Chapter 2

I got lucky.

Amos Clayton, one of my own men, dragged me out of the villa a second before it went up.

But the blast still caught my legs.

Shrapnel had lodged deep inside.

Too close to the nerves.

If I didn't want to end up crippled, the only way was to dig it out without anesthesia.

I lay on the cleaning table, fingers clawing straight through the sheet beneath me.

Sweat poured off me, and I never made a sound.

After all, no pain compares to being stabbed in the back by the one you love.

When they finished, I refused the doctor's advice to rest in bed.

I went back to the wedding suite and ordered Amos to tear out every last bit of the renovation inside.

Amos looked uneasy.

"Maddie, I know you're angry."

"But this place was Tom's wedding gift to you."

"If I smash it up like this, Tom will blame me."

I caught the wording, and I fixed my eyes on his.

"So you already knew?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Amos stammered.

"Tom said he was afraid it would be too much of a shock for you."

I laughed until it turned to tears.

Afraid of the shock.

So he hid the fact that he'd kept alive the enemy who killed our children.

So he hid that he was sleeping with that enemy.

So even my own men knew Tom had a woman stashed away.

And I was the only one left in the dark like a fool.

I shoved Amos aside, swung the hammer up, and drove it hard into the wall.

Amos tried to stop me, but he was too late.

Behind that plain, ordinary wall, there was another world.

A pink crib. A blue baby walker.

And more diapers, formula, and children's toys than I could count.

And all at once I understood.

Why Amos, who was supposed to be out on a job,

had shown up in the villa a second before the blast to pull me out.

Not loyalty to his boss.

Fear that I'd hurt someone innocent.

I pressed the gun to Amos's head and asked him.

"Where's the child?"

Amos still tried to speak up for that little bastard.

"Maddie, the kid's innocent."

"And besides, Freda is Tom's—"

I put a bullet through his wrist.

Clutching the wound, Amos finally gave it up.

"Dragon Lake Manor."

It felt like my heart had been carved straight out of me. I don't even know how I got into the car.

All I could think of was five years ago, when I'd just found out I was pregnant.

By then I'd been building everything alongside Tom for years.

The gunfire and the fighting had wrecked my body long before.

The doctor said the baby might not make it, and advised me to terminate first.

There'd be time enough to try again once I recovered.

But Tom looked at those two tiny heartbeats on the ultrasound.

He spent a fortune building a private estate in Dragon Lake Bay, said to be the safest place in all of Harbor City.

He brought in the best medical team to stand by twenty-four hours a day.

I never imagined the very team meant to protect me and the babies would become the ones who watched them die.

Afterward, I couldn't bear the memories the place stirred.

I told Tom to sell the estate.

He agreed to every word.

Then he turned around and hid his mistress and his bastard son right there.

Rage boiling in my chest, I kicked the manor gates open.

It was empty inside. Only Tom, waiting for me.

Seeing the red in my eyes, he came over and held me the way he always had, soothing.

"Maddie, stop this. There's no child."

"Those things are just offerings I bought for the children of ours who never got to be born."

"All these years it wasn't only you. I never forgot them either."

"What happened today is on me. I've already sent her away."

"From now on I'll stay by your side, and we'll be just like before."

I said nothing.

I just smiled coldly and threw the photo of that woman holding a baby in his face.

Just something I'd thrown together with AI on the way over, in case he tried to deny it.

But Tom flew into a rage on the spot, seized my throat hard, and said,

"What did you do to Freda and Bliss?"