### Chapter 5

Lucas's face went dark in an instant, his gaze raking across mine like a blade.

"Shut your mouth. Getting to come back to the Hensons at all is more luck than you deserve. And after you came crawling back here with no shame, do you have any idea how much Melanie has suffered?"

He stared at me, biting off every word.

"Even if she made a mistake, you're the one who pushed her into it."

I couldn't help laughing.

Seven years. I'd long since stopped counting the times Melanie had framed me, hurt me.

It wasn't that our parents didn't know the truth. They just always said, "Melanie's only afraid you'll steal our love away. Be the bigger person about it."

No one ever asked about what I'd suffered. So I was the bigger person, year after year.

Back then, only Cyril would wipe my tears. He was the one who demanded Melanie apologize, the one who told me, "I've got you."

And in the end, even he crossed over to her side.

Hearing Lucas, Cyril's expression flickered with something complicated, but he didn't argue in the end.

He only looked at me, his voice low. "We were all drunk that night. You can't seriously expect Melanie to get rid of the baby and lose any chance of having children for the rest of her life."

So instead, you made sure I'd never have children.

"I just want to take care of her until the baby comes. Stop making a scene."

So you took such tender care of her that you kept ending up in her bed.

Melanie's tears spilled over at once, her body trembling faintly.

"Sis... I'm so sorry. None of this was ever meant to happen, I swear."

Lucas cut her off immediately.

"You did nothing wrong. She's the one in the wrong, petty as always."

"Don't cry. The diamond crown I had made for you is finished. Let's go see it. I promise that in three days my little sister will be the most beautiful bride there is."

Cyril glanced at me and offered a careless explanation. "The wedding is just a formality. Melanie isn't going to take anything from you."

Then the two of them gathered Melanie up and swept her out.

At the door, Lucas turned back and tossed out one last warning.

"Bully Melanie again and you can get out of the Hensons. Go back and live the 'good life' with those crippled beggars you call parents."

Whatever they said, my heart no longer ached. I looked back at them, cold.

"Then try me. I'll make you regret it."

Before he or Cyril could say another word, I slammed the door.

In the mirror, my face was still pale, dark circles of exhaustion under my eyes, but the expression on it was calmer than it had ever been.

I started packing my things.

These seven years of memories. I didn't want a single one of them.

Then I dialed my adoptive father's number and said quietly, "Dad, I'm ready to come home."

"Really?" His voice was thick with worry. "Sweetheart, have they been hurting you?"

"I was wrong, Dad. I'll come home, take over the Delgados, and marry Edwin."

Crippled beggars. That was what Cyril and the Hensons thought of the people who'd raised me—broke, useless, leaving me nowhere to run. They had no idea those crippled beggars were the quiet hand that ran the Delgados' multi-billion empire across all of Harbor City.

"That's wonderful. I'll tell your mother the good news right away," he said. "When will you be home?"

"Edwin is coming for me in three days. Then we'll hold the wedding."

"What wedding?"

A man's voice came from behind me, sudden.

I turned. Cyril was standing in the doorway.

### Chapter 6

My heart lurched, and before I knew it my fingers had tightened around the phone.

"What wedding were you just talking about?" Cyril stepped closer, eyes fixed on me.

"A friend of mine is getting married. She invited me."

The breath went out of him visibly, and the look he gave me softened. "Julie, I promise, my wedding with Melanie won't change anything. The place of Mrs. Weiss is yours forever."

I lowered my lashes so he wouldn't see what was churning underneath, and asked quietly, "Why did you come back?"

He held out a tube of burn cream.

"I know you're hurting. I'll make it up to you." His voice dropped low. "You can't carry a child anymore, but the Weisses need an heir. Once Melanie has the baby, everything will get back on track."

I almost laughed out loud.

He had wrecked our future with his own hands, the marriage itself nothing but a lie, and he stood there telling me things would get "back on track."

But I only moved my lips and gave him one word. "Fine. I understand."

Cyril seemed satisfied with that. He looked ready to say more, and then his phone rang.

It was the ringtone he'd set just for his "little fool."

"Cyril, we're celebrating four months of my pregnancy today. I've already booked the restaurant, so hurry over."

He left without a backward glance.

I walked into the garage, hit the gas, and shot out.

Today was the seventh anniversary of the day we met. Every year before this, he'd had a gift ready early, some surprise waiting for me.

This year, he didn't remember.

I parked outside a mountaineering shop, went in, and bought every piece of top-grade gear they had.

When I was young, I'd watched a sunrise over a snow mountain on TV and made a wish.

After that, every year I told him I wanted to climb the snow mountain with him and watch the sunrise together. Every time he said he was busy, and to wait a little longer.

I wasn't waiting anymore.

I would go to the snow mountain myself and watch the most beautiful sunrise there was.

I'd barely tossed the load into the trunk when a hand clamped down hard around my wrist.

"Where's Melanie? What did you do to her?" Cyril snarled at me, his voice shaking with rage.

I'd never seen him like this. His eyes were even threaded with red.

When I said nothing, his knuckles dug in until he nearly crushed the bone. "Talk! Did you take her?"

