Chapter 3

The next morning, the guesthouse door was unlocked when I woke. I was certain I had locked it.

On my kitchen table sat a manila envelope. Inside were photographs — surveillance photos of me entering my lawyer's office, me at the post office mailing the DNA kits, me purchasing the burner phone. Each photo was annotated in Dominic's precise handwriting.

The last photo was of Lily, asleep in her bed. Written beneath it: "Careful, Maren."

My blood turned to ice water.

He knew. Not everything — if he knew about the nanny cam footage, it would already be destroyed. But he knew I was building a case, and this was his warning shot.

I dressed quickly and crossed the lawn to the main house. The front door was open — unusual for this hour. Inside, the house was quiet. Too quiet.

I found Vivienne in the dining room, sipping coffee with a serene expression that I now recognized as the face she wore when she was about to detonate something.

"Good morning, Maren. Sit down. We need to talk."

"Where's Lily?"

"With her father. They left early. A little father-daughter trip." She smiled. "To the Maldives."

The floor tilted. "He took her out of the country?"

"It's a vacation, Maren. Don't be hysterical."

"He can't—" I stopped myself. Legally, he could. On paper, I had no parental rights.

"He wanted me to give you this." Vivienne slid a document across the table. A voluntary termination of all custodial claims, even the supervised visits.

"Sign it," Vivienne said, "and you get two million dollars and a clean break. Refuse, and Lily stays overseas. Dominic has properties in six countries without extradition treaties. You'll never find her."

My hands trembled. Not with fear — with a rage so incandescent it burned away every other sensation.

"You think this is winning," I said quietly.

"I think this is reality." Vivienne leaned forward. "Let me paint you a picture, sweetheart. In five years, Lily won't remember your face. In ten, she won't remember your name. Dominic and I will raise her as our own, and she will grow up believing her mother loved her enough to walk away. It's actually quite a beautiful story, when you think about it."

I picked up the document. Vivienne's eyes gleamed with anticipation.

I tore it in half. Then in quarters. Then I let the pieces flutter to the table like confetti.

"Here's my counter-offer," I said. "Tell Dominic to bring my daughter home within seventy-two hours, or I will burn his world to the ground."

Vivienne laughed — a bright, crystalline sound, utterly devoid of warmth. "With what? You have nothing. No money, no connections, no legal standing. You're nobody."

I stood and walked to the door. Then I turned back.

"Vivienne. That necklace you're wearing. The sapphire pendant."

She touched it reflexively. "What about it?"

"Dominic gave it to me on our first anniversary. I thought you should know what you are to him. You're wearing another woman's jewelry. You're raising another woman's child. You're living in a house another woman built. Everything you have is borrowed. And loans, eventually, come due."

I left her sitting there, the color draining from her face.

Back in the guesthouse, I pulled out the burner phone. My lawyer answered on the first ring.

"They've taken Lily out of the country. We're out of time."

"Maren—"

"Release everything. Now. Today."

A long pause.

"All of it?" he asked.

"All of it."

I hung up and sat in the silence of that tiny, cold room. In forty-eight hours, the world would know the truth. In forty-eight hours, Dominic Sterling's carefully constructed lie would come apart at the seams.

But Lily was on the other side of the world, in the arms of a man who treated love like a transaction and fatherhood like a chess move.

I looked at the photo Dominic had left on my table — my daughter, asleep, innocent, unreachable.

I'm coming for you, baby, I whispered. Mama's coming.

Then I opened my laptop, and I lit the match.