I changed back into a light pair of jeans and a shirt and went back to the Randall house.

I was digging for proof that Luke Randall had funneled the company's assets out from under me when I found something else: the ruby wedding rings, the ones that had witnessed our love, thrown into the trash.

I picked up the custom-made pair without thinking, and tears slid onto the back of my hand before I knew they were falling.

Seven years ago, I'd said offhand that I envied the way it snowed up north. He spent hundreds of millions within the day and ordered the weather bureau to make it snow for me every winter.

On one bitterly cold night, he stood with me in the falling snow and watched the flakes spin until they settled across both our heads. He pulled me close and kissed me like the rest of the world had stopped existing. After a long while he dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him, and we slid the ruby rings onto each other's fingers, so happy it hurt.

The first year we were married, Luke brought a woman home from some bar and had her right there in our marriage bed. Two bodies tangled together, the sounds of it too vile to listen to.

I froze in the doorway and let the tears come.

For more than twenty years, Luke had never been able to stand the sight of me crying. That night he ordered the housekeeper to press a pillow over my mouth to muffle it. "You done yet? If you don't mind, treat it like a live demonstration. Take notes."

Had any of that love been real?

Luke's bodyguard burst into the study and cut the memory off. I struggled the whole way, but he forced me into the car anyway.

They shoved me along until we reached one of Luke's private stadiums.

"I knew you were rotten underneath. You thought a little medical training gave you the right to take a scalpel to Tonya." Luke had his arm around the woman beside him.

She cradled the slight swell of her belly, her voice gone shrill. "Yesterday she cut me with a scalpel. If I hadn't shielded the baby the whole time, we'd have lost it."

I answered at once. "Where's your proof? I have an alibi."

Her eyes flooded on cue, and she sobbed up at Luke, sweet and helpless. "Luke, just let it go this time. As long as our baby's safe. I can take a little hurt, it's fine."

Luke pulled out a golf club and brought it down hard across my back. "I'm not blind and I'm not deaf! Don't think I don't know about all the filthy little things you do behind my back!"

The pain dropped me to the floor, my eyes burning red. "If I did it, I'll own it. If I didn't, you can forget making me."

Luke glanced at the woman with all that wronged grief written on her face, then dragged his gaze back to mine and said, bored with me already, "Touch one hair on Tonya's head again, and I'll scatter your father's ashes in the river. See if his soul ever finds rest."

Panic flickered through me before I could hide it.

My father's death was a wound that never dried out. And I knew Luke. Vicious, cunning. He would do it.

Before I could get a word out, the bodyguard threw a basin of cold water over me.

The cold went straight to the bone. I stared at that disgusting face of his and bit down into my own tongue until the rust taste cleared my head.

For the sake of finding the proof that Luke had emptied my father's company, I made myself say, voice raw, "Fine. I understand. I'm sorry."

Luke took the gun from the bodyguard and handed it to the woman. "Baby. Your turn to hit back now."

He looked at me, cold. "Ten rounds in that gun. You can dodge. Where you get hit is just down to luck."

"Wait—Tonya's pregnant, she can't exactly chase you around. Only fair we even the odds."

Luke pulled off his tie and bound my legs together.

The black mouth of Tonya's gun was pointed straight at me.

A shot cracked out.

I threw myself sideways on instinct, and Tonya laughed, wild as a madwoman, swinging the muzzle up to my head.

I kicked off my heels and clawed across the dirt, dragging myself away.

The bullet sliced past with a rush of wind, grazing my skin, and punched a deep hole in the ground.

Terror was all over my face. Tonya's was lit up with delight. "Next time you won't be so lucky!" she screamed at me.

Beside her, Luke took the girl's hand with doting eyes. "Silly thing. This is how you hold it if you want to hit her."

He closed his hand over Tonya's and aimed them both at me.

No time for the bitterness now—I scrambled up and ran, but the tie bound my legs tight, and I went down hard into the mud.

Another crack. The two of them put a round through my ankle.

I clamped my hand over it, and blood poured out red through my fingers, more and more of it.

The red of it stung my eyes. I didn't have the proof yet, the proof that Luke had moved my father's assets. I couldn't die.

Something flickered across Luke's face, almost reluctance. He came over and looked down at me. "Or you could kneel and apologize right now, and swear you'll never hurt Tonya again."

