Lily POV
I stared at the empty space in the nursery drawer.
The soft blue yarn of the baby blanket had been the only thing keeping my hands from shaking. My mother had spent three months knitting it, squinting through her thick glasses, smiling at the thought of a new life.
My thumb jabbed at the phone screen, opening a social media app I rarely used.
Mia's profile was the first thing to pop up. She had posted a video ten minutes ago.
The caption read: "Only the best for my new baby."
The video showed her designer puppy running around her boutique. The dog was wearing a crude, chopped-up sweater.
My lungs seized. It was the same soft blue yarn. The intricate cable-knit stitch my mother had so painstakingly crafted was now butchered—cut to pieces to fit a dog.
The numbness in my veins turned to acid. A violent cramp tore through my abdomen, and I used the pain, feeding on it, to force my trembling legs to move. I grabbed my keys and stumbled out into the storm. Marco, my driver, took one look at my face and opened the rear door without a word, his expression grim as he navigated the slick roads while I shivered in the back.
The bells above the door of Mia's exotic pet boutique clanged with a tinny, discordant sound as I pushed my way inside.
The shop, funded entirely by Silas's laundered money, reeked of a nauseating blend of expensive perfume and sugary animal feed. Several civilian customers were browsing the aisles.
Mia sat on a velvet sofa in the center of the room. Silas sat beside her, his thigh almost touching hers.
He was holding a small silver spoon. He scooped a piece of cake and fed it to Mia.
She laughed, taking the bite, and then Silas put the exact same spoon into his own mouth.
My stomach lurched violently.
This was the man who made the maids bleach the floors twice a day. This was the husband who refused to hold my hand in public because of the germs. This was the Don who once fired a housekeeper on the spot for using the wrong cleaning solution on his private bathroom tiles.
His severe OCD vanished entirely when it came to her. The realization hit me like a physical blow. It had never been a medical condition. It had always been a weapon—a tool of control designed to keep me at arm's length, to make me feel untouchable and unworthy while he saved his warmth for someone else.
I moved toward them, each step an effort of will.
Silas looked up. His expression hardened into a mask of cold authority. "What are you doing here? I told you to stay home."
I ignored him. I fixed my gaze on Mia. "Where is the blanket?"
Mia widened her eyes, her lower lip trembling in a perfect imitation of an innocent victim. "Blanket? I don't know what you're talking about."
I pointed at the dog running near the counter. It was wearing the shredded remains of my mother's work.
"You bribed a maid to steal from my private nursery," I said, my voice dangerously low. "You are a cheap mistress playing house with stolen money and pilfered goods."
The civilian customers stopped and stared. Whispers broke out across the boutique.
Mia's face flushed with anger and embarrassment. She turned to Silas, tears welling in her eyes. "Silas, make her stop. She's ruining my business."
She pointed a manicured finger at me. "I didn't bribe anyone! One of the maids put that old rag in the estate's donation bin. I saw it when I visited the perimeter gate yesterday and thought it was for the dog. She's slandering me!"
Silas stood up. His towering frame blocked my view of Mia. He looked down at me with absolute disgust.
"You are causing a scene over a worthless piece of fabric," he sneered. "You are embarrassing yourself and this Family. Go home and have your mother knit another one."
I looked at the man I had loved for four years. I looked at the hands that had promised to protect me, now shielding his whore from the consequences of her theft.
"My mother is dead."
My voice cracked, but the words tore out of my throat like shattered glass.
"She died yesterday in a car crash. She can never knit another blanket."
Silas froze. The color drained from his face. His jaw went slack, and for the first time since I met him, the untouchable Don looked paralyzed. His throat worked, a hard, convulsive swallow, and I watched something flicker behind his eyes—recognition, maybe, of the blood on my bag that he had seen and dismissed. The death certificates he had noticed and ignored.
Mia jumped up from the sofa. She violently shoved my shoulder. "You're lying! You're just trying to manipulate him because you're jealous!"
She walked over to the dog, ripped the blue yarn off its back, and threw it directly into a dirty litter box in the corner.
"There. Take your trash."
A blind, roaring sound filled my ears. I lunged at Mia, my hands balled into fists.
Before I could reach her, a heavy hand struck my face.
The sharp, wet crack of the slap echoed through the quiet boutique.
My head snapped to the side. The metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. I stumbled back, my hand slapping against a glass display case to keep me from falling.
Silas stood there, his chest heaving. His hand was still raised. The hand that performed twelve-hour surgeries with inhuman precision. The hand that had once cupped my face on our wedding night and promised me safety. Now raised against me to protect the woman who had desecrated my dead mother's final gift.
He had struck me to protect her. He needed to maintain his authority in front of the watching crowd.
"You do not disrespect her in her own store," Silas spat, pointing a shaking finger at me.
His eyes were wild—misdirected rage masking his sudden panic. "You would curse your own parents just to win an argument. Apologize to Mia right now, or get out."
I touched my bleeding lip. I looked at the blue yarn soaking in the filth of the litter box.
I did not say a word.
I walked over, pulled the ruined blanket from the dirt, and pushed open the glass door, making the wind chimes above it clatter with a dissonant clang. The sole of my boot skidded on a wet patch of tile, a brief, jarring slip, but I bit the inside of my cheek, and the sharp, coppery taste was enough to steady me as I kept moving forward.
The rain soaked through my clothes instantly. Marco rushed forward with an umbrella, quickly ushering me into the waiting car as I clutched the filthy yarn to my chest, my body shaking with a cold that had nothing to do with the storm. The water mixed with the warm blood on my face.
I was driven all the way back to the estate, my body a dead weight against the leather seats.
A strange quiet had descended in my mind as I went into the bedroom and pulled the divorce papers from my drawer.
I tore them into pieces, letting the white scraps flutter onto the dark, polished floor.
Walking away quietly was a luxury Silas did not deserve.
I was no longer just a grieving daughter or a discarded wife. I was going to strip him of his crown.
I was going to burn his empire to the ground, and make sure everyone watched it all turn to ash.
And I knew exactly who would help me light the match.
