Annette's lips parted, but the words wouldn't come. It was as though an invisible hand had closed around her throat.

Nathan crossed the room in long strides, bending first to check Naomi's injury, then straightening and turning to Annette, his eyes dark enough to frighten.

"What is wrong with you?"

The tone was pure rebuke.

"Naomi's health has never been good. You know that. She made you that soup out of kindness, asked you to stay for dinner, and you give her attitude? Causing a scene like this. What is the matter with you?"

Annette stared at him blankly. "I told you I had somewhere to be. She was the one who grabbed me—"

"She grabbed you, so you couldn't just speak to her properly?"

Nathan cut her off.

"Do you know who she is? She's my sister-in-law. The woman my brother entrusted to my care on his deathbed. With you flailing around so recklessly, if anything had happened to her, how would I face him?"

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly forcing his anger down.

"Come here. Apologize to her."

Annette's pupils shrank.

She looked down at her own arm.

Blood had soaked through half her sleeve, dripping down one drop at a time.

The wound burned, raw and searing, but the deeper pain sat in her chest, as if someone were carving at it with a dull blade, stroke after stroke.

"Nathan," she said. "I'm in pain."

He lowered his gaze, saw the ugly gash across her arm, and his brow twitched.

He pressed his lips together. "I know you're in pain."

But then, at once, he added:

"But wrong is wrong. Apologize first. Once you do, I'll take you to get it treated."

That faint spark she'd just felt was doused, cold and clean, all at once.

In the haze of it, Annette remembered how things used to be.

She had been the bright, imperious little princess of New York's elite circles. At a reception once, after someone said two cutting words too many, she'd been too furious to bear it and smashed a bottle over the man's head.

The scene had dissolved into chaos. Nathan arrived late, unhurried.

The man went straight to him, complaining.

"Mr. Henson, you came at the right time. Look at what your wife has done. She apologizes today, or I call the police and charge her with assault."

Nathan didn't say a word. He slapped the man across the face, and afterward had his bodyguards deliver a hundred more.

He stayed perfectly unruffled.

"And so what if my wife is in the wrong?"

"My woman does nothing wrong. Whatever she does is right."

"Anyone with a problem can come say it to my face."

No one dared make a sound.

The pain dragged Annette back from the memory.

She looked at the man in front of her, frowning, ordering her to apologize, and no matter how she tried, she could not lay him over the Nathan who once slapped a hundred faces for her sake.

"Nathan," she said softly, her voice flat. "Do you remember something you once said?"

He frowned. "Said what?"

"You said your woman does nothing wrong. Whatever she does is right."

His expression stalled for a single instant.

Annette smiled faintly. "So it turned out that line came with a condition."

"The condition was that I never touch Naomi James."

The air froze again.

Nathan said nothing. Richard crouched at Naomi's feet, watching Annette warily, as if afraid she might hurt his Aunt Naomi again.

A strange flicker of amusement rose in Annette.

A sour ache spread from her chest through every limb, swelling, raw.

One was ice that would never thaw. The other, an ungrateful child she had raised who would never be tamed.

Annette looked straight into his eyes. "I won't apologize. I did nothing wrong."

Nathan's brow knotted tighter.

This woman was off today, nothing like the Annette he knew, the one who would coax and sulk and wait, red-eyed, for him to soothe her.

But he had no mind to dig into it now.

Naomi was badly hurt.

"Impossible," he said coldly, dropping the word like a verdict, then bent and lifted Naomi into his arms.

"I'm taking her to the hospital first. Wait here. I'll have the driver come for you. Go get that wound treated yourself."

With that, he didn't spare Annette another glance. He carried Naomi out of the private room in long, sweeping strides.

Naomi lay against his shoulder and looked back at Annette once.

It was entirely the pity of a winner.

Her own son, Richard, went after them too.

Annette let out a self-mocking laugh and looked down at the savage wound, and somehow it didn't seem to hurt so much anymore.

Next to the hole in her chest, what was a little broken skin worth?

Her phone buzzed with another message:

【Ms. Butler, the appointment window for cancellation of your identity records will close in 30 minutes. Please arrive as soon as possible.】

She didn't wait for the driver Nathan had promised. Annette called a car herself.

She really did have somewhere urgent to be.

This time, truly, truly, she was done with Nathan.

The driver flinched at the sight of her injuries.

"Miss, that's a bad wound. Shouldn't I take you to a hospital first?"

"No need," Annette said quietly. "The nearest police station."

The moment she signed, it was done. Settled.

A breath she hadn't known she was holding finally left her.

