Chapter 1

My contract husband sold our baby to his real girlfriend, told the doctor I was mentally unfit, and had me dragged out of the delivery room in a hospital gown — barefoot, bleeding, and handcuffed to a security guard.

I didn't scream.

I didn't cry.

I memorized every face in that hallway.

Fourteen hours earlier, I had been Elara Voss — surrogate wife, contractual nobody, the disposable womb the Kensington family had purchased for ten million dollars and a stack of NDAs.

Sebastian Kensington stood at the end of the corridor in a three-thousand-dollar suit, his arm around Mila Cross — the woman he'd been sleeping with throughout our entire eighteen-month marriage contract. She was holding my daughter. MY daughter. Wrapped in a cashmere blanket monogrammed with the Kensington crest.

"Take her to the east wing," Sebastian told the nurse without looking at me. "And make sure Elara is off the property by tonight."

The security guard tightened his grip on my arm. "Ma'am, please cooperate."

I looked at Sebastian. "The contract states I have seventy-two hours post-delivery before custody transfers."

He finally turned. Those ice-blue eyes — the ones I had once, pathetically, found beautiful — stared through me like I was furniture.

"The contract was voided this morning. My lawyers filed a mental competency challenge. You've been declared an unfit mother by Dr. Hargrove."

Dr. Hargrove. The Kensington family's private physician. The one who had prescribed me "vitamins" throughout my pregnancy that made me dizzy, foggy, confused.

They had been drugging me. Building a case.

"You planned this," I whispered.

Mila smiled, adjusting my baby in her arms. "Don't be dramatic, Elara. You were always just the oven. The bun is ours now."

Something inside me went perfectly, terrifyingly still.

Not broken. Not defeated.

Loaded.

The security guard escorted me to the service entrance. No shoes. No phone. No wallet. Just a hospital gown and a plastic bag containing the clothes I'd worn to the hospital.

A black town car was waiting. The driver didn't look at me.

"Where am I being taken?"

"Bus station. Mr. Kensington purchased a one-way ticket to Newark."

Newark. Like I was cargo being returned.

I got in the car. I sat in silence for the entire ride. When we arrived, the driver handed me an envelope.

Inside: a bus ticket and a handwritten note.

"Thank you for your service. — S.K."

Thank you for your service.

As if I'd catered a dinner party.

I stood in the bus station parking lot, barefoot on cold concrete, and made myself a promise.

I would get my daughter back.

I would burn the Kensington empire to the ground.

And Sebastian Kensington would live long enough to watch.

What none of them knew — not Sebastian, not Mila, not the army of lawyers and doctors they'd weaponized against me — was that Elara Voss didn't exist.

My real name was Elara Mercier.

And the Mercier family didn't lose.