Pain and fury hit together, and there was no room in my head to think. The words came out before I could stop them. "Kneel to that woman? Never."

"These shoes were custom calfskin heels Luke had made for me in Italy. Now they've got your filthy blood on them."

"Lick it clean and maybe I'll think about letting you go." The malice on Tonya's face wasn't even dressed up.

The next second I gritted my teeth, worked the tie loose from my legs, and threw my body straight at the black barrel.

My blood-soaked hands seized Tonya's and forced the trigger.

If I lived through this, I'd stake this life on dragging Luke and Tonya straight to hell.

The bullet went into me in an instant. I fell backward, the pain in my body so savage I shook all over.

Tonya let go of the gun, panic flashing in her eyes. "It was her, she pulled the trigger herself!"

Luke gathered her in and soothed her. "Don't be scared. I'm here."

He bent down and murmured in my ear. "You don't get to die until you've signed your father's shares over to me. In your own hand."

The words were a poisoned blade, working into the softest part of me again and again.

Then he straightened up and kissed her cheek, gentle. "There now. Don't let her ruin your mood."

"I'm so scared. My head's spinning." Tonya finished speaking, closed her eyes, and went limp in Luke's arms.

He stamped down on my wound, beside himself. "If anything happens to Tonya, I will not let you live."

I screamed, I couldn't help it, curling in on myself.

He wouldn't look at me again.

Luke scooped Tonya up in his arms and strode toward the sports car.

At his signal, the bodyguards threw me into the trunk like a piece of junk.

Inside the car, Luke kept calling that woman's name, and I lay there with the tears and the blood running freely down my face.

I still remember that year. He was a young heir with all of New York's money in his hands, and he didn't care about a single thing outside his studies. I was only a girl whose looks brought her other girls' jealousy for no reason.

That day a few students had me cornered on the roof, pushing me around, and he happened to be up there reading. He got me out of it.

That was the moment Luke stepped into my world, and the moment he showed everyone just how far his power ran.

He went straight to the student who had led the bullying, and in his name as chairman of the school board he called an assembly of the whole school, students and teachers, and told the entire world that he was my weapon. As long as the Randalls stood behind me, no one could touch a hair on my head.

From that day I started to fall for him, and he gave me every bit of tenderness in the world. In our world there was only each other and no one else.

When he proposed under the blazing northern lights in Iceland, the cameras fought each other for the shot, splashing our faces across every front page as the golden couple of the year.

He gave me the most spectacular wedding in the world, and on that day strangers stood in the cold just to watch us pass, weeping over two children who had grown up loving each other.

Just when I thought I would be happy for the rest of my life, a woman named Tonya shattered every illusion I had about love.

I pressed down the tearing inside me, picked up my phone, and found that familiar number.

"Anne, have you made up your mind?" The voice I hadn't heard in so long came straight to my ear.

He'd answered before the first ring finished.

My lips parted, my cheeks went hot in a rush. I held my brows tight, my heart drumming, and at last I made myself say it. "The, the deputy director post you offered me before, I want to take it..."

My voice cut off. The words had circled all the way to my mouth and still wouldn't come out.

"I've kept it open for you this whole time. Come whenever you want." There was a thread of gladness in his voice.

I drew a deep breath. "Give me seven days. Once I've handled my own business, I'll come in and take the post."

Once he agreed, the breath went out of me. I let the phone slip from my hand and passed out.

When I woke again, my whole body screamed with pain.

"Quit faking. Wake up." Luke nudged me with his foot, his voice thick with irritation.

A violent cough tore out of me, and I spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

I wiped my mouth and fixed him with a stare. "Don't push your luck."

He turned, picked up a sheet of paper, and forced it into my hand. "This stock transfer agreement. You're signing it."

I let out a hollow laugh and let the page drift down to the floor. "I'd die first."

That stopped him cold. He looked at me, bloodied head to foot, and something in his eyes flickered, like he didn't recognize me.

The old me had leaned on him every single day. Obeyed him.

Luke crouched down and reached out to wipe the blood from my forehead. I turned my face away and said, faint but clear, "Keep your filthy hands off me."

He paused. Then he stood and looked down at me from his full height. "Stop making a scene. Sign, and I'll let you go on being Mrs. Randall, fair and square."

Under that imperious stare, I tore the transfer agreement to shreds.

