On the day of our wedding, Ken Gilbert told me something.

He'd been sleeping with my bridesmaid.

"Last night, I slept with Madison."

"I was going to keep it from you forever, but I thought it over."

"The truth is, I like her more than I like you."

"If you can live with that, the three of us can make it work. I'll do my best to be fair to both of you."

"If you can't, I'll take Madison overseas and we'll get our marriage license there. You go your way, we go ours. No interference."

He smiled at me, fully expecting me to fall apart the way I always had before.

Crying. Begging. Pleading for him to come back.

Instead, I grabbed the knife off the table.

And I drove it into Ken Gilbert's chest. Again. And again.

……

The knife had been set out for cutting the cake. It wasn't particularly sharp.

But I'd prepared for this long before today.

Every strike landed exactly where it needed to.

Within seconds, he was on the ground, unable to move.

My wedding dress was soaked through with blood.

The elegant reception dissolved into chaos.

Guests scattered in every direction.

Someone crashed into the champagne tower.

Someone dialed 911.

Others quietly signaled security, trying to get them to restrain me.

I ignored all of it.

I walked slowly toward Madison Pruitt.

I drove the knife through her arm and pinned her to the officiant's podium.

"AHHH—"

Madison let out a scream of pure agony.

The smugness that had been on her face moments ago was gone. All that remained was raw, animal terror.

"I'm sorry, Ruby Henson, I didn't mean for this to happen!"

"We were just... we were just messing with you. It was a joke."

"Please let me go. I swear I never wanted to ruin things between you two."

Never wanted to?

I pulled out Madison's phone and opened her photo gallery.

Over twelve thousand pictures.

Half of them were with Ken.

The earliest ones dated back to the night of our engagement party.

Madison had flown back from overseas specifically to celebrate with me. I'd been so happy that I drank too much, and I asked Ken to drive her home.

That was the night they first looked at each other and saw something.

They did it in my car.

After that, Ken used wedding planning as his excuse to stay in constant contact with her.

I tapped on a video at random.

Their voices, thick with intimacy, blared through the speakers across the ruined hall.

Madison clung to Ken, her tone dripping with lovesick need.

"Tell me. Who do you really love? Me, or Ruby?"

"I'm carrying your baby now. You have to make this official."

Ken leaned down and kissed her face.

"Of course you're the one I love most."

"But you know my situation with Ruby is... complicated."

"Give me some time. I'll figure out how to manage things between you two."

Ken's idea of "managing things."

Was to humiliate me as deeply as possible at my own wedding.

But they both forgot something. I was never the pushover they thought I was.

I slapped the flat of the blade against Madison's cheek a few times.

Then pressed the tip slowly against her lower belly.

"How about I play a little joke on you too?"

"Let's see if this baby can survive outside your body."

Madison's entire body shook.

She tried to hold herself together, but the tears streamed down her face beyond her control.

"Ruby, you can't do this."

"Ken is dead. This baby is the only Gilbert heir left."

"If anything happens to this child, the Gilbert family will never let you go."

I smiled.

The knife pressed forward, slicing through Madison's skin.

"Have you ever wondered why, with so many chances to do this, I chose to do it now?" I tilted my head. "In front of the biggest crowd possible?"

"The answer is simple. I planned my way out a long time ago."

"I could kill every last one of you today and walk away without a single consequence."

A dark stain of blood spread across Madison's dress.

The combination of fear and pain left her shaking uncontrollably, her whole body trembling like a leaf.

In the audience, Les Gilbert couldn't sit still any longer.

He dropped to his knees in front of me with a heavy thud.

"We've heard about everything Ken did to you," he said, his voice cracking. "It was our fault. We failed as parents. We failed your mother and father's memory."

"Just spare the child. We won't press any charges against you, I swear."

"The Gilberts have had only one son in every generation. I'm begging you, have mercy and let this baby live!"

Gwendolen Gilbert nodded beside him, her eyes red and swollen.

The sight of them on their knees, so utterly humbled, was enough to stir anyone's heart.

I looked at the slight swell of Madison's belly.

A cold smile curled my lips.

"Have mercy?" I repeated, tasting the words like poison. "When I was the one begging for mercy, who showed any to me?"

The story of Ken Gilbert and me was painfully simple.

A rich girl fell in love with a wolf dressed in a gentleman's skin.

Ken was a scholarship student my parents had sponsored out of poverty. We met when we were eight years old. By eighteen, I'd defied my family to be with him in secret.

To prove to my parents that our love was real, I moved out of the family mansion and into a basement apartment with him.

I still remembered that night. Ken held me tight, his eyes rimmed red, and spoke with absolute conviction.

"Ruby, wait for me. One day I'm going to make something of myself."

"When that day comes, I'll spend fifty thousand dollars. No, five hundred thousand. I'll give you the biggest, most beautiful wedding anyone has ever seen."

"I'll make every person who ever looked down on me know that I can give you the best of everything."

