“Mom, please,” I begged, my voice cracking as I fell to my knees on the cold marble floor of the living room. “I’m dying. The doctor said I have cancer. I only have a few months left. Just let me be with my son. Just for a few months. Please!”

My mother didn’t even flinch. She stood over me, adjusting her pearl necklace, her eyes filled with nothing but disgust.

“Stop this pathetic act, Candice,” she snapped, stepping away from me like I was a disease. “Cancer? Really? How low will you stoop just to get attention? You’re just faking this because you can’t stand that Paula is finally happy.”

“I’m not faking it! I have the medical papers—”

“Enough!” my mother hissed. “Paula is fragile right now. She lost her baby, and she needs peace. Stop acting like a lunatic and let your sister heal. You should be grateful we’re even letting you stay in this house.”

My heart shattered all over again. My own mother. The woman who gave birth to me was looking at me like I was a monster for wanting the child I had carried for nine months.

I dragged myself up and stumbled toward the hallway, desperate. I saw Sandro putting on his coat. He was getting ready to leave.

I grabbed his sleeve, my fingers trembling. “Sandro, please. Talk to me. He is mine. He’s our son. You can’t just erase me like this.”

Sandro yanked his arm away so violently I almost lost my balance. His eyes were ice.

“Are you deaf, Candice?” he sneered. “I told you, he is Paula’s son now. You are nothing but the surrogate. You agreed to the terms of service of this marriage the moment you signed those papers and took my money to save your father's failing company. You were bought and paid for. Now, stay at home. I have better things to do without you.”

He turned his back on me, walking up the stairs to fetch them.

The betrayal burned in my chest, a suffocating, toxic weight. My marriage wasn't a union of love. To him, it was just a transaction. A set of terms of service where I was the product, and Paula was the beneficiary.

A few minutes later, the house went quiet. I heard a soft whimper coming from the nursery upstairs.

My feet moved on instinct. I sneaked up the stairs, my breath catching in my throat. The nursery door was cracked open. I slipped inside.

There he was. My beautiful baby boy, lying in the crib, his little face red as he started to cry.

“Shh, sweet boy. Mommy’s here,” I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. I reached into the crib and gently lifted him into my arms. The moment his tiny body pressed against my chest, his crying stopped. He belonged with me.

“What are you doing?!”

A shrill scream shattered the moment.

Paula stood in the doorway, her face twisted in fake terror. “Help! Sandro! Mom! She’s stealing my baby!”

“No! I just wanted to hold him!” I panicked, holding my son closer to my chest.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs. Sandro burst into the room, his face dark with rage.

“Give him to her!” Sandro roared, lunging at me.

“No! He’s mine!” I screamed, stepping back.

But Sandro didn’t care. He grabbed my arm and yanked me hard. In the violent struggle, my grip slipped. The baby tumbled from my arms.

Time stopped.

I lunged forward, catching him just before he hit the floor, but his tiny head bumped hard against the wooden leg of the crib.

A piercing, agonizing wail erupted from my baby.

“My baby!” Paula shrieked, snatching him from my arms. “You monster! You tried to kill him!”

“I didn’t! Sandro, you pulled me—”

“Shut up!” Sandro struck me across the face. The slap was so hard I tasted blood. “If anything happens to him, I will kill you myself! Get the car, Paula! We’re going to the hospital!”

They ran out, leaving me on the floor.

Panic and adrenaline surged through my weak body. I forced myself up and ran after them, hailing a cab with shaking hands to follow Sandro’s car to the emergency room.

When I finally burst through the hospital doors, I saw them at the front desk.

“Sandro! How is he? Is he okay?” I cried, rushing toward them.

Sandro turned, his eyes blazing with pure hatred. “Get away from us!”

He shoved me backward with all his strength.

He didn't even wait to see me fall. He just turned his back, wrapping his arm protectively around Paula as they hurried down the pediatric wing.

My weak legs gave out. I stumbled backward, bracing for the hard impact of the hospital tiles.

But I didn’t hit the floor.

Instead, I crashed into a solid, warm chest just as I stumbled past the shadows of a corridor alcove. A pair of strong, steady arms wrapped around my waist, catching me effortlessly and pulling me completely out of sight.

I gasped, looking up, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

The man holding me had sharp, striking features and eyes as cold and deep as the ocean.

My breath hitched. I recognized that face from the covers of every business magazine Sandro obsessed over. It was Elias Thorne. Sandro’s ultimate rival. The ruthless billionaire who had been slowly dismantling my husband's empire piece by piece.

He pressed a long, elegant finger to his lips, silencing my gasp as we watched Sandro and Paula disappear down the hall, completely unaware of us.

