Chloe, meanwhile, was gradually warming up to Stella under her calculated charm offensive.

Stella kept buying all the snacks and toys I'd refused to give Chloe, cooing over her in that sugary voice, a stark contrast to my discipline. One evening I came home from work and heard laughter spilling from the nursery the moment I stepped into the living room.

I pushed open the door. Chloe was curled up in Stella's arms, clutching a brand-new Barbie doll, her eyes crinkled with delight.

She saw me. She didn't run over the way she always did.

Stella looked up, a saccharine smile fixed on her lips. "Martha's home. Chloe just loves this doll."

I recognized it instantly. The exact model Chloe had begged for on her birthday, the one I'd decided was too expensive. And Stella had used it to buy her way in.

I reached out to stroke Chloe's hair. She flinched and burrowed deeper into Stella's arms, her small voice barely above a whisper. "Mommy, Aunt Stella is nicer than you. She buys me lots of toys. You never let me have snacks or anything fun."

The words sliced through me like a blade of ice.

Seven years. Seven years of sitting up through fevers until dawn, holding her hands while she learned to walk, waking early every morning to make her breakfast, teaching her to read, teaching her right from wrong. I'd believed that seven years of devotion would earn me at least a sliver of her heart. One bag of candy from Stella, and it all crumbled to nothing.

I looked at Chloe's small, innocent face, and the last trace of warmth in my chest went out like a snuffed flame.

I withdrew my hand. My voice came out flat and still. "Is that so? Then you should stay with Aunt Stella from now on."

Chloe blinked, bewildered.

Stella's lips curled with triumph. She tightened her arms around the girl.

I turned and walked out of the nursery. The instant the door clicked shut behind me, the last flicker of light in my eyes died completely.

Miles. Stella. Chloe.

You stole my child. You hijacked my life. You trampled seven years of everything I gave.

Fine.

I walked into the study, locked the door, and opened my laptop. The cold glow of the screen reflected off eyes that held nothing but ice. Spread across the desktop were the files: every piece of evidence that Miles had been secretly siphoning off assets.

My fingers flew across the keyboard, backing up every last document.

Two days later, Miles appeared at my door holding a stack of papers, his expression arranged into something meant to look serious. "Martha, I need your cooperation on something."

The harsh light of the study fell across the header: Pruitt Group Supplementary Investment Agreement. The words practically burned.

I gripped the papers. My fingertips went white. Inside, I laughed, cold and bitter.

This agreement was a trap he'd dug well in advance. It demanded that the Pruitt Group inject three hundred million dollars into his shell company within seven days. Miss the deadline, and he'd seize control of the family's core holdings. Worse still, he'd listed me as a joint guarantor. One default, and the Pruitts and I would lose everything.

Miles had always been after the Pruitt fortune. He wasn't even bothering to hide it anymore.

"Dad finally agreed?" I arranged my face into eager delight, though behind my eyes there was nothing but frost. "You've been saying for months that cash flow was tight. What a relief."

Miles looked supremely pleased with himself, his tone dripping with condescension.

"Well, it helps having the Pruitt heiress on my side. Your father does have conditions, though. He wants both of us to sign, and there's a residential commitment addendum. Stella's pregnant. The master bedroom faces south, better for the baby. You'll need to move into the guest room."

I feigned shock. "That's our bedroom. We've slept there for seven years..."

He let out a cold laugh, his voice stripped of all pretense.

"My car just broke down, by the way. From now on, you can walk to pick up Chloe from school."

He watched the color shift in my face, then added with lazy menace, every syllable laced with ice:

"That stretch of road is crowded. Lots of traffic. She's still so small. If something were to happen to her, well, that would be unfortunate."

He shoved the papers toward me, impatient. "Sign, and the funds transfer immediately. You don't want Chloe to suffer, do you?"

He was using Chloe as leverage. He had no idea I already knew the truth: Chloe was never my biological daughter.

I lowered my eyes, arranging my features into a picture of reluctant anguish. "Fine. I'll sign. But I need to read through this carefully first."

"What's there to read? It's all been agreed on."

Miles kept checking his watch, visibly agitated. "Stella's waiting upstairs. I need to take her to her prenatal appointment after I sign."

I stood there, a dull blade sawing back and forth across my chest.

When I was pregnant, I had asked him once, carefully, timidly, to come with me to just one appointment. He'd frowned like I'd asked him to swallow glass, his face twisted with irritation, his voice thick with disgust.

