### 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.

### Chapter 8

I don't know how long I stood outside that door. Dawn came and washed the sky pale, and somewhere in there my heart went numb. When I finally dragged my body, spent past the point of feeling, into the living room, every step was borrowed.

I sat on the sofa and waited. Half-conscious, I felt a shadow fall across the light in front of me.

Cyril stood there in nothing but a robe, the scent of another woman still clinging to his skin.

He took in my purple lips, my stiff, frozen body, and something flickered in his eyes—pity, guilt. Then he remembered I was the jealous one who'd tried to hurt Melanie and her baby, and his face hardened again.

"Do you understand what you did wrong?"

I kept my eyes down, looking at the fingernail I'd torn loose hammering on that door all night, and said quietly, "I was wrong."

Wrong to make love my whole life.

Wrong to keep hoping, like a fool, for something from people who only shared my blood.

Cyril caught sight of the blood seeping down my legs, and something twisted in his chest. He reached for me, ready to pull me in before I dropped. "Julie—"

"Help! Miss Melanie's trying to kill herself!"

The maid's terrified scream tore down from upstairs. Cyril's hand clamped onto my arm and he hauled me up the stairs with him.

Melanie was clinging to the window. He shoved me away and crushed her against him.

She broke into loud, theatrical sobs. "She'll never let me live! If there's a next time, I'd rather die now and give you back to her—"

The warmth drained out of his eyes. He turned and looked at me.

"There won't be a next time. She's here to get on her knees and apologize to you."

"What? I will not—" The words burst out of me before I could stop them.

He only nodded to the bodyguards. They pinned me down and forced me to the floor.

"Do something wrong, you pay for it," he said coldly. "Help your mistress."

A bodyguard fisted his hand in my hair and slammed my forehead into the cold floor. Once. Again. Harder.

Blood blurred everything in front of me. Beside me, Melanie's fake mercy floated down. "Let it go, Cyril. It's our wedding day. Spare her. She's still my sister, after all."

"All right. You always were the kind one. The guests are here. Let's go."

He swept her up into his arms. Her tears turned to a smile, and she let him carry her out without a backward glance.

From start to finish, he never once looked back at me.

I lay crumpled on the floor while my phone buzzed and buzzed.

First, my birth mother: Today is Melanie and Cyril's wedding. Be smart and stay away. Don't come ruin it.

Then my brother, Lucas: Swear you'll never fight Melanie for anything again, and I'll let you come for the family portrait.

The last one was from Cyril: Julie, after the wedding I have a surprise for you. You're going to love it.

A family portrait? A surprise?

Disgusting.

No. I don't need any of it anymore.

There's no bigger surprise than watching every one of you get what you deserve.

I started to laugh, and laughed until it broke into coughing I couldn't stop.

Then I forced myself up off the floor and pressed a file folder into Fiona's hands, telling her to put it into Cyril's own hands at the height of the wedding.

The dark closed in at the edges of my sight, and just as I fell, a man came running toward me.

"Julie!"

He caught me clean and lifted me into his arms. His chest was warm and solid.

"Sweetheart, I'm here to take you home."

I grabbed his sleeve and held on with both hands, gripping hard, biting out each word through my teeth:

"I want Cyril to never find me. Ever."

Edwin laid me down in the car and carefully wiped the blood from the corner of my eye. "Don't worry. Julie Henson is already gone. From now on, there's only Julie Delgado in this world."

"The people who hurt you—I'll see to it none of them ever die in peace."

The car carried us racing toward the airport.

On a giant billboard screen by the road, a lavish wedding was streaming live.

I looked at the screen, and the corner of my mouth curved into something cruel.

Cyril. I can't wait for the most "memorable" moment of your wedding to arrive.

Goodbye, for good.

I hope you like the wedding gift I left you.