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."

Jocelyn went back to the Sanchez estate after her discharge to pack her things.

The moment she pushed the door open, Nellie walked toward her wearing one of Jocelyn's silk loungewear sets.

"You're back? Ivor said you wouldn't be out for a few more days, so he brought me over early to take care of you."

She stepped closer and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"Don't overthink it. I'm not going to fight you for anything. After all... it's already mine."

Before Jocelyn could respond, Nellie's eyes turned red in an instant and she crumpled to the floor, just as Ivor descended the staircase and caught the whole scene.

"Ivor, I only wanted to apologize to Jocelyn, but she... she called me a cheap whore. Said I wasn't fit to touch her things. I don't want the gallery anymore. I don't even need a title. I just want to stay by your side!"

Ivor crossed the room in three strides and helped Nellie to her feet. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes burned with fury. He couldn't understand why, even after handing Nellie over for Jocelyn to deal with as she pleased, she still wasn't satisfied. Wasn't that already the biggest concession he could make?

"I've bent over backwards trying to make you happy. I've laid the finest things in all of Harbor City at your feet, and all you can see is the man who gave you that gallery!"

"Nellie doesn't even ask for a title. All she wants is to stay quietly by my side. So fine. From now on, I won't waste another ounce of effort trying to please you."

He pulled out the private seal that should have been mailed to the lawyer and held it up in front of Jocelyn's face.

"Still waiting for Daddy to come save you? He settled with me a long time ago. I gave him shipping rights to three of Harbor City's docks, and he told me himself he would never help you file for divorce."

"Or did you forget? You were the one who humiliated him in the first place. You really think he still cares about you? I'm the only one left who's willing to protect you."

As he spoke, he unlocked his phone. Every major outlet in Harbor City was running the same headline, accompanied by photos of him and Nellie at high-profile events. The banner read: MRS. SANCHEZ JR. BASKS IN CEO'S FAVOR — MISS HENSON REPORTEDLY COMMITTED TO PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY AFTER FALLING FROM GRACE.

Jocelyn's pupils contracted, but she kept silent.

Ivor's voice softened, edged with something almost like pleading.

"Jocelyn. Just give in. Is that so hard?"

"Just give in, and I'll send Nellie back where she belongs. You're Mrs. Sanchez. You'll always be Mrs. Sanchez."

Jocelyn stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her head and laughed.

"You really do make me regret it more every day."

The color drained from Ivor's face. "What did you just say?"

"I said I look down on you."

"You know Nellie framed me, and you still played along with her little performance. You know exactly what she is, and you still hold her like she's made of glass. You know what I wanted, and you handed my things to her one by one."

"You're not stupid. You're a coward."

"Ivor Sanchez, you make me sick."

Ivor's chest heaved. His features twisted, and his hand rose to strike her across the face. But slowly, it dropped back to his side.

"Fine. Just fine."

"Jocelyn Henson, let's see how long that spine of yours holds up."

He spun toward the door and bellowed down the stairs. "Jasper James! Starting today, she gets nothing but water. Not a single thing. Let's see how many days she lasts."

The old butler glanced at Jocelyn with hesitation in his eyes but didn't dare defy the order.

Ivor turned back one last time and looked at her.

"When I get back from Switzerland with Nellie, I hope you still have the strength to beg."

Three days later. Switzerland.

Ivor stood at the summit of Jungfrau Peak, gazing out over the vast white expanse below. His chest felt hollow.

Nellie clung to his arm, her smile coy and sweet. "I like it so much better here. Can we stay a few more days?"

Ivor said nothing. All he could see was the way Jocelyn had looked at him that last time.

Calm. Distant. Like she was looking at a stranger.

No. Worse than a stranger. She had looked at him the way someone looks at garbage.

"Ivor? What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

He pulled his gaze from the horizon and was about to walk on when his phone rang.

His heart skipped a beat.

He answered. On the other end came Jasper's voice, old and trembling.

"Sir... Harbor City... a magnitude-seven earthquake. The estate collapsed completely. Your wife... they couldn't get her out."