He swept Tonya against his side and slammed the door on his way out. "Sit here and think about what you've done. Until you're ready to sign.

"Let's see how long that backbone lasts." His voice dropped, smooth and gentle now. "Tonya's the easy one. She actually understands me."

Once they were gone, I gritted my teeth and dragged myself to the study computer to dig through his records on the company asset transfers.

Luke's machine was wiped clean. But I found it anyway, a second hidden system buried underneath.

I typed in his birthday, then our wedding anniversary. Neither worked. In the end I tried Tonya's birthday, and the hidden system opened right up.

I clicked through fast and found exactly what I was looking for, the dirty work he'd done in broad daylight.

I copied it all to a hard drive, the transfer records, the core trade secrets he'd stolen out of my father's company.

The study was dead silent, nothing but the sound of my own breathing. Every breath dragged pain through me.

When the screen flashed that the save was complete, I sagged back against the chair.

Then footsteps came pounding down the hallway.

Luke kicked the door open, his eyes locked on me like a snake's. "What did you do to my computer?"

I slid the hard drive into my clothes and said the first thing that came to me. "I was retyping the stock transfer agreement."

He bought it. The cold drained out of his face, and he hauled me up out of the chair. "Good. You finally learned. Now come with me to your father's grave."

I had no idea what he wanted at the cemetery. While I was still turning it over, we were already there.

Tonya stood waiting, pointing and gesturing at a crew of construction workers. As I watched, an excavator drove forward and shoved my father's headstone flat to the ground.

She saw me and lit up with a smile. "I'm starting my own business. This lot's already registered under my name. I had a feng shui master come out, and he says the energy here is the best there is. I'm putting up a fifty-thousand-square-foot shopping complex. Your dad can watch over my little venture, help it thrive."

She leaned close and dropped her voice in my ear. "On paper it's a mall. In real life? A red-light district."

Rage roared up in me. I threw myself in front of the excavator, waving my arms. "Stop digging!"

Tonya stepped closer and said softly, "You should go die. Right alongside your father."

I struck her across the face with the back of my hand. She clapped a hand to her cheek, weeping prettily, and at the same moment she pressed her body in against mine and cried out, loud enough for everyone to hear, "As long as you spare the baby, you can hit me as many times as you want."

Then she shoved a knife into my hand and dragged my wrist, my fist, toward her own belly, murmuring at a pitch only the two of us could catch, "All that prep with the blood pack finally pays off."

Tonya cupped her bleeding stomach and looked past me, tears streaming. "I was only begging her to spare my baby…"

Luke's face went black with fury. "I came here out of decency, to tell you your father's grave was being redeveloped. And this is how you act. A dog can't change its nature."

I didn't bother explaining. "It's my father's grave. Who are you to hand it over to a woman you've known three years?"

Luke looked me dead in the eye. "Don't you dare call Tonya 'some woman.'"

"Three years ago, someone drugged me in a bar. If it weren't for her, I'd be dead."

Three years ago, a rival had hidden a bomb in the bar Luke always went to, and slipped sleeping pills into the liquor he liked. When I found out, I ran into the flames after him at the risk of my own life. He came around fast enough. I was the one who walked out with the skin burned off my lower back, who spent a full month in the burn ward getting skin grafts.

When I was discharged and went to find him, I found him instead with Tonya, the two of them tangled together in our wedding suite.

So why was Luke standing here now, saying Tonya was the one who saved him?

He waved a hand. "Level the rest of it."

I ignored the roar of the excavator and threw my arms around my father's headstone, holding on for everything I had.

Luke kicked me clear of it and took a hammer to the stone I'd carved with my own hands, smashing it apart.

I clawed my way back toward the grave. The ashes were all I had left of him now. I dug into the patch of earth that belonged to my father with my torn-up hands, blood streaking my fingers in seconds, and I didn't care, I only wanted one last thing to keep.

Luke came back lugging a bucket of acid. I locked my arms around the urn, the way my father used to hold me when I was small.

He ordered his bodyguards to pry me up. The urn slipped from my arms and hit the ground, shattering, my father's ashes scattering like broken snow. I reached for them and the guards held me fast, never letting go.

In that instant something split open in me, and only one thought was left: every last one of them would pay.

Carrying all of that hatred, I felt the darkness close over my eyes.