The letter bore no signature, only a few spare lines.

"Twenty years ago, I too believed I had found a good man. Then, seven months into my pregnancy, I overheard him discussing plans with someone else. Once I delivered the child, they would have me committed to Greenhill Asylum and tell the world I'd lost my mind. The baby would be handed to a woman he'd been hiding for years."

"The men of the Sanchez family have always excelled at one thing: using love as bait to lure a woman into a cage, then making her bear children for the woman they truly love."

"I know you're angry. But remember this: when you're crossing a swamp and a crocodile clamps down on your leg, don't waste your strength fighting it. Use the moment it has you in its jaws to get yourself out."

Something stirred deep in Jocelyn's chest.

Twenty years ago, the eldest daughter of the Henson family had married into the Sanchez household. Three years later, she perished in a fire. The Sanchez family had surrendered half a street's worth of property to settle the matter.

But everyone said it was an accident.

She lowered her gaze and tucked the letter away. Footsteps sounded outside the door.

The wooden door of the meditation chamber swung open. Ivor stood in the cold mountain rain, impeccably tailored in a black suit. When he took in Jocelyn's gaunt, hollow appearance, a flicker of surprise crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced by the magnanimous air of a man bestowing a gift.

"Jocelyn. You've had plenty of time to reflect. Surely you know what you did wrong by now."

"It's your birthday. I came to take you home personally. From now on, we'll keep up appearances in public, the loving couple, same as always. No more making us a laughingstock."

Jocelyn didn't respond. She didn't resist. Like a puppet with its strings cut, she followed him to the car, rode in silence across half of Harbor City, and returned to that gilded cage.

The moment she stepped onto the terrace, every light across Victoria Harbor went dark.

Then the sky exploded. Fireworks erupted across the horizon, cascading rivers of color that painted the night in blinding brilliance.

Yachts glided across the water in a slow procession, each one bearing an enormous illuminated sign: Happy Birthday to Mrs. Sanchez.

On the far shore, the same words blazed in towering letters across the face of a skyscraper, visible from every corner of the city.

Jocelyn stood perfectly still. The fireworks lit her face, but there was nothing in her expression at all.

The last time the sky had burned like this, she had gone from Miss Henson to Mrs. Sanchez.

But Ivor had never known that she hated fireworks.

When she was a little girl, her father had offered to set off fireworks for her birthday. She'd said no. All she wanted was a lamp that would stay lit.

Fireworks were beautiful, sure. But they didn't last. The moment they bloomed, they were already gone. You couldn't hold on to them.

Her father had laughed at her. So sentimental for such a little thing.

Now she finally understood. What she'd said back then had been a prophecy.

Her love hadn't even lasted as long as a firework.

Ivor wrapped his arms around her from behind, his voice a warm murmur against her ear. "Do you like it, Jocelyn? The whole city is celebrating your birthday."

Her gaze drifted to the last wave of fireworks waiting to launch in the distance. The brilliant points of light flickered in her eyes, bright then dark, bright then dark, without a trace of warmth.

"Ivor. Let's get a divorce."

The arms around her waist clamped tight. "What did you just say?"

She peeled his hands away. "I said drop the act. Let each other go."

A nameless panic spread through him. His expression darkened in an instant.

He was about to speak when the final firework screamed skyward, then suddenly veered off course, spiraling wildly as flames sprayed in every direction.

Ivor spun around and seized Jocelyn by the throat, fingers digging in. "This was you, wasn't it? When did you become this vicious? You won't stop until Nellie is dead?"

Jocelyn couldn't breathe. Her fingers clawed weakly at his wrists as she struggled.

Firelight danced across Ivor's face. That face, once the gentlest she had ever known, was now twisted beyond recognition.

"Nellie begged me for days to let her plan your birthday, to make you happy. She even stationed herself at the launch site personally to make sure nothing went wrong. And you tried to kill her!"

Jocelyn felt her neck creak under the pressure. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, beyond her control.

"Let... let go! Even if I wanted her dead, I wouldn't use something this stupid!"

Ivor hurled her aside through clenched teeth. "You're beyond saving, Jocelyn. I don't have time for this."

He released her and ran out without a backward glance.

Jocelyn curled up on the ground, coughing violently, her body shaking with the raw relief of survival.

But before she could even catch her breath, a deafening crash came from above. A burning section of one of the illuminated signs plummeted down and slammed into the ground less than two feet from where she lay.

