Chapter 1

I suspended a five-year-old student named Leo for pushing another child down the stairs. As the head child psychologist at an elite academy, I was used to difficult children, but there was a chilling emptiness in Leo's eyes.

That evening, I was abducted in the faculty parking lot, dragged into a van, and beaten unconscious.

I woke up in a hospital, every inch of my body aching. A kind nurse let me use her phone to call my husband, Franco. When he didn't answer, I opened his social media page, my heart pounding with fear for him.

But he was fine. A new video, posted just thirty minutes ago, showed him in a hospital room, gently peeling an apple for the little boy I had suspended.

"Daddy," Leo whined. "That teacher was mean to me."

My husband's voice, the voice I had loved for a decade, was a soothing murmur. "I know, buddy. Daddy already took care of it. She won't ever bother you again."

The world tilted on its axis. The attack wasn't random. The man who had vowed to protect me forever, my loving husband, had tried to have me killed. For another woman's child. Our entire life was a lie.

Then the police delivered the final blow: our five-year marriage had never been legally registered. As I lay there, broken, I remembered the wedding gift he'd given me-40% of his company. He thought it was a symbol of his ownership.

He was about to find out it was his death sentence.

Chapter 1

The new student, Leo Baxter, was a problem. As the head child psychologist at Northgate Academy, I' d seen my share of difficult children, but Leo was different. He was defiant, with a coldness in his eyes that was unusual for a five-year-old. Today, he' d pushed another child down the stairs.

I sat across from him in my office, the room filled with soft colors and plush toys meant to be calming. He just stared at me, his arms crossed.

"Leo, we don't push people," I said, my voice gentle. "Can you tell me why you did that?"

He said nothing. His silence was a wall. I knew his file. Single mother, Kayleigh Baxter. No father listed. He was a scholarship student, a rare case in a school filled with the children of Silicon Valley's elite.

"You'll be suspended for three days," I told him finally. "I need you to think about how your actions hurt others."

His eyes narrowed. It was a look of pure hatred.

After school, I walked to my car in the faculty lot. The day had been long. I just wanted to go home to my husband, Franco. He always knew how to make everything better.

A white van screeched to a halt beside me. Two men jumped out. Before I could scream, a rough hand covered my mouth. A sharp, chemical smell filled my nose, and the world went dark.

I woke up to suffocating blackness. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline and cheap air freshener. My head throbbed, and my hands were tied behind my back. I was in the trunk of a car. Panic seized me. I kicked and screamed, but the sound was muffled. The car was moving, bouncing over uneven roads.

Every bump sent a wave of pain through my body. My ribs ached. My wrists were raw from the zip ties. I tried to think, tried to fight the terror. Who would do this? A robbery? A random act of violence?

The car stopped. I heard voices, muffled through the metal. Then, the trunk opened. Blinding light flooded in, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I saw the silhouette of a man. He dragged me out and threw me onto the hard, gravel-covered ground.

Pain shot through my shoulder. I tasted blood.

"Please," I begged, my voice a hoarse whisper. "Take whatever you want."

He laughed, a cruel, ugly sound. "We already have."

Another man joined him. They didn't wear masks. They didn't care if I saw their faces. That meant they didn't plan on letting me live. They started kicking me. My head, my stomach, my back. I curled into a ball, trying to protect myself, but it was useless.

A sharp, unbearable pain exploded in my abdomen. It felt like my insides were tearing apart. I screamed, a raw, animal sound of agony. Then, another kick to my head. My vision blurred. The world started to fade into a gray haze.

As my consciousness slipped away, I thought of Franco. My sweet, loving Franco. He would find me. He would save me.

I don' t know how much time passed. I was floating in a sea of pain. Then, a voice. "Hey! Are you okay?"

Someone was gently shaking me. I forced my eyes open. A young man, a hiker by his clothes, was leaning over me. He was on the phone. "Yes, I found her. Off the side of the road on Mount Diablo. She's hurt badly."

Help. I was saved.

The ambulance ride was a blur of hazy lights and muted sounds. My body was a universe of pain. In the emergency room, a nurse kindly helped me use her phone. I had to call Franco. He needed to know I was safe.

I dialed his number. It rang once, then went to voicemail. Strange. He always answered my calls. I tried again. Voicemail. A knot of unease tightened in my gut. I called our home landline. No answer.

"Maybe he's in a meeting," the nurse suggested, trying to soothe me.

I nodded, but the fear wouldn't go away. I opened his social media page. His public profile was filled with pictures of us, of his tech company's successes. It was a carefully curated image of a perfect life.

Then I saw it. A new post, from just thirty minutes ago. It was a video.

The camera was shaky, as if filmed by a child. It was in a hospital room, not unlike the one I was in. Franco was there, his back to the camera. He was peeling an apple, his movements precise and gentle.

And sitting on the bed, propped up by pillows, was a little boy.

It was Leo Baxter.

"Daddy," Leo whined, his voice petulant. "That teacher is so mean. She suspended me."

My heart stopped. Daddy?

Franco turned, and his face filled the screen. It was a face I knew better than my own, a face I had loved for a decade. But the expression on it was one I had never seen directed at anyone but me. It was pure, doting affection.

"I know, buddy," Franco said, his voice a low, soothing murmur. "Don't worry. Daddy already took care of it. She won't ever bother you again."

He handed the apple slice to Leo, and the boy chomped on it happily. "Promise?"

"I promise," Franco said, stroking Leo's hair. "Daddy will always protect you and Mommy."

The world tilted on its axis. My mind refused to process what I was seeing. The attack. The men. She won't ever bother you again. It wasn't random. It was him. Franco did this to me.

