Promises meant nothing against a well-laid scheme.
My first day in prison, I learned my father’s cancer had taken a turn. He was gone before I could even process the news.
All the strength drained from my body. I crumpled to the cold cell floor.
I don’t know how I survived.
Inside, every day was the same uniform grey. Enduring curses and bullying, grinding through back-breaking labor—each one its own kind of torture.
Once, I fought with a few other inmates. They beat me half to death. Waking in the infirmary, I was told my left kidney had been damaged beyond repair. They’d removed it.
My fingers traced the new, hollow space on my abdomen. I felt nothing. Not a single tear fell.
Only one thought remained: survive.
My mother was still out there. She was waiting.
I had to get out. I had to find the truth, clear my name, and see justice done for my father.
That single thought was all that carried me through those fourteen hundred and sixty long, dark days.
The day I was released, the sky blazed a brilliant blue. Sunlight glared, blinding.
I stood at the prison gates, broken, watching the traffic flow past. Nowhere to go.
Home was gone.
Just as I lingered there, lost, a black Bentley slid to a stop in front of me.
The window lowered, revealing a handsome face etched with severity.
“Ivy.” His voice was low, gentle.
I froze.
Russell. Shirley’s adopted brother. The untouchable CEO who’d built a commercial empire from nothing. He was also my father’s student—though he’d never cared for painting, only business.
In my memory, he was always quiet, stern, never smiling. We were never close.
Why was he here?
“Get in,” he said, pushing the passenger door open. “I’ll take you home.”
Home? What home did I have left?
I stared at him, wary and unmoving.
He seemed to read my thoughts and sighed. “Your mother… she’s in a convalescent home. I arranged it.”
*Mom.*
That one word unlocked everything, shattering all my tightly-wound defenses.
I scrambled into the car.