"Prenatal checkups are a woman's thing. What would a grown man look like sitting in that waiting room? People would laugh."

All those freezing memories of sitting alone in examination rooms, clutching my own hands in my lap, crystallized now into the calm behind my eyes.

The more desperate he got, the calmer I became.

The last few pages of the document had already been quietly replaced with divorce terms and asset-freeze clauses. All I needed was for him to put pen to paper first.

I pretended to read carefully, asking about trivial details to stall for time.

Miles lost patience, just as I knew he would. He snatched the document out of my hands and signed without hesitation.

"Quit dragging your feet. What do you think I'm going to do, poison the ink?"

His signature slashed across the page in a careless scrawl. He didn't so much as glance at the clauses that followed before tossing the document back to me. "Your turn."

I picked up the pen. My grip was steady, my hand sure. I signed my name with the kind of composure that only years of swallowed rage could produce.

In that moment, every ounce of hatred I'd buried for seven years finally found its way out.

Miles Winfield, everything you owe me, I'm collecting with interest.

He gave a distracted nod and headed upstairs without sparing me a single look.

I dialed my lawyer the second he was gone. My voice could have frozen steel.

"The agreement is signed. Initiate divorce proceedings immediately. Freeze every account Miles Winfield has linked to Pruitt Group assets. Every dollar he's siphoned off stays right where it is. He doesn't walk away with a cent."

I'd barely hung up when Stella appeared in the study doorway, one hand bracing her lower back, her face arranged in the smug expression of someone who thought she'd already won.

"Martha, all signed? Guess you're not as stupid as I thought."

The venom surging behind my eyes found its target. I closed the distance in a single step and slapped her across the face with everything I had.

Stella staggered. Before she could recover, I seized her arm and forced her to the floor, driving my knee into her back to pin her there.

"Miles!" she shrieked. "Help me!"

Miles came barreling into the room, eyes wild with fury.

His foot slammed into my chest.

I lost my balance. My lower back cracked against the corner of the desk, and white-hot pain tore through my entire body.

He didn't even look at me. He crouched beside Stella and gathered her into his arms, his voice shaking. "Stella, are you okay? The baby, is the baby all right?"

Stella buried her face in his chest and sobbed, trembling with theatrical distress.

Miles lifted his gaze to me. His words dripped with poison.

"Martha, you psychotic bitch. She's pregnant, and you still put your hands on her?"

I braced myself against the floor, cold sweat beading across my skin as agony pulsed through my waist and stomach.

"Apologize to her. Now." His voice was a blade.

I bared my teeth in something that wasn't a smile and didn't say a word.

His face went ashen with rage. He stood, pulled out his phone, and dialed. "Get over here. Take her to a psychiatric facility. She needs to be treated for whatever's wrong with her head."

Bodyguards materialized within seconds.

I fought through the pain. While Miles bent over Stella, stroking her hair, murmuring reassurances, my fingers locked around my phone in a death grip.

Fingerprint unlock. I dialed the number I knew by heart.

One ring.

"Dad, Miles is trying to have me committed..."

My sister's voice burst through the speaker, urgent and fierce.

"I heard what Miles has been doing to you. I'm coming right now. I'm bringing you home."

The bodyguards pinned me to the cold floor.

I lifted my eyes and stared at Miles. His gaze was glued to Stella. His fingertips traced slow, reverent circles over her belly, as if he were cradling something priceless.

And me? I was just the inconvenient lunatic in the room.

"Miles, are you blind? Can you not see what she really is beneath all that fake sweetness? Seven years ago, the two of you conspired to swap my baby. Seven years you've been scheming together to destroy me. Did you really think I never figured it out?"

The color drained from his face. For one instant, raw panic flickered in his eyes before fury swallowed it whole.

"What the hell are you raving about? You've completely lost your mind!"

"I've lost my mind?" I pointed straight at Stella, every word ripped from somewhere deep and bleeding. "You two are the ones who drove me to this! Stella, do you have the guts to admit it? Admit that seven years ago you paid Jemima Finch to switch my baby. Admit you've been lacing my supplements with poison. Admit that every last bit of it was for the Pruitt fortune!"

Stella's face went chalk-white. She burrowed deeper into Miles's arms, forcing composure into her trembling voice. "Miles, she's having a breakdown. Listen to what she's saying. It's insane. I never did any of that. Never."

"Still lying!"

I lunged for her, desperate to drag the truth out, but Miles seized my wrist and squeezed until the bones ground together.