A wave of nausea washed over me. The pain in my body was nothing compared to the agony ripping through my soul. My husband. The man who had saved me when I was an orphaned teenager, the man who had vowed to protect me forever, had tried to have me killed. For another woman's child.

My marriage. My life. It was all a lie. A five-year lie.

I remembered the day we lost our baby. I' d been attacked then, too. A mugging, they called it. I lost the baby, a boy, and my uterus was damaged beyond repair. I was told he was stillborn. Franco held me as I wept, his tears mingling with mine. He was my rock, my savior.

Now, I looked at the boy on the screen. He was five years old. He had Franco's eyes. My son. He was my son. Franco had taken my baby and given him to another woman.

"No..." The word was a choked sob. "No, no, no."

The nurse rushed to my side. "What is it? What's wrong?"

I couldn't speak. I just pointed at the phone, my hand shaking violently. The video played on a loop. Franco, my Franco, with our son. A family. A happy, perfect family that did not include me.

The betrayal was a physical thing. It clawed its way up my throat, and I vomited onto the floor. The pain in my abdomen flared, white-hot and blinding. My body convulsed, and the heart monitor beside me began to shriek.

"Doctor! We need a doctor in here!"

Through the haze of pain and horror, I thought of our life together. He' d found me after my parents died, a lost and broken teenager. He was the heir to the Anderson fortune, handsome and brilliant. He took me in, cared for me, loved me. He told me I was his purity, his light. He gave me 40% of his company, AuraTech, as a wedding gift. "A symbol that we are true partners," he' d said.

That gift, I realized with a sudden, chilling clarity, was now a weapon.

A new thought, more terrible than the last, cut through the fog. The mistress. Who was she?

"The boy's mother," I gasped to the nurse. "What's her name?"

The nurse looked confused but checked the file from Leo' s school that I had asked the police to retrieve. "Kayleigh Baxter. She was Franco Anderson's personal assistant."

Kayleigh. I remembered her. Plain, quiet, always in the background. She' d been fired five years ago for trying to seduce Franco. He had told me himself, his face a mask of disgust. He said he couldn't stand women who threw themselves at him. He said he sent her away, far away, and made sure she would never bother us again.

It was all a lie. All of it. He hadn't sent her away. He had set her up in a new life. With my son.

I started laughing, a high, unhinged sound that echoed in the sterile room. I was a joke. My entire life was a joke written by a sociopath.

The pain became unbearable. I felt a tearing sensation deep inside me. Blood soaked through my hospital gown. Then, darkness swallowed me whole.

When I woke up again, the first thing I saw was a police officer standing by my bed. A woman with a kind, tired face.

"Ms. Thompson," she said gently. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. Your injuries... the doctors had to perform an emergency hysterectomy. You lost your uterus."

The words barely registered. I had already lost it five years ago, during the first "attack". This was just a final, cruel confirmation.

"I want a divorce," I said, my voice flat and empty.

The officer looked at me with pity. "We ran a check. Ms. Thompson... there's no record of your marriage to Franco Anderson. You were never legally married."

The room spun. Five years. I had called him my husband for five years. I had worn his ring. I had built a life with him, a home. And none of it was real.

Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The mistress. Kayleigh. And then the final, devastating piece. The boy. My son. Leo Baxter. His last name wasn't Anderson. It was Baxter. The name of the woman who had raised him. The woman who had stolen my life.

I remembered her from years ago. Obsessive. Conniving. She used to stare at Franco with a hunger that made my skin crawl. He had fired her, or so he said. He had told me she tried to get pregnant using his stolen... sample. He had been so angry, so protective of me. He'd sworn he'd made her pay.

And I had believed him.

The officer was still talking. "...and Mr. Anderson has already filed a restraining order against you... claiming you have been stalking his son..."

The blood drained from my face. My breath came in ragged gasps. The walls of the room seemed to close in on me. The weight of it all-the lies, the betrayal, the stolen child, the fake marriage, the violence-crashed down on me at once.

My body gave out. I slid from the bed and collapsed onto the cold, hard floor, a broken doll in a sea of white linens.

A message notification pinged on the nurse's phone, still clutched in my hand. It was from Franco.

"My love," it read. "I heard what happened. A terrible, random attack. I'm rushing to your side. Don't worry, I'll take care of you. I'll always take care of you."

I stared at the words, the false love, the sickening hypocrisy. A sound escaped my lips, something between a laugh and a sob.

He was my savior. He was my world.

And now, he was my monster.

My phone rang again. Not Franco this time. An unknown number. I almost ignored it, but some instinct made me answer.

"Elsa?" a man's voice asked, hesitant. "It's Casey. Casey Jimenez."

Casey. Franco' s business partner. My childhood friend. The boy who had lived next door before my parents died. The boy I hadn't spoken to in years, not since Franco had swept me away into his world.

"Casey," I whispered, my voice cracking.

"I heard about the attack," he said, his voice tight with concern. "I'm outside the hospital. Are you okay? What's going on?"

Tears streamed down my face. I couldn't form the words. The truth was too monstrous to speak.

But as I lay on the floor, broken and betrayed, a tiny, cold flicker of something new ignited in the ruins of my heart. It wasn't hope. It was rage. Pure, undiluted rage.

Franco thought he had destroyed me. He thought he had won. He didn't know who he was dealing with. He had unlocked a part of me I never knew existed.

He had given me 40% of his empire. He thought it was a symbol of his ownership.

He was about to find out it was his death sentence.

"Casey," I said, my voice suddenly clear and steady. "I need your help."