It wasn't until my third pregnancy that I learned the truth about my husband, Bertram Delgado, and the kind of man he really was.

My mother-in-law handed me a bank card and told me to have the baby, then disappear. If I refused, she'd dig up my mother's grave.

I laughed in her face, snapped the card in half right in front of her, and told her she didn't know the first thing about love.

That night, I was kidnapped. I called Bertram ninety-nine times. He didn't pick up once.

A baseball bat slammed into my lower abdomen. Blood soaked through the hem of my dress.

By the time everything was beyond saving, Bertram finally showed up.

His eyes were red as he personally dealt with every last one of the men who'd hurt me. Then he pulled me into his arms, stroking my hair again and again. "Prue, we'll have another baby. I swear I'll find whoever did this and make them pay."

I thought that was the worst thing I'd ever endure. I had no idea it was only the beginning of hell.

Not long after, my mother-in-law personally led a crew to desecrate my mother's grave. My father collapsed from a heart attack on the spot.

I stumbled my way to the surgical ward, and just as I reached the doors, I caught sight of Bertram and his mother around the corner.

"She disrespected you, Mother. I simply gave her a small punishment."

"And now what? Alexis is your sister. All we had to do was wait for this third baby to be born and she'd finally be cured for good. The first two were useless; their hearts were too weak. If we keep dragging this out, Alexis's body won't hold."

"Don't worry, Mom. If there's no baby, we'll just take her heart instead. She owes Alexis that much."

So the killer he'd sworn to hunt down was himself all along.

He'd stolen my children under the guise of miscarriages and given their hearts to another woman.

I collapsed onto the freezing floor, both hands clamped over my mouth.

All this time, I hadn't thrown myself into love. I'd thrown myself into a game where I was the sacrifice.

Everything I was, everything I had, was nothing more than cold medicine to keep Alexis Pruitt alive.

I wiped my tears. With trembling hands, I dialed a number.

One week. In one week, this game would have a new player writing the rules.

...

"I'll marry you."

My voice shook as I said it, and no amount of willpower could push down the bitterness rising in my chest.

Silence on the other end. Then a quiet laugh. "Well. I never thought the devoted Mrs. Delgado would say those words to another man."

"There's one week left in the divorce cooling-off period. Don't worry. I don't love him anymore."

I hung up and stared at the two torn halves of my marriage certificate in my hands. My heart felt like it was being carved apart piece by piece. The shredded red booklet slipped from my fingers and fluttered to the floor.

Three weeks ago, I'd finally conceived Bertram's third child.

Zara Delgado came to me directly and told me to leave.

"Bertram's status is special. You're not worthy of him. There's enough money on this card to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life. Have the baby and get out. You've already killed two of them. Don't kill a third."

I looked at the bank card she'd tossed at me, and the memory of my first two babies, born without ever drawing a single breath, cut through me like a blade.

Ten years ago, Bertram Delgado, a man notorious for his indifference to women, fell for me at first sight.

To win me over, he quietly studied my habits and preferences. When I came down with a fever, he sat at my bedside for three days and three nights without leaving.

To thank him, I agreed to go with him to a college reunion. On the way there, the brakes failed.

He pulled me into his arms on instinct. The impact shattered several of his ribs.

In that moment, the wall I'd built around my heart, the one I thought nothing could ever break, came crashing down.

After that, we fell together naturally.

Once we were married, he spoiled me until I became the "princess" everyone in our circle talked about. He taught himself the difference between foundation shades just so he could pick the perfect one for me. When I hit a wall with my studies, he whisked me away on trips to clear my head. When I felt lost in my career, he was there with encouragement and unwavering support.

Because of all that, I never once doubted what we had.

Remembering this, I looked Zara dead in the eye, laughed coldly, and snapped that card in half with my bare hands.

"You've got it wrong. I never loved cold numbers on a screen. And Bertram would never let me walk away from our child."

Her face twisted with the sour humiliation of being shut down. She sat in silence for a moment, then snatched up her purse.

As she passed me, her voice dropped to something frigid.

"You won't hold that seat as Mrs. Delgado for long."

That night, I was taken by strangers. They placed bets with cash, wagering on how many swings of a bat it would take to kill a three-month-old baby still inside its mother.

I called Bertram ninety-nine times. Not once did he answer. On the hundredth call, it finally connected, and I told him our baby was gone.

Silence on his end. Then: "I'm sorry, Prue. I swear I'll find whoever did this and make them pay. Just hold on."

He told me not to hang up. He was on his way.

But the very next second, a woman's tearful whimper came through the phone. It was Bertram's foster sister, Alexis Pruitt.

"Bertram, my ankle hurts so bad... ah..."

"Alexis!"