Pain tore up my wrist and I sucked in a breath. "I haven't seen her, I swear!"

Cyril stared into my eyes, as if weighing the truth of it.

After a moment his fingers loosened, and he finally let me go.

But the instant he turned, his gaze snagged on the open trunk.

Ice axe, rope, tape. Something in his face split open. The red in his eyes thickened, and he seized my jaw.

"Still lying to me. Do you have any idea how much she means to me? Give her back!"

"I didn't. Kidnap her." I forced it out through my teeth.

The fury swallowed him whole. His hand came up and the slap cracked across my face.

A ringing filled my ears, the world went black, and I dropped to the ground.

My cheek burned, and the taste of iron and blood spread through my mouth.

"I'll ask you one last time." He stood over me, his voice cold enough to freeze. "Where is Melanie?"

I gathered every scrap of strength I had and screamed it back at him.

"I told you I didn't do it, are you deaf? If you don't believe me, check the security cameras, check the dashcam!"

Meeting the stubbornness in my eyes, something in Cyril wavered. Then in the next breath he fisted his hand in my hair and dragged me toward his car like a rag he was hauling off.

"Who else would touch her but you? Won't admit it? I have plenty of ways to make you talk."

The burn on my leg split open, sticky blood seeping out, the pain pulling tears straight down my face.

Just as it nearly knocked me out, his phone rang.

"You found her? I'm on my way."

Cyril let go in an instant, spun, threw himself into the car, the engine roaring as he tore off.

Not a moment's hesitation. Not a flicker of guilt over me.

I lifted a hand and touched my swollen, scalding cheek, and a low laugh slipped out of me.

It didn't matter. Let the three of them have their happy little reunion. Their reckoning would come soon enough.

I dragged myself up, straightened my clothes, limped back to the car, and drove straight for the snow mountain outside the city.

The intersection out of town was just ahead. Then, out of nowhere, several cars swept in from both sides.

The black Cayenne in front surged forward, braked hard, and threw itself sideways across my path.

Cyril shoved the door open and got out, his face darker than before.

"Where do you think you're going?"

### Chapter 7

His voice was cold, like a blade dipped in poison.

"Where I go is none of your business."

I had no intention of arguing with him, but Cyril yanked my car door open and dragged me into his Cayenne.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Let me out!"

He didn't react. He floored the gas and drove straight for Weiss Hospital.

"Just because you can't have children, you want to destroy Melanie and her baby? How can you be this vicious?"

"If I hadn't gotten there in time, her whole life would have been ruined!"

He dragged me into the hospital room.

Melanie lay in the bed, her face white as paper. The moment she saw me she scrambled off the bed, dropped to her knees in front of me, and pressed her forehead to the floor, again and again.

"It was my fault, sister. Punish me however you want, just please let my baby live. Please?"

Listening to her, the numbness started in my fingertips and spread through my whole body.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Cyril seemed to have expected the denial. His voice came out hard and cold. "The kidnappers confessed everything. You hired them to take Melanie, you told them to do whatever they wanted with her, to get rid of the baby. And you've got the nerve to deny it?"

He pulled Melanie up off the floor and into his arms, kissing the tears from her face with great tenderness.

"Don't be afraid. I'm here. I'll make this right for you."

From inside his embrace, Melanie stole a glance at me, her eyes full of malice and triumph.

Another play, written and performed by her.

I didn't waste another word. I grabbed Melanie by the wrist.

"You say you were kidnapped? Then let's go to the police and report it. The truth will come out on its own."

Melanie shrank back into Cyril's arms in terror, the tears coming harder, her whole body trembling. "Cyril, I'm scared..."

His face dark, Cyril knocked my hand away.

"Melanie was nearly violated, and you want to put her through it all over again in front of everyone?!"

"Julie Henson, apologize. And swear you'll never hurt Melanie again."

I screamed at the two of them. "Apologize to her? She isn't worth it!"

Crack.

Cyril slapped me with everything he had.

He looked at Melanie's swollen, red-rimmed eyes, then turned to me, and his gaze had never been so vicious.

"So you feel no remorse at all. Someone take Mrs. Weiss to the morgue. Let her reflect down there."

The bodyguards hauled me off at once and threw me into the hospital morgue.

The door slammed shut. A wave of freezing air hit me, cold enough to set my whole body shaking.

There was a time when I scraped a little skin and he came apart with worry.

Now I'd just lost a child, the wound he'd given me still on my belly, my leg festering, and he locked me in a place full of the dead.

I curled up on the icy floor and thought of seven years ago, my adoptive mother holding my hand as she warned me:

"Sweetheart, always love yourself first. Never pin your hopes on a man."

I hadn't understood her then.

Now, frozen nearly stiff, my mind blurring, the words came back clearer than they ever had.

On the third morning, the bodyguards finally opened the door.

I dragged my body, heavy as iron, out of the hospital and went back to that house to get my things.

The master bedroom door stood ajar. From inside came the violent creak of the bed, and a woman's high, rising moans. The sound drove through my eardrums and rang around inside my skull, and I almost threw up.