“Is this how Rossi treats his dying wife?” Elias murmured, his voice a low, dangerous velvet against my ear. “How pathetic.”

I trembled, tears spilling over my lashes as I looked up at the man my husband feared most.

Elias’s gaze darkened, his grip on my waist tightening just a fraction. “Tell me, Candice,” he whispered. “Do you want to make them pay?”

“Do you want to make them pay?”

I trembled, my weak hands clutching his expensive suit jacket just to stay upright. “Why… why would you care about me? I’m just a dying, discarded wife.”

Elias’s eyes, cold and deep as the ocean, narrowed. He didn't offer me a soft smile or words of pity.

“Because I despise Sandro Rossi,” he said brutally. “But more than that, I hate seeing someone accept defeat so pathetically. You have two choices, Candice. You can lay down on this hospital floor and die crying… or you can stand up and take back what is yours.”

His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. But my heart was still bleeding for only one thing.

“My baby…” I choked out, fresh tears spilling over. “Is he okay? He hit his head—”

Elias didn’t even blink. He simply snapped his fingers.

From the shadows, an assistant in a sharp black suit stepped forward and handed Elias a sleek medical tablet. Elias glanced at it, then tilted the screen toward me.

“Your son is perfectly fine. A minor bruise. Nothing more,” Elias stated flatly.

A massive wave of relief washed over me, but it was instantly shattered. Elias tapped the screen again, bringing up a live security feed from the doctor’s private office down the hall.

The audio crackled to life.

“Sandro, I’m so scared!” Paula’s voice echoed from the tablet, accompanied by loud, dramatic sobs. “She’s crazy! She tried to hurt him! What if she comes back and tries to steal him again?”

“Shh, it’s okay, Paula. I’ve got you,” Sandro’s voice replied, soft and sickeningly sweet.

“I can’t sleep knowing she’s out there. Please, Sandro. Get a restraining order. Keep her away from us!”

I stared at the screen in horror. Paula was faking a panic attack, burying her face in Sandro’s chest while he rubbed her back.

“I will,” Sandro agreed without a single ounce of hesitation. “I’ll have my lawyers draft it today. She will never come near our son again.”

Our son.

Hearing him say that—hearing him legally erase me from my own child's life—did something to me. The heavy, suffocating sorrow that had been drowning me suddenly evaporated.

In its place, a burning, absolute rage ignited in my chest.

My tears stopped falling. My trembling hands curled into tight fists.

Elias watched the shift in my eyes. A dark, satisfied smirk played on his lips. He handed the tablet back to his assistant and looked down at me.

“Marry me.”

I froze, staring at him in shock. “What?”

“Become my wife,” Elias said, his tone entirely business, yet dripping with a lethal promise. “If you agree, I will fly in the top oncologists in the world to fight your cancer. You will not die. More importantly, I will give you the wealth and the power to completely destroy Sandro’s company. You will ruin Paula’s perfect little facade. And you will legally take your son back.”

He stepped closer, his towering presence demanding an answer. “Do we have a deal?”

I thought of my mother’s disgusted face. I thought of Sandro’s cruel slap. I thought of Paula’s fake, venomous tears.

A spark of life—of pure, unadulterated vengeance—finally returned to my soul.

“I accept,” I whispered, my voice turning to steel.

An hour later, I returned to the Rossi mansion to pack my few belongings.

The moment I pushed the front door open, the sound of laughter hit me like nails on a chalkboard.

I walked into the living room. Sandro, Paula, and my mother were sitting on the expensive leather couches, drinking tea and celebrating the baby's return from the hospital. They looked like a perfect, happy family.

The laughter died the second Sandro saw me.

His face hardened into a mask of pure disgust. He stood up, grabbed a thick document from the coffee table, and threw it violently at my feet. The papers scattered across the marble floor.

“Sign it,” he barked. “It’s a permanent restraining order and a gag order. You are leaving this house tonight. You will never speak to us, and you will never see the boy again.”

From the couch, Paula adjusted the baby in her arms and gave me a sickening, triumphant smirk.

They expected me to break. They expected me to fall to my knees, to cry, to beg for scraps of their mercy just like I always did.

I didn't shed a single tear.

I stepped forward, my muddy shoes planting directly onto the restraining order.

Sandro’s eyes widened in shock as I closed the distance between us. I looked him dead in the eye, my gaze completely numb to the man I once loved.

I reached into my bag, pulled out a sleek black folder, and slapped it hard against his chest.

“I'm not here to beg, Sandro,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I'm here to give you my divorce papers.”

Sandro stumbled back a step, catching the folder. He stared at it, stunned, before a cruel, mocking laugh erupted from his throat.

“Divorce?” he sneered, looking me up and down. “You have no money. You have no family. You really think a judge will let you take my son?”