Annette was already picturing it, ready to book the first flight to France she could find. But when she opened her phone, there they were: dozens of missed calls.

Every one of them from Nathan.

Then the phone rang again in her hand.

She hesitated for a second, then answered.

Before she could get a word out, Nathan's voice came through the line, tight with held-back fury:

"Annette. So you'll finally pick up."

"I'm asking you. Where's Mila?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Don't play dumb with me." His voice went flat and cold. "Mila's gone. Someone grabbed her on the way home from school. The kidnappers just sent a video. Guess who I saw in it?"

Her fingers tightened around the phone, and a sharp unease rose in her chest.

"...Who?"

"Your father!"

He bit the words out.

"Annette, is this because you were upset earlier? Because I made you apologize, because I carried Naomi to the hospital and left you behind? So now you can't stand it, and you sent your father to snatch Mila to even the score?"

Her mind went white with a single roaring blank.

That was impossible.

Her father had no reason to kidnap Mila Henson.

Yes, he had his sharp edges in business, but he was not a man who would lay a hand on a child.

"I didn't tell anyone to take Mila Henson. I swear it before God."

There were a few seconds of silence on the line. Then Nathan said,

"Swearing won't help. I've already tracked your phone."

"If a single hair on Mila's head is harmed, Annette, I won't spare a single one of you Butlers."

The call cut off.

At the same moment, an email dropped into her inbox.

The French company. Welcoming her aboard.

If it had come a little sooner, Annette would have been overjoyed. Now, she only felt cold all the way through.

The black Maybach tore up to the curb. Nathan's face was a wall of storm. He clamped a hand around her wrist and dragged her toward the car.

"You're coming with me."

Nathan brought her back to the mansion.

"Why are you bringing me here? Where's Mila? Shouldn't you be out looking for her?"

He gave a cold laugh.

"Pry your father's mouth open, and we'll have Mila's whereabouts, won't we?"

"Annie, I can't bring myself to hurt you. But that doesn't mean I'll go easy on your father."

Her heart dropped hard in her chest.

Before she could ask what he meant, she saw him. Her father, trussed up and bound on the basement floor.

He'd already been through one round of it. He was covered in blood.

The tears came at once.

Nathan strolled to the sofa and sat down without a care.

"Chairman Butler, I'll ask you one more time."

"Where's Mila?"

Oliver Butler coughed twice, brought up a mouthful of bloody foam, and still held firm.

"I don't know... that little girl you're talking about... where she is..."

Nathan's eyes turned to ice.

He tilted his head, and a guard in black stepped forward at once.

Annette's eyes went wide with terror. She threw herself in front of her father. "Nathan! Stop it! You can't do this to my father!"

He looked down at her, not a trace of warmth in his gaze.

"Annie. Move."

"I won't!" She flung her arms out wide.

She was shaking from head to foot, but she didn't give an inch.

"You lay one more finger on my father today, you kill me first!"

Nathan was silent for two seconds.

Then he bent down, leaned close to her ear, and said low,

"You think I won't?"

He looked at Oliver, easy and unhurried.

"Chairman Butler, I don't want to take this all the way. But your daughter is standing right here, and whether she lives or dies depends on your next sentence."

"Tell me. Where did Annie have you stash Mila?"

Her father's whole body shook violently.

"Nathan, you animal! I never should have married Annie to you... You've got the nerve, you come at me, you leave my daughter out of it!"

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Come at you? Haven't I been coming at you this whole time?"

He waved a hand at the guard. "Look after the Chairman properly."

Blood. So much blood.

Annette had never seen that much blood, pouring out of her own father.

Her mouth fell open, but not a sound would come.

Her heart hurt as if ten thousand silver needles had been driven into it.

The tears ran down her face, and then she heard Nathan again:

"Forgot to mention, Chairman. I happened to let the press in on how you built your fortune."

He glanced at his watch. "By now Butler Group's stock has probably already hit its limit down. Another drop at tomorrow's open, and you'll be just about ready to file for bankruptcy."

The words hit Annette like a bolt out of the sky.

Even her father, in the middle of his torment, stared in shock.

The past came flooding back all at once.

That year, Nathan had come to the Butler home to discuss the marriage with her.

He'd sat in the living room a whole afternoon, played three games of chess with her father, talked the economy for two hours.

Annette had caught a few of their lines.

She'd heard Nathan say, "Mr. Butler, rest assured. Once Annie marries me, I'll treat her well. She does what she likes, and I'll never force her into anything she doesn't want. I'll keep her in the palm of my hand and never let her suffer the smallest wrong."