That single cry of alarm did something I'd never witnessed in ten years of marriage. It shattered the composure of a man who never lost his cool, and it stopped my heart dead.

In a decade together, I had never once heard Bertram Delgado sound panicked.

Through the phone, I listened to him bark hoarse orders at over a dozen private physicians to treat Alexis. Every frantic shout, every note of tender anxiety that crept into his voice when he spoke to her, poured into my ears, and the agony in my chest pulled at my abdomen until it felt like I was being ripped apart.

It hit me then. He wasn't a man who stayed calm under pressure. He simply hadn't met the person worth losing his calm for.

By the time night had fully fallen and blood pooled around my lower body, Bertram finally arrived with his people in tow.

"Sorry, Prue. Traffic was bad."

He scooped me up into his arms. That familiar face was as cold and unreadable as ever.

Looking at him, I couldn't reconcile this man with the one who'd been choking on panic just hours before.

My throat sealed shut. I couldn't make a single sound. My heart felt like it was being flayed alive, one slow strip at a time.

"My brave Prue."

The words hit me, and something inside me almost laughed.

Brave. Of course I was brave. I'd swallowed the agony of losing my child while listening to my own husband ignore his kidnapped wife, too busy losing his mind over another woman to spare me a single thought.

My gaze locked onto those eyes, the ones I'd fallen for a thousand times over, searching desperately for even a flicker of guilt in their depths.

There was nothing. He didn't even glance my way.

A bitter smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it.

Right. A man who didn't care about his wife or his children could hardly be expected to remember a phone call that had never been hung up.

I didn't know how much time passed before the sharp sting of disinfectant pulled me back.

I opened my eyes. Alexis's face filled my vision.

The moment she saw I was awake, her eyes lit up.

She set the apple and paring knife in her hand aside, dug into her bag, and tossed a stack of paper onto my bed.

"You're awake! Quick, tell me if this love letter turned out okay."

The sheets were a collage, pieced together from strips of paper covered in handwriting I knew by heart.

Beside the meticulously assembled creation sat a notebook, its pages ripped apart without a shred of care.

I recognized everything on that bed in an instant. My breath stopped.

Those were my love journals. Ten years of them.

The pieced-together letter began: To my beloved, Alexis.

She must have caught the color draining from my face, because Alexis tilted her chin up, her expression still perfectly innocent.

"Bertram told me yesterday he wanted to use these to buy one of my smiles."

Pain lanced behind my eyes. Every word out of her mouth was a blade, and it was suffocating.

So that was why he hadn't answered his phone. He'd been with Alexis.

He'd shredded everything I'd written without a second thought, just to piece together a love letter for her. Just to make her happy.

The taste of blood seeped between my teeth. My voice shook when I finally spoke. "Are you done with the act?"

Alexis blinked, then shrugged like it meant nothing. "He told me he'd always have my back. No matter what."

My eyes flickered.

She wasn't wrong. Bertram had always shielded her.

The first time, she'd "accidentally" fed me abortion pills disguised as vitamins. His punishment? Making her post a public apology on social media.

The second time, she'd faked a stomachache right as I was going into labor, delaying delivery until my baby suffocated. His punishment? Grounding her for three days to "reflect."

I'd sobbed to Bertram about how unfair it all was. He'd looked at me with flat, distant eyes and said:

"She already knows she was wrong. Be the bigger person."

And now, once again, it was because of her.

Before I could respond, Alexis leaned close to my ear, her lips curling into a smile.

"You know what, sis? Instead of wasting your energy being mad at me, maybe you should go check on that useless father of yours. Someone dug up your mother's grave, and the shock gave him a heart attack. He's still on the operating table."

My mind went blank. Her words echoed in my skull, over and over.

By the time I came back to myself, I was already standing outside the operating room.

"Why are you in such a rush? The doctor said that waste of space can't have children anymore. If it weren't for the fact that her womb could save Alexis, I never would've let her play Mrs. Delgado for ten years."

"Relax, Mom. No more babies? Then we take her heart instead. She owes Alexis that much."

I stared at the two familiar figures around the corner, and my heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack.

So my babies hadn't died. Bertram had taken them under the guise of miscarriages and given their hearts to his precious other woman. The "culprit" he'd sworn to hunt down was himself all along.

His words after each "miscarriage" flooded back to me in a sickening rush.

"Half a dose of abortion pills and the kid couldn't hold on? Would've been too fragile anyway. Not fit to lead the Delgado family."

"So the baby didn't want to come out on time. If this one doesn't love our Prue, we'll just try again for one who wants to love Mommy with Daddy."

I sank to the cold floor, an icy chill crawling up my spine.

