Chapter 1

I stood in the visa center and learned that my five-year marriage was fake.

Ethan Laurent loved me more than anything. Or so I thought. Turns out, three years ago he married Mara, the woman who crippled my right hand, just so he could use fake documents to keep me caged forever.

He orchestrated the car accident that shattered my world, then knelt by my bed kissing my scars, saying "my life is yours."

I bit back my disgust and pretended to love him deeply, all while secretly planning my escape.

Two years later, I stood in the Golden Hall conducting my own symphony. My right hand bore scars, but it played the movement of freedom.

I stepped over the documents, took my new husband's arm, threw Ethan's diamond ring into the Danube, and sneered.

"Your life, your money. They disgust me."

Stella POV

On our fifth wedding anniversary, I went to the visa center to apply for a study visa to Vienna.

As I slid my documents through the window, I was still looking down, replying to Ethan's message.

"Baby, come home early today. I've prepared a surprise for you. Love you."

I had just started to smile when the clerk pushed my documents back.

"Miss Sterling, you filled out your marital status incorrectly. The system shows you're single, not married."

I froze for a moment, then pushed the materials back.

"You must have made a mistake. I got married five years ago."

My husband was Ethan Laurent, CEO of Laurent Group. The man who controlled billions in assets with ruthless methods, yet held me like a treasure in the palm of his hand.

The clerk typed a few more keystrokes, her tone certain.

"The database can't be wrong. You're definitely unmarried. However..."

She paused, her expression turning strange.

"The spouse you listed, Mr. Ethan. The system shows he got married three years ago. To someone named Mara Lynn. Do you know her?"

My blood turned to ice in that instant.

Mara Lynn?

How could I not know her.

Three years ago, I received an offer as principal cellist with the Vienna Royal Symphony Orchestra. My future was bright. But just before I was supposed to leave for abroad, Mara drove her sports car straight into mine like a maniac.

That car accident shattered my right wrist beyond repair. I could never play the cello again.

Ethan's eyes had turned bloodshot. He grabbed Mara's throat and nearly strangled her to death.

He used every means at his disposal to destroy the Lynn family completely, then had Mara committed to a psychiatric hospital, saying he'd make her wish she were dead.

To comfort me, having lost my dream and nearly taken my own life several times, Ethan canceled all his work and stayed by my side for an entire year.

He searched the world for the best doctors.

When I couldn't sleep through the nights from the pain, this man who feared nothing knelt by my bed, eyes red, kissing my scars over and over.

"Stella, you still have me. My life is yours."

But now, the clerk was telling me I had never been married.

And the man who swore he'd make Mara suffer worse than death had married her three years ago. The very year my life was destroyed in that accident.

"Miss Sterling? Do you still want to process the visa?"

The clerk's voice pulled me back.

"...No, I don't. Thank you."

I don't know how I walked out of the visa center.

The early autumn wind cut through me like ice.

I sat on a bench by the roadside and pulled out my phone, staring at the familiar profile picture pinned at the top of my chat list.

For five years, Ethan had reported his schedule to me every day. Every message ended with "love you."

He gave me a wedding that made headlines across the city. Hundreds of media outlets, seas of flowers. Everyone knew Ethan was head over heels for Sterling.

But it turned out it was all just a show. It meant nothing legally.

We were never really married.

My identity as Mrs. Laurent was fake.

Only my destroyed right hand and three years of depression and pain were real.

My phone buzzed. Another message from Ethan.

"Stella, just finished my meeting. Heading to pick up the cake I ordered for you. Be a good girl and wait for me at home."

I stared at the text, suddenly feeling my stomach churn.

I didn't cry. I didn't call him hysterically demanding answers.

I simply opened the location tracking app on my phone.

Ethan was a control freak. To "protect" me, he'd installed tracking on my phone.

But he didn't know I was extremely clever. I'd long ago reverse-engineered the program and could see his location too.

The red dot on the screen wasn't at his usual cake shop. It had stopped at a private maternity hospital outside the city.

I stood up and hailed a cab.

"Harmony Private Hospital."

My voice was perfectly steady, without a trace of trembling.

I wanted to see exactly how Ethan would lie to me.