloating. Twisting the knife. And then she delivered the final, devastating blow.

"You know, this was always the plan," she murmured, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. "From the very beginning. Getting Liam, getting this life. It was always meant to be mine. Your mother getting in the way... that was just an unfortunate, but necessary, loose end to tie up."

The words hit me with the force of a physical assault. It wasn't just an accident. It was deliberate. She had aimed for my mother. She had orchestrated all of this, all of my suffering, out of a decade-long vendetta.

Something inside me snapped.

The world went red. I didn' t think. I just reacted. I lunged forward and pushed her, hard.

"You monster!" I screamed.

Chloe, ever the actress, didn' t even try to catch her balance. She let out a theatrical gasp and threw herself backward, landing on the soft grass with a dramatic cry of pain.

"Aah! My stomach! The baby!"

Liam was there in an instant, his face contorted in a mask of pure fury. He didn't even look at Chloe. His eyes were locked on me.

"You bitch!" he roared. He shoved my uncle aside and lunged at me.

He didn' t slap me this time. He kicked me.

A brutal, vicious kick straight to my abdomen.

Pain, sharp and blinding, exploded through my body. I crumpled to the ground, gasping.

Liam stood over me, his chest heaving. "If anything happens to Chloe or my child," he spat, his voice trembling with rage, "I will kill you. I swear to God, I will kill you."

As I lay there on the cold, damp earth, a wave of agony washed over me, a pain deeper and more terrifying than the kick itself. A cramp, sharp and sickening, seized my lower belly.

My baby.

Oh God, my baby.

The world started to spin, the gray sky fading to black. My last conscious thought was one of utter, soul-crushing despair. I was losing everything. My mother, my marriage, and now, the one secret I had been desperately trying to protect.

I was losing my child.