Chapter 1

My wife lost every cent we had at the gambling table. She even pawned the clothes off her back.

Desperate to win it all back, she borrowed money and kept playing.

When she was broke again, she gave up. She spent her last few dollars on sleeping pills and tried to kill herself.

After the doctors revived her, she lay naked in a hospital bed, clutching my hand and sobbing.

“Honey, I lost everything. I’m so sorry!”

I clenched my teeth and took our daughter to the gambling table.

“I’m putting my child up as collateral. Let’s keep playing!”

My wife lay naked in the hospital bed, gripping my hand.

“Honey, I was wrong. This is all my fault. I got carried away, but our child is innocent!”

“I’ll find a way to pay it back. I promise. Please, leave our daughter out of this!”

Tears and snot streamed down her face, but I had no desire to wipe them away.

To be honest, I wasn’t exactly poor. I’d spent years building my fortune, caught a few lucky breaks, and used a few tricks along the way. My assets totaled around ten million dollars.

I’d married a woman I adored in this city. I loved her, and she loved me.

After we got married, I spoiled her more and more. I even gave her some control over our finances. But she became increasingly flashy.

Designer bags and luxury cars gradually stopped satisfying her need to show off. A few wealthy wives introduced her to poker.

Small games wouldn’t have bothered me. But she became addicted to the rush of gambling.

This time, she had gone too far. She’d lost everything she had on her and walked out of the casino stark naked.

I stared at her coldly.

“You’ve lost everything. We have no money, no way to make more, and a mountain of loans. We don’t have a future anymore.”

“Either loan sharks bleed us dry for the rest of our lives, or we gamble one more time and win everything back!”

“I have no choice. I have to trade our child for chips and try again!”

My wife, Claire Hayes, cried even harder at my cold expression. Usually, the second she started crying, I would rush to comfort her.

But this time, I had to teach her how dangerous gambling really was.

What she’d lost was only a small portion of our assets, but it was still a million dollars. With the loans added in, it was no small sum.

How had the sweet girl I’d married managed to burn through that much money?

Combined with her increasingly strange behavior lately, it wasn’t hard to guess. Someone had set her up.

I could forgive them for scamming me out of some money. If that were all, I would have taken it back and let the matter drop.

But those scumbags had tortured my wife. They had driven her to this state, stripped her naked, and made her walk down the street.

That kind of humiliation was unforgivable!

I was going to make sure every last one of them paid!

I had my driver bring her some clothes, then carried our one-year-old son to the casino.

Claire clung to my arm. Her tears kept falling, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’ll sell my body to pay them back. Please, leave our child alone!”

Sell her body?

I said nothing, but my expression darkened.

My wife had been raised well. How had she even thought of borrowing money to gamble? Or selling herself to pay off her debts?

Those ideas had to have come from the people setting her up. They must have casually planted them in her head until she accepted them as normal. They might even have been planning to force her into that life all along.

They dared to try to turn my wife into a prostitute!

I clenched my fists until my knuckles turned white and led her to the gambling tables.

“Show me where you were playing.”

“I’m going to have a little fun with them.”