I didn't answer him.

Instead, I raised my left hand. Slowly, deliberately, I slid the diamond wedding ring off my finger.

I dropped it.

It hit the marble floor with a sharp clink. I raised my foot and kicked it across the room. It skidded to a halt right at Paula’s feet.

“Keep the trash, sister,” I said coldly.

I turned my back on them, pausing just before I walked out the door.

“I'm coming back for my son. And when I do, I will take everything from you.”

My words hung in the heavy silence of the living room.

Sandro stared at the diamond ring resting near Paula’s feet, his chest heaving. For a split second, I saw genuine shock in his eyes.

He couldn't comprehend that his docile, dying wife—the woman who had spent years begging for his scraps of affection—was walking away.

Then, the shock melted away, replaced by a dark, furious red that crept up his neck.

His mocking laughter died. He snatched the black folder from his chest, his knuckles turning white as he violently tore the divorce papers in half, then in half again, throwing the shredded pieces at my feet.

"You don't leave until I say you leave," he snarled, his voice dropping into a vicious, controlling register. "You think you can just walk out of here and make demands? You aren't getting a divorce, Candice. You are going to sit down, sign the gag order, and sign the full parental surrender tonight. If you don't, I promise you, I will make whatever miserable months you have left a living hell."

From the couch, Paula clutched my baby tighter to her chest, her eyes wide with manufactured terror. "Sandro, don't let her go!" she cried out, perfectly playing the victim. "She's crazy! What if she goes to the press and ruins our reputation? She'll tell them lies about us!"

I didn't even look at her. I didn't look at my mother, who was watching me with silent condemnation.

I simply turned my back on all of them and continued walking toward the heavy mahogany front doors.

Being ignored completely shattered the last of Sandro’s restraint.

"I'm talking to you!" he roared.

I heard his heavy footsteps behind me just a second before he lunged. His large hand clamped down roughly on my arm, yanking me backward.

"What on earth is going on here?!"

The sharp, authoritative voice cut through the foyer. My mother—Eleanor—finally stepped out of the living room, her face pale with fury.

But her anger wasn't directed at Sandro for manhandling me. It was directed entirely at me.

"Are you out of your mind, Candice?" Eleanor hissed, marching toward us. "A divorce? You are not leaving this house! Do you have any idea what a scandal will do to the company shares your father left you?"

I stared at her, my chest aching. "Is that all you care about? The shares? My husband is sleeping with Paula, he stole my child, and I am dying, Mother!"

"Don't call me that!" Eleanor snapped, her upper lip curling in absolute disgust.

The words struck me like a physical blow. The entire room seemed to hold its breath.

Eleanor glared at me, years of hidden venom finally spilling over. "I am not your mother. I never was. I should have left you in the gutter where your whore of a mother died!"

My blood ran cold. My breath caught in my throat as the floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

"What... what are you saying?" I whispered, my voice trembling.

"You really thought my husband would leave his entire legacy to you out of love?" Eleanor laughed bitterly. "You are the bastard child of his favorite mistress! He forced me to take you in to save his reputation. He gave you the controlling shares of the company out of guilt! I only married you off to Sandro so we could keep the business in the family and keep you under control!"

She pointed a trembling, manicured finger at my face. "You owe us everything, you ungrateful wretch! You will stay here, you will sign those shares over to Sandro, and you will die quietly without ruining Paula's future!"

Heartbreak, sharp and agonizing, tore through my chest.

My whole life was a lie. The woman I had spent twenty-four years trying to please, the sister I had loved, the husband I had devoted my soul to—they had all been using me.

I was nothing but a pawn, a dirty secret they kept around just to drain my father's inheritance.

The tears I had sworn not to shed pricked my eyes, but as I looked at their greedy, hateful faces, the sorrow instantly hardened into ice.

"You can keep the shares," I whispered, my voice eerily hollow. "Keep the money. Keep the lies."

With a sudden, violent burst of adrenaline, I ripped my arm out of Sandro's grip.

Before he could grab me again, I shoved the heavy mahogany doors open and stumbled out into the freezing, pouring rain.

The storm soaked me to the bone instantly, but I didn't stop. I hurried down the marble steps of the porch, the cold wind whipping my hair across my face.

"Candice!" Sandro roared, chasing me out onto the covered porch. "If you walk down those steps, you're dead! I'll freeze your accounts! You'll die in the streets!"

I kept walking down the driveway, the rain washing away my tears.

"Guards! Grab her!" Sandro barked into the storm.

Two burly mansion security guards rushed out from the side of the house, sprinting through the rain to intercept me.

But before they could even reach me, the blinding glare of headlights pierced the darkness.

“Don’t you dare touch what’s mine,” a voice thundered.