"Enough!"

He shoved me backward. I stumbled, and the back of my head cracked against the doorframe. A dull, throbbing pain bloomed across my skull.

He raised a hand toward the bodyguards. "Get her out of here. I don't want her dirtying Stella's sight."

The bodyguards were about to drag me away when hurried footsteps rang out from the doorway.

Alice Pruitt, my only sister, shoved the door open and rushed in.

The moment she saw me covered in blood, her eyes went red. She charged forward, pushed the bodyguards aside, and pulled me behind her. "Miles Winfield! You bastard! What did my sister ever do to you to deserve this?"

Alice was the youngest daughter of the Pruitt family. She had a fiery temper and loved me more than anyone.

When I'd severed ties with the family, she'd wired me money in secret, watching over me without a word.

Now, the moment she learned I was in trouble, she'd caught the first flight home from overseas.

She steadied me, her voice breaking. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm taking you home."

Stella's eyes flashed with something vicious when she spotted Alice, but in the blink of an eye she swapped it for a look of terror.

She grabbed Miles's arm, her whole body trembling violently. "Miles, she... is she here to hit me? I'm so scared. My baby..."

As she spoke, she deliberately stumbled a step toward Alice, as if she were about to be shoved.

Miles's eyes went bloodshot instantly. He didn't wait for Alice to explain, didn't listen to a single word. He roared, "Ungrateful little wretch! How dare you lay a hand on Stella!"

Before his voice even faded, Stella snatched a fruit knife from under the coffee table and plunged it straight at Alice.

The strike was fast and savage. The blade buried itself in Alice's chest, and blood sprayed out, spattering across my face.

"Alice!" My vision blurred red. I reached for her.

Her body crumpled into my arms. She looked down at the knife in her chest, then up at me. Her lips moved, but all that came out was a mouthful of blood.

Stella clutched the hem of Miles's shirt. Every trace of that viciousness had vanished, replaced by the trembling fragility of a woman on the verge of tears.

Her shoulders shook, her voice thin as thread. "Miles, I didn't mean to. She was going to push me. I was only defending myself..."

Miles lowered his gaze to her, and in his eyes I saw something I had never seen before: indulgence. Complete, unconditional indulgence.

He raised his hand and patted her back, his tone so gentle it burned. "It's all right. I'm here. No one's going to hurt you."

His arm tightened around Stella, walling her off from me, from Alice, from the spreading pool of blood. Clean. Untouched.

He didn't so much as glance at Alice. His voice was ice. "She brought it on herself."

I held Alice and felt her warmth draining away, degree by degree.

Her fingers clenched the hem of my shirt. Her eyes were full of defiance, full of longing.

I dropped to my knees and slammed my forehead against the floor at Miles's feet, over and over, each impact a dull, wet thud. Blood seeped from my skin almost immediately.

"Miles, I'm begging you. Take Alice to the hospital. She's my only sister. I'm begging you! If you save her, I'll give you every share of Pruitt Group. I'll sign the divorce papers right now. I'll never bother you again. Please..."

My forehead was raw and bloody, my voice so hoarse it was barely audible.

But Miles just watched me with cold, empty eyes. Stella leaned into his ear and whispered, "Better if she dies. Saves us the medical bills. And if she does die, you can pull strings, find witnesses, call it self-defense. Don't let this blow back on you."

Something in Miles's gaze hardened into finality. Beneath that indifference lay undisguised consent.

He kicked my outstretched hand away. His voice held no trace of warmth. Not a single degree.

"Martha, this is what she deserved. She dared to raise a hand against Stella. She should have known the consequences. The hospital? I'm not wasting Stella's recovery time on some troublemaker."

He scooped Stella into his arms and headed upstairs without looking back. Over his shoulder, he called to the servants, "Drag these two lunatics out to the back courtyard. Don't dirty the living room."

"Miles Winfield, you can't do this!"

"Let go of me! I will destroy you both! I'll drag your names through the ground!"

Miles didn't flinch. He watched me being hauled away, eyes devoid of pity.

Stella stood at his side, the corner of her mouth curving into a victor's smile, sharp as a blade twisting into my chest.

The servants didn't dare disobey. They stepped forward to drag me and Alice away.

I clung to Alice with everything I had. I would not let go.

I could feel her breathing growing fainter, her eyes drifting shut. The last look she gave me was filled with nothing but heartache for me.

"Don't be sad, Martha..."

Those were the last words she ever said.