I'd thought Bertram was simply cold-natured, that beneath it all, he genuinely wanted to raise our children. The truth was, he'd only ever wanted to find Alexis a perfect heart.

The realization crashed over me, and I pressed my hands against my face, drowning in it. I'd been so stupid. So impossibly, pathetically stupid to think I could ever wring a drop of sincerity from Bertram Delgado.

My phone screen flashed. Then flashed again.

I lowered my gaze to the message, and something dark and sharp moved behind my eyes.

One week. In one week, every single person who had laid a hand on my children would pay.

Bertram's secretary came sprinting toward him, face drained of color.

"Mr. Delgado, Miss Pruitt has been kidnapped!"

In an instant, all the blood left Bertram's face.

Before I could even react, he was already tearing past me. I looked up and caught a flash of his dark eyes, wild with panic.

But his gaze barely grazed me before he bolted past, heading for the stairwell behind me.

In that split second as our paths crossed, his shoulder slammed into me and sent me crashing to the floor.

The bodyguard trailing him stepped on the back of my hand without breaking stride.

I winced against the sharp bite of pain and watched Bertram's retreating figure, stumbling in his desperation, growing smaller down the hallway. Something inside my chest seized and went still.

I'd already heard the panic in his voice over the phone. I'd known. But seeing it with my own eyes still sent a blade twisting through my heart.

After a moment, I tugged weakly at the corners of my mouth.

Of course. Bertram had always been this way.

The second anything involved Alexis, nothing else in the world existed for him.

On the hospital rooftop, a man with a savage, contorted face held Alexis hostage. A knife gleamed at her throat, the blade pressed flat against her skin.

Alexis was sobbing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.

As more people crowded onto the rooftop, the man retreated toward the edge, his agitation spiraling into something feral and unhinged.

His bloodshot eyes locked onto Bertram.

"Bertram Delgado! All I wanted was one heart to keep me alive. But you'd rather give this bitch heart after heart after heart than spare me a single one. Fine. Then don't blame me for taking it with my own hands!"

Bertram's burning gaze fixed on the thin line of blood trickling down Alexis's neck. His face was a mask of composure, but his hands trembled at his sides.

He drew a slow breath. "A heart from someone with cardiac disease. How long do you think that would keep you alive?"

I stood in the corner of the crowd, watching the scene unfold.

Then, in the next instant, a pair of familiar eyes found mine through the press of bodies.

Before I could process what was happening, Bertram had pulled me into his arms.

"Only a heart from someone healthy would be worth anything to you."

His voice rang out, clear and deliberate, right beside my ear. My body went rigid. I lifted my gaze to his cold, hard face, and every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice.

He knew. He knew the kidnapper wanted a heart to save his own life, and he'd shoved me forward anyway, painting a target on my back.

All of it, every last bit, just to save Alexis.

The betrayal crashed over me like a wave, so massive it nearly dragged me under.

The kidnapper's frenzy only intensified. "You think finding a compatible heart is that easy?! You're trying to trick me into swapping hostages so you can save this bitch. Dream on!"

Bertram's expression didn't waver. "Her heart won't keep you alive for long. But if you take her instead..." His gaze dropped to me for a fraction of a second. "You'd have leverage over the person I love. I can find you a compatible heart."

The kidnapper hesitated, suspicion flickering across his face as his eyes settled on me.

And Bertram, catching the shock in my eyes, looked away with something almost like guilt. His voice dropped to a murmur only the two of us could hear. "Prue, you've trained in self-defense. I know you can hold out until the police arrive."

I stared at him, eyes wide.

I'd already braced myself to be used as a shield. But I never imagined he'd say it to my face with such shameless audacity.

Before I could fire back a single word, the kidnapper barked his command. "Fine! Bring her over. We trade, one for one!"

Bertram pushed me forward. There wasn't a flicker of hesitation in those deep, dark eyes.

I took it all in, and a bitter laugh echoed somewhere inside me.

A sacrificial pawn who could be discarded at any moment in this game had no right to hope for even a scrap of genuine feeling.

Just as the exchange was about to happen, the kidnapper threw his head back and let out a jagged laugh.

"You'd throw away your own wife to save this bitch, and you call her the one you love? What a joke! Today, I'm killing HER!"

Before the last word left his mouth, he kicked Bertram aside and raised the knife high.

Laughing like a man possessed, he lunged for Alexis's chest.

"Alexis—!"

Bertram's pupils contracted to pinpoints. He shoved me away with all his strength and threw himself over Alexis.

And I lost my balance completely, pitching backward off the edge of the rooftop.

The wind screamed louder and louder in my ears. Above me, the man with terror blazing in his eyes for the woman he loved grew smaller and smaller, shrinking into nothing.