And he didn't disappoint. Not at first.

Ken had a razor-sharp instinct for business. He turned a few bold investments into a small fortune, then founded his own company. Almost overnight, he became the hottest new name in the industry.

During that time, he started staying out late, always vague about where he'd been. Then someone spotted him in a jewelry store, picking out a diamond ring.

They rushed to tell me, giddy with excitement.

"You've waited so long, Ruby. It's finally paying off."

"I snuck a peek at the ring. The diamond was the size of a marble."

"Can you imagine what kind of wedding would match a rock like that?"

"Ruby, your hard days are over. Ken is handsome, devoted, and he hasn't forgotten everything you sacrificed for him."

I laughed it off, told them it was nothing.

But inside, I was counting the days.

I waited. And waited.

No proposal came.

What came instead was a set of paparazzi photos.

Ken, strolling down the street with his arm around a young woman. On her finger, a diamond ring the size of a marble.

I couldn't believe it. I had to hear it from him. I had to be wrong.

I pushed open the door to his office and found them locked in a kiss.

When he saw it was me, the flash of surprise on Ken's face dissolved into something far worse: indifference. A lazy, unbothered smile.

He patted the girl on the backside and turned to me with a grin.

"This is my new personal assistant. Pretty, isn't she?"

"I'm thinking of taking her down to Miami for a little vacation."

"If Mom and Dad ask where I am, cover for me, will you?"

My head was ringing.

I raised my hand and slapped Ken across the face.

But when I turned to look at the girl beside him, Ken's brow furrowed.

He seized my wrist, his voice cold as ice. "Ruby, don't make a scene."

"You're not some pampered heiress anymore."

I hadn't even processed his words before he wrapped his arm around the girl and flicked on the TV.

"The Henson family is bankrupt. Your father's in the hospital with a heart attack."

"Whether he lives or dies depends entirely on whether I feel like paying his medical bills."

"For old times' sake—since your dad once sponsored my education—I'll start you off with fifty thousand dollars."

"The rest depends on how well you behave."

He tossed a bank card at my feet and told me to get on my knees and pick it up.

The girl watched me crawl on the floor and burst out laughing, her whole body shaking with delight.

"Sweetie, have you no shame? Kneeling for fifty grand? That wouldn't even cover one of my handbags."

Fifty thousand dollars.

That was the wedding he'd once promised me.

That was my dignity, shattered on the floor.

That was my father's life.

I never had a choice.

After that, everything changed.

Ken stopped hiding his affairs. He started parading his women right in front of me, brazenly, without a shred of pretense.

When he got bored of the secretary, he moved on to some social media influencer. When the influencer blew up on him, he set his sights on a college girl.

His position, his looks—they let him do whatever he wanted, drifting from one woman to the next like a bee through a garden.

Tall, short, curvy, slim. Ken never turned anyone away.

One night, he was at a karaoke bar and got in the mood.

He called me and told me to bring him condoms.

I rushed over. But when I reached the door of his private room, I heard muffled laughter and suggestive voices bleeding through the walls.

One of Ken's friends was teasing him.

"Come on, Mr. Gilbert, it's pouring outside. You couldn't wait? Making your wife deliver that in this weather—aren't you afraid she'll snap and walk out on you?"

A hostess handed Ken a drink. He knocked it back in one gulp and smiled.

"Walk out to where? Ruby doesn't have a home to go back to."

"Why do you think I went through all that trouble to bankrupt the Hensons? It was to make sure she'd have no choice but to stay right where I put her."

"You guys don't get it. Ruby looks docile, but deep down she's more stubborn than anyone I've ever met."

"The only way to keep her in line is to grind that spirit out of her. Then I've got nothing to worry about."

The room erupted in laughter. They started ranking the women Ken had been with, comparing them like trading cards.

I was the lovesick fool. Number one—loyal, stupid, and loaded.

His newest fling was the sultry favorite. Number thirteen.

The room tilted. The walls blurred.

I shoved the door open and stormed in, desperate to confront him.

But his girl grabbed my wrist and held up her phone with a grin. "One hour and five minutes! You lose the bet, Mr. Gilbert. Drink up!"

Ken flicked her playfully on the nose, then grabbed a bottle of imported whiskey and walked over to me.

"What took you so long?"

"Do you have any idea how much money your little delay just cost me?"

"Should I take it out of your father's treatment fund for next month? Or would you rather just drink this bottle yourself?"

The sharp burn of alcohol hit me before the bottle even touched my lips.

And suddenly I was somewhere else. Years ago. Back when Ken and I were building his company from nothing.

Some sleazy investor had tried to force me to drink at a business dinner, using his funding as leverage.

Ken had punched the man square in the face.

They beat him half to death, and he never once bowed his head.

But on the way to the hospital, cradled against me in the back seat, he broke down sobbing.

"Ruby, I'm useless. I can't even give you a decent life."

"Someday I'll make something of myself. And I swear—I will never let anyone hurt you again."