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."

The man who once shielded me had become the one hurting me.

Years ago, he'd intercepted a drink meant for me.

Now, ten times that amount was being forced down my throat.

The liquor burned like liquid fire, searing a path through my chest.

It incinerated the last scrap of love I had for Ken Gilbert, and I vomited it up as blood.

I was rushed to the hospital with acute gastric hemorrhaging.

When I woke, Ken was sitting at my bedside, smoking. A haze of smoke hung between us, blurring his face. All I could make out was his low, unhurried voice.

"Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

"The baby didn't make it. I signed off on removing your right fallopian tube."

He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought:

"We'll have other children."

"No matter what happens, you're the only Mrs. Gilbert I'll ever recognize."

To make it up to me, Ken wired five million dollars into my account in a single transfer.

I was still calculating whether it would be enough to cover my father's medical bills for the rest of his life when the news reached me the next day.

My father had killed himself.

Fifth floor. He jumped.

By the time the night nurse found him, he was already gone.

I ripped the IV from my arm like a woman possessed, desperate to see him one last time.

What met me instead was a slap across the face.

My mother was sobbing uncontrollably, her finger jabbing at my nose.

"You selfish little tramp! Why did you run away from home? Why did you have to fall in love with Ken Gilbert?"

"Your father thought he was nothing but a burden to you. That's why he... that's why he jumped."

She told me everything.

After I'd left home, my father had never stopped looking for me. Afraid I was struggling, he'd quietly funneled money and support to Ken, time and again. When Ken started his company, it was my father who'd pulled strings, opened doors, provided real, tangible help. Even after the family went bankrupt, he'd gritted his teeth and kept going, refusing to let me worry.

Until he heard what my life in the Gilbert household had really been like.

Every last hope in him died.

He traded his life for what he believed would be my freedom.

Ken knew all of it.

He never told me a word.

He deliberately kept me from seeing my family while shamelessly using my name to squeeze money and resources out of the Hensons. He rode my father's support straight to the top, then repaid that trust by driving the Henson family into ruin.

That poor old man. In his final moments, he still believed I resented him.

After my father's death, my mother refused to see me. I wanted to beg her forgiveness, but she never gave me the chance.

She hanged herself at the gates of the Gilbert villa.

I heard she had a knife on her when she died.

I never found out who she'd meant to kill.

All I knew was that this woman, who had lived her entire life in comfort and elegance, couldn't summon the courage to take someone else's life, even at the very end.

The aftermath broke me. I was sick for a long time. Nightmares clawed at me every night, and I drifted through each day in a fog.

Ken stayed by my side the entire time. He held my hand, fed me my medication without complaint, wiped the sweat from my forehead. Over and over, he murmured the same words.

"It's over now. All of it is over."

"Ruby, let's stop thinking about the past, both of us. Let's just live a quiet, peaceful life together. Okay?"

Ken cut off every last one of his side flings and stayed home like a devoted husband. He stopped attending those endless business dinners. Every evening he came home on time, ate with me, took me out for walks to clear my head. Whenever an old flame called the house, he dealt with it swiftly and cleanly, making sure none of it ever reached me.

He even arranged an elaborate funeral for both my parents.