She'd heard him say something else:

"As for those old matters you mentioned. Don't worry. From now on, they stay between you and me alone. I'm your son-in-law, half a son to you. And what son would ever sell out his father?"

She'd heard her father's hearty laugh.

"Good man. With a word like that, I'll hand Annie over to you and rest easy."

That night her father had been in fine spirits, and broke his own rule for an extra couple of drinks. He'd taken her hand and said, with real weight behind it,

"Annie, Nathan's a good one. A man worth trusting with you. I've lived a long time, and I'm still a good judge of people."

Back then she'd ducked her head, cheeks flushed, smiling, her heart sweet as if it had been poured full of honey.

There the memory cut off short.

Annette was back in the cold of the present.

Watching her father's agony, her heart bled with his.

Dad, you were wrong about him.

"AHHH!!!" A scream tore through the room and dragged Annette back to the present.

She jerked her head up and saw her father's face, eyes wide and bloodshot with agony.

Her father, a man who could endure anything, was screaming like this.

She had never once heard him make such a sound.

For as long as she could remember, he had been the mountain in her mind that would never fall.

No matter the trouble, he always smiled and said, "It's fine, Dad's here."

Even after losing hundreds of millions in a deal, he would only sit alone in his study through the night, then walk out the next morning bright and steady as ever.

She had believed he would never fall.

But now he was strapped to that iron chair, drenched in blood, wailing like a slaughtered animal.

"Dad!!!"

Annette felt her heart breaking.

She broke completely and dropped to her knees in front of Nathan.

"Nathan! I'm begging you! Please!" She slammed her forehead to the floor, again and again. "Please, let my father go. I didn't kidnap Mila, I swear I didn't!"

She kept kowtowing, and before long her forehead split open.

Nathan sat on the sofa, watching her grovel into the dust, something dark and unreadable in his eyes. He didn't move.

Then his phone rang.

He frowned and answered. Naomi's voice came through. "Nathan, Mila's been found! She's at the hospital, a little shaken up. Come see her, quick!"

His face eased. "All right. I'm on my way."

And with that he simply left, his bodyguards with him.

Leaving Annette and her father exactly where they were.

The door closed.

Annette crawled to her father's side on her hands and knees.

"Dad, Dad, hold on! I'll get you out of here, I'll take you to the hospital..."

Her tears fell one by one onto the back of Oliver's blood-streaked hand.

Oliver forced his eyelids open. "Annie, stop fussing over me."

"Dad's not going to make it. Go. Go now."

"Dad got it wrong." His voice grew fainter, like a candle guttering in the wind. "I misjudged him... I'm sorry, Annie..."

Annette couldn't stop crying.

Her heart felt like a great hole had been torn through it, the wind howling in.

"Annie." Oliver gathered the last of his strength and closed his hand around hers. "Go now. Go to France. Go far away... and never come back."

His gaze was beginning to drift.

"Promise Dad... live well..."

Annette opened her mouth, wanting to say something.

But Oliver's hand went slack in her palm.

"Dad? Dad!!!"

Annette wept until the world went dark around her.

She had no idea how long she cried before she staggered to her feet.

She had to go, now. She couldn't let Nathan catch her again.

"Dad, wait for me."

Her tears had run dry, her voice gone hoarse, and she made her promise to her father's cooling body word by word.

"Once I'm settled, I'll come back for you. I won't leave you here alone."

Annette rushed to the airport that night and bought a seat on the last flight to France.

Just before takeoff, a text came in from Nathan.

"I'm sorry. I looked into it. A business rival was stirring up trouble. Dad didn't kidnap Mila."

"Wait for me. I'm sending someone to take Dad to the hospital right now. Annie, I'll make it up to you."

She read it twice.

The first time, it struck her as absurd.

The second time, it struck her as laughable.

Her tears were gone, her eyes dry and raw.

Just a few hours ago, he had sat on that sofa and watched the man he called "Dad" have his fingers broken one by one, and felt nothing.

Now he'd looked into it, and a weightless little "I'm sorry" was supposed to smooth all of this over?

He'd make it up to her. How, exactly?

Give her father's life back? Hand Butler Group back?

She didn't answer either message. She blocked him outright.

She wiped the last photo of the two of them from her album, and the plane lifted off.

The city behind her, that man, those absurd seven years of marriage, all of it left below in the clouds at thirty thousand feet.

Everything in New York was over.

Life had to go on. And Annette Butler owed it to herself, for once, to live for her own sake.