She flinched, instinctively drawing her limbs in tight, and forced her head up. At the far end of her vision, Ivor's silhouette was disappearing through the emergency exit.

A second later, the steel door was locked from the outside, sealing off every way out.

When Jocelyn opened her eyes again, the acrid stench of thick smoke still seemed to cling to the inside of her nose. Every breath dragged a web of dull, throbbing pain through her chest.

She struggled to sit up. The moment her fingertips moved, they startled Ivor, who had been gripping her hand in a white-knuckled hold.

"Jocelyn! You—you're awake?"

He shot to his feet, his voice cracking with barely concealed panic and the residue of fear.

Her gaze drifted into focus. Ivor stood before her in a black suit creased beyond recognition. Hair that was usually combed to immaculate perfection hung in disheveled strands across his forehead. The whites of his eyes were laced with red.

Jocelyn's expression didn't change. She pulled her hand free, reached over, and pressed the call button on the headboard. Then she closed her eyes.

Ivor stared at his empty palm. Something was slipping through his fingers, and no matter how tightly he clenched, he couldn't hold on.

His Adam's apple bobbed several times before he finally lowered his head. His voice came out raw. "Jocelyn, I'm sorry."

"The fireworks… I was wrong about you. The police already confirmed it was a malfunction on the vendor's end. It had nothing to do with you."

Jocelyn's lips curled into a mocking sliver of a smile. The look stung him, and the guilt in his eyes deepened.

"I was out of my mind with worry. You know how it is—Nellie's not like you. Even if the sky fell, you'd find a way to protect yourself. But she has no one. I'm all she has in this world."

"This was my fault. I lost my head, and I treated you the way I did. Jocelyn, I know I was wrong. I've already sent every person responsible to prison. Forgive me this once. Please?"

Jocelyn opened her eyes and met his gaze head-on. "Is that so? Then whose idea were the fireworks in the first place? And who arranged them?"

Ivor froze for a beat. A thin layer of anger surfaced on his face.

"Why do you always have to go after Nellie? You know perfectly well that someone of her background couldn't possibly be any threat to you!"

Jocelyn almost laughed out loud.

He shielded Nellie at every turn, cradled her in the palm of his hand. Yet deep down, he had never once thought that woman was his equal.

What was even more absurd was the memory that surfaced unbidden—all those things Ivor had said when he was courting her.

He'd told her he loved her resilience, her decisiveness. That she was the only woman in Harbor City who could stand at his side as an equal.

Now she wanted to ask: what had he actually loved?

Had he loved her status as the Henson family's eldest daughter? Loved that her connections and cunning could clear every obstacle from the Sanchez family's path to total dominance over Harbor City?

Or had he loved Nellie's clinging fragility, the way her helplessness fed his need for control?

Maybe neither.

Maybe he had never loved anyone but himself.

Jocelyn's eyes burned. She felt a pang of regret for the years she had wasted.

"Ivor, do you know something? If it weren't for you, I'd have no reason to go after her at all."

Ivor heard the words, and the rigid line of his jaw relaxed a fraction. He actually believed she was backing down.

He sighed, his tone shifting to something patronizing, almost soothing. "Jocelyn, you grew up in this world. Name one powerful man who doesn't have a few women around him."

"I spoiled you before, that's all. From now on, get along with Nellie. Learn a little of her gentleness. It wouldn't hurt you."

Before he could finish, Jocelyn laughed as though she'd just heard the most ridiculous thing in her life. She laughed until tears seeped from the corners of her eyes.

"Is that right? Well, before I married you, I was the renowned eldest daughter of the Henson family. A woman with real power, real wealth, real influence. By your logic, shouldn't I have a few men keeping me company too?"

Every trace of tenderness vanished from Ivor's face. He seized Jocelyn's chin in a vise grip, his words grinding through clenched teeth. "Go ahead and try, Jocelyn. As long as you're not afraid of someone ending up dead, I'll play this game with you to the very end."

A contemptuous smile curved her lips. She was about to respond when the door swung open and a nurse rushed in.

"Mr. Sanchez! What are you doing? She just came out of critical condition—let go of her!"

Only then did Ivor realize how far he'd slipped. His fingers loosened, and he forced the savage fury churning behind his eyes back down.

"Noted. Leave the medication and get out. My wife and I still have things to discuss."

