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.

The day of the funeral, the house was packed with mourners.

Ken wasn't among them.

He'd been invited to a televised interview, spotlighted as an outstanding young business leader, his face filling the screen. My parents' memorial portraits hung on the wall not far from that same television.

The guests whispered among themselves. Ken Gilbert had turned over a new leaf, they said. A reformed man. They told me to look on the bright side, to move forward with my life.

"Ruby, what's done is done. Grieving won't bring them back."

"Put the past behind you. Focus on building a good life."

"Anyone can see that Mr. Gilbert truly cares about you."

Ken Gilbert truly cared about me.

So much that he'd torn my child from my body and shattered my family into pieces.

So much that he'd spent years chasing every woman who caught his eye, cheating without a shred of remorse.

Now that he'd had his fun and was ready to play the reformed husband, I was supposed to forget everything. Devote myself to our life together, heart and soul.

On what grounds?

My dead parents. Everything I'd lost.

Who was going to give any of that back to me?

That was the day I made my decision in silence.

I would avenge my family.

I would kill Ken Gilbert with my own hands.

And just as I'd predicted, there was no such thing as a reformed man.

After a stretch of apparent peace, Ken's true nature resurfaced. He was simply more careful about it.

When he accompanied me to the hospital, he'd flirt with the nurse changing my bandages the moment my back was turned. While we planned our wedding together, he'd sneak off to wrap his arms around my maid of honor behind closed doors.

He thought I didn't know.

He thought I'd learned my place.

What he didn't know was that every waking second, I was counting down to his death.

I paused and looked down at Madison.

My lips curved into the faintest smile.

"Did you really think I didn't know about you two?"

"I just didn't care."

"Because in my eyes, you and Ken are the same. You've both been dead to me for a long time."

I raised the knife.

Then sirens split the air.

Madison's eyes lit up like she'd spotted a lifeline, and she began thrashing wildly beneath me.

"Ruby, let me go! Now!"

"The Gilberts have enough power to make your life a living hell. You have no idea what they'll do to you!"

I watched the barely concealed grin spreading across her face.

My own smile widened.

"I told you. Nothing is going to happen to me."

"I wouldn't have done any of this if I hadn't already planned my way out."

Gun barrels surrounded me in a ring of black steel. I felt nothing. No fear. No hesitation.

I turned calmly to the lead negotiator and said one sentence.

The deep furrow between his brows slowly eased.

He turned around and snapped the handcuffs onto Madison's wrists.

Madison froze.