My entire body throbbed with a dull, heavy ache.
I was in a hospital bed. Eventually, my battered body had simply given out, and they had been forced to bring me here.
The moment the nurses checked my vitals and left the room, I moved. I ignored the sharp pain radiating through my ribs and reached for my phone on the bedside table.
My fingers flew across the screen, bypassing the standard lock and entering a hidden, encrypted operating system.
I dialed a number that wasn't saved in any contacts list.
Dominic answered on the first ring.
“Is it time?” his deep voice asked.
“Prepare the extraction,” I said, my voice hoarse but completely steady. “I am leaving the city in exactly three days. Have everything ready.”
Before I could lock the screen, a message popped up.
It was a live video link from Amber.
I tapped it. The screen filled with the familiar, sweeping view of the historic coastal estate I had inherited from my late parents.
It was my sanctuary. The only place left in the world that held my family's warmth.
But the sprawling green lawn was currently dominated by a massive, roaring bonfire.
I watched as my father’s handwritten journals turned to ash. I watched as my childhood photo albums curled and blackened in the intense heat.
Then, with a sickening crash, they pushed my mother’s antique grand piano into the inferno. The heavy strings snapped with a sound like a dying scream.
Amber’s face appeared on the screen, a sweet, poisonous smile on her lips.
“Oops,” she chirped. “David said I could redecorate. We needed to clear some space for a modern nursery. Hope you don't mind, Scarlet.”
The video ended.
I ripped the IV out of the back of my hand.
Blood dripped down my fingers, but I didn't care. I pulled my coat over my hospital gown and walked out.
When I arrived at the estate, the smell of smoke and burning memories choked the fresh sea breeze.
I walked through the open front doors.
Amber was standing at the top of the grand marble staircase, sipping a glass of expensive champagne.
She looked down at me, her eyes gleaming with triumph.
“You’re too late,” she said smoothly. “It’s all gone. And by the way, David legally transferred the deed of this house to my name yesterday. You have nothing left.”
I stood at the bottom of the stairs.
I looked at the woman who had taken my husband, my company, and now my family's legacy just to twist the knife.
“Why is he so blindly devoted to you?” I asked. My voice was eerily calm. “He is a ruthless man. He doesn't love easily. What did you tell him?”
Amber smirked, swirling the champagne in her glass.
“Don't you know?” she mocked. “Three years ago. The highway pileup. David was trapped in a burning wreckage.”
My blood ran cold.
“I was the one who visited him in the hospital when he woke up,” Amber continued, her smile widening into something wicked.
“I told him I was the one who dragged him out of the flames. I told him I risked my life for him.”
I was the one who had shattered the car window. I was the one who had pulled his bloody, unconscious body from the fire, nearly dying in the process.
I still had the ugly burn scars on my back to prove it.
And David believed her.
Amber waited for my reaction.
She waited for me to scream, to cry, to lunge at her in a fit of hysterical rage.
Instead, I just looked at her.
“Is that all?” I asked softly. “You built your entire life on a lie. How pathetic.”
Amber’s smug expression vanished. Infuriated that I wasn't having a breakdown, her face twisted into something ugly and desperate.
“You think you're so much better than me?” she hissed.
She grabbed a heavy crystal vase from the pedestal beside her.
She smashed it violently against the marble floor. Jagged shards of thick glass scattered everywhere.
Then, she looked past me.
The heavy front doors were opening. David was walking in.
Without a second of hesitation, Amber threw herself backward.
She tumbled down the bottom half of the grand staircase, landing hard right in the middle of the jagged crystal glass.
“David!” Amber screamed, her voice piercing and full of terror. “Help me! She pushed me! She’s trying to kill our baby!”
David rushed forward, his face pale with panic.
He scooped up the crying, bleeding Amber into his arms.
Then, he turned to me.
He raised his hand and struck me across the face.
The slap echoed sharply through the grand foyer. My head snapped to the side, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth again.
“You are a monster,” David snarled, his eyes burning with absolute hatred.
He looked at his bodyguards, who had rushed in behind him.
“Drag her down to the underground wine cellar,” he ordered. “Lock her in. Let her cool off.”
The bodyguards grabbed me roughly by the arms.
They dragged me away from the warmth of the foyer, down the narrow, stone steps into the depths of the estate.
The underground wine cellar was freezing. The damp, icy air bit into my skin instantly.
They threw me onto the cold stone floor.
I looked up as David appeared in the doorway.
“You will rot down here,” his voice echoed from the other side, dripping with disgust. “You will stay in this freezing dark until you beg Amber for mercy.”
I was plunged into absolute, freezing darkness once again.
But this time, I didn't curl up. I didn't brace for the pain.
Instead, I leaned my bruised back against the freezing stone wall.
In the pitch-black room, I slowly smiled.