The room fell silent again. Ivor studied her face, pale as paper, and frowned with displeasure.

"When are you going to learn to be as considerate as Nellie? She got hurt in that accident too—her face was injured—and she's still worried about you. She's been blaming herself so much she won't even see me."

"She wanted to come apologize to you in person. But I know exactly what kind of reception she'd get here, so I stopped her."

"Even so, she still feels terrible. She's been in the kitchen every single day making soup, just so you'd have something warm the moment you woke up."

"That's the kind of heart she has. And yet you just tried to send her to prison." He shook his head slowly. "That's cold, Jocelyn. Even for you."

He paused, watching her expression, then continued. "Here's what's going to happen. That gallery of yours in Central—I've decided to give it to Nellie to run. I'll have the paperwork sent over shortly. All you need to do is sign."

It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water in her face. Jocelyn stared at him, stunned.

"What... what did you just say?"

"That's mine! It's my premarital asset. What gives you the right to hand my property to someone else?"

The calm mask on Ivor's face cracked apart, revealing the darkness coiled beneath.

"What gives me the right? The fact that you're my wife." His eyes narrowed. "All that talk about finding other men—you were testing me, weren't you?"

"All these years, and you still can't forget him. Why else would you guard this gallery he gave you so fiercely that I can't so much as touch it?"

Pain lanced through Jocelyn's chest. The man in front of her grew more irrational by the second.

She'd been seventeen. He had guided her through her first financial report, taught her how to negotiate, taught her how to stand her ground in a world that devoured the weak.

He had been her first love. In the end, it simply faded away—no dramatic ending, just silence.

But the gallery wasn't precious because of him.

It was precious because of everything she'd built between seventeen and twenty-seven, piece by painstaking piece. Her empire, assembled one brick at a time.

It was her lifeblood. Her proof of existence in this world—a flame that would never go out.

She had believed, once, that Ivor understood that.

She never imagined he would take her ambition and her pride and weaponize them—a gift to appease another woman, a blade turned against herself.

Jocelyn's fists twisted into the bedsheets until her knuckles went white. Her voice trembled. "I will never sign that over to you."

Ivor, hearing this, grew eerily calm. A faint smile even tugged at the corner of his mouth—as though her fury were nothing more than a pet baring its teeth.

"You won't sign? That's fine. I was only informing you as a courtesy."

"While you were lying unconscious in this bed, I already lifted your fingerprints. The transfer paperwork for the gallery should be going into effect any minute now."

He leaned in close. A vein pulsed at his temple. "You knew this the day you married me, Jocelyn. When I want something, I get it. Always."

Something detonated inside her skull. Without thinking, she grabbed the glass from the bedside table and hurled it at his face.

Glass shattered with a bright, clean crack. Blood traced a slow line down from Ivor's brow. He didn't flinch. Didn't step back. He let the blood smear across half his vision and advanced on the bed, step by deliberate step.

"Neither you nor Nellie will ever be allowed to leave my side."

He turned and slammed the door behind him.

Jocelyn stared at his retreating figure and remembered the first time she'd met him. Back then, he'd been the Sanchez family's unremarkable second son—an older brother above him whose brilliance cast a long shadow, branch families circling below like wolves. He was trapped in the middle, belonging nowhere.

In those days, when people in Harbor City spoke of the Sanchez family, they knew the eldest son. Nobody knew Ivor.

But he had clawed his way forward through sheer ruthlessness, tearing open a path by force.

After Jocelyn married him, she had cleared every obstacle in his way, one by one, until he sat securely at the helm of the Sanchez Group. The man everyone feared. The man everyone called Mr. Sanchez.

Yet he knew it himself—he didn't possess the talent or finesse of those he'd surpassed. The only thing he had was madness.

A madman's greed to seize. A madman's obsession to possess. And a madman's compulsion to destroy everything he couldn't have.

Jocelyn felt a sudden, piercing clarity: this man was pathetic.

His heart had rotted through long ago, eaten away day after day by jealousy and resentment until nothing was left.

Her gaze drifted to Victoria Harbor, glittering with light beyond the window, and a resolve crystallized inside her.

She could not let this lunatic keep using the Henson family's foundation to rule Harbor City unchallenged.

Jocelyn reached for her phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.

"Interested in a deal with guaranteed returns?"

"Who am I?" A beat. "Jocelyn Henson. Heiress of the Henson family."