I was devoted to Tom Collin, a man whose ambition I once admired. I gave up my career, my future, my entire identity for him. I was the perfect wife while he built his empire. But when he reached the top, I became invisible.
Then I found him with her—his college ex, the woman who’d abandoned him when he had nothing. When I confronted him, the man I married vanished, replaced by a monster whose hands left bruises on my skin.
I was finally ready to leave. But I never got the chance. He left our five-year-old daughter, Joy, alone for his mistress. And in his absence, my baby was murdered.
I buried my child, and with her, the weak woman I used to be. In a haze of grief, I let a handsome stranger hold me for one night in Italy—a single moment of oblivion.
Five years later, I live for one purpose: Revenge. Tom Collin will pay for what he did. He has no idea the woman now standing before him. But my new boss… he might. The magnetic CEO of our rival company is the stranger from that night. And he doesn’t know he’s the father of my secret daughter.


The words still cut through me like shattered glass every time I remembered them. "Once you walk out of these doors, I don't want to ever see you here again." Tom had delivered that final blow with such cold precision, as if our years of marriage had been nothing more than a business transaction he was ready to close. 


Such a short time. That's all it took for him to tear apart everything we had built together over years of being husband and wife. The cruelty of how quickly he could erase our history still left me breathless with disbelief.


But here I stood, clutching Joy's treasured blanket against my chest, preparing to do the one thing I had sworn I would never do again. Return to that house. Return to him. Not for my own sake, but for our daughter.


Chapter 36 - Chapter 36 Blood Everywhere