The more desperate he got, the calmer I became.
The last few pages of the document had already been quietly replaced with divorce terms and asset-freeze clauses. All I needed was for him to put pen to paper first.
I pretended to read carefully, asking about trivial details to stall for time.
Miles lost patience, just as I knew he would. He snatched the document out of my hands and signed without hesitation.
"Quit dragging your feet. What do you think I'm going to do, poison the ink?"
His signature slashed across the page in a careless scrawl. He didn't so much as glance at the clauses that followed before tossing the document back to me. "Your turn."
I picked up the pen. My grip was steady, my hand sure. I signed my name with the kind of composure that only years of swallowed rage could produce.
In that moment, every ounce of hatred I'd buried for seven years finally found its way out.
Miles Winfield, everything you owe me, I'm collecting with interest.
He gave a distracted nod and headed upstairs without sparing me a single look.
I dialed my lawyer the second he was gone. My voice could have frozen steel.
"The agreement is signed. Initiate divorce proceedings immediately. Freeze every account Miles Winfield has linked to Pruitt Group assets. Every dollar he's siphoned off stays right where it is. He doesn't walk away with a cent."
I'd barely hung up when Stella appeared in the study doorway, one hand bracing her lower back, her face arranged in the smug expression of someone who thought she'd already won.
"Martha, all signed? Guess you're not as stupid as I thought."
The venom surging behind my eyes found its target. I closed the distance in a single step and slapped her across the face with everything I had.
Stella staggered. Before she could recover, I seized her arm and forced her to the floor, driving my knee into her back to pin her there.
"Miles!" she shrieked. "Help me!"
Miles came barreling into the room, eyes wild with fury.
His foot slammed into my chest.
I lost my balance. My lower back cracked against the corner of the desk, and white-hot pain tore through my entire body.
He didn't even look at me. He crouched beside Stella and gathered her into his arms, his voice shaking. "Stella, are you okay? The baby, is the baby all right?"
Stella buried her face in his chest and sobbed, trembling with theatrical distress.
Miles lifted his gaze to me. His words dripped with poison.
"Martha, you psychotic bitch. She's pregnant, and you still put your hands on her?"
I braced myself against the floor, cold sweat beading across my skin as agony pulsed through my waist and stomach.
"Apologize to her. Now." His voice was a blade.
I bared my teeth in something that wasn't a smile and didn't say a word.
His face went ashen with rage. He stood, pulled out his phone, and dialed. "Get over here. Take her to a psychiatric facility. She needs to be treated for whatever's wrong with her head."
Bodyguards materialized within seconds.
I fought through the pain. While Miles bent over Stella, stroking her hair, murmuring reassurances, my fingers locked around my phone in a death grip.
Fingerprint unlock. I dialed the number I knew by heart.
One ring.
"Dad, Miles is trying to have me committed..."
My sister's voice burst through the speaker, urgent and fierce.
"I heard what Miles has been doing to you. I'm coming right now. I'm bringing you home."
The bodyguards pinned me to the cold floor.
I lifted my eyes and stared at Miles. His gaze was glued to Stella. His fingertips traced slow, reverent circles over her belly, as if he were cradling something priceless.
And me? I was just the inconvenient lunatic in the room.
"Miles, are you blind? Can you not see what she really is beneath all that fake sweetness? Seven years ago, the two of you conspired to swap my baby. Seven years you've been scheming together to destroy me. Did you really think I never figured it out?"
The color drained from his face. For one instant, raw panic flickered in his eyes before fury swallowed it whole.
"What the hell are you raving about? You've completely lost your mind!"
"I've lost my mind?" I pointed straight at Stella, every word ripped from somewhere deep and bleeding. "You two are the ones who drove me to this! Stella, do you have the guts to admit it? Admit that seven years ago you paid Jemima Finch to switch my baby. Admit you've been lacing my supplements with poison. Admit that every last bit of it was for the Pruitt fortune!"
Stella's face went chalk-white. She burrowed deeper into Miles's arms, forcing composure into her trembling voice. "Miles, she's having a breakdown. Listen to what she's saying. It's insane. I never did any of that. Never."
"Still lying!"
I lunged for her, desperate to drag the truth out, but Miles seized my wrist and squeezed until the bones ground together.
"Enough!"
He shoved me backward. I stumbled, and the back of my head cracked against the doorframe. A dull, throbbing pain bloomed across my skull.
He raised a hand toward the bodyguards. "Get her out of here. I don't want her dirtying Stella's sight."
