Chapter 3

My father survived the night.

The doctors said it was stress-induced angina—not a full heart attack, but close. Close enough that my mother aged ten years in the waiting room, gripping a paper cup of cold coffee like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

I sat beside his bed at Mount Sinai, holding his hand, watching the monitors beep in steady rhythm. He looked small beneath the hospital sheets. This man who'd built a restaurant empire from a single food cart in Queens, who'd worked eighteen-hour days so I could go to college, who'd never once raised his voice at me—Viktor had nearly killed him with a wave of his hand.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I whispered.

His eyes fluttered open. "Don't apologize for his sins, baby girl." His voice was thin as paper. "Just promise me… you won't let them win."

"I promise."

He squeezed my hand, then drifted back to sleep.

My phone had been buzzing nonstop since I left the gala. News outlets, gossip blogs, former colleagues—everyone wanted a piece of the story. "Ashford CEO Dumps Wife at Own Gala—Mistress Reveals She's the Mother of His Children." The headlines wrote themselves.

I turned my phone off.

The next morning, Viktor's lawyer showed up at the hospital. A slick man in a $3,000 suit, carrying a leather briefcase and a expression of practiced sympathy.

"Mrs. Ashford—"

"Ms. Voss," I corrected.

He blinked. "Right. Ms. Voss. Mr. Ashford wants to ensure a smooth transition. The $200,000 settlement will be wired within forty-eight hours. He's also prepared to give you thirty days to vacate the penthouse. He asks that you don't contact the children during this period, as it may confuse them during the—"

"Don't contact the children?" My voice was quiet, but something in it made the lawyer take a step back.

"It's… a temporary measure. Ms. Renard believes a clean break would be—"

"Ms. Renard." I tasted the name like ash. "The woman who abandoned two newborns for eight years now gets to decide when I see them?"

The lawyer shifted uncomfortably. "I'm just the messenger, Ms. Voss."

I stood up slowly. "Tell Viktor I'll be out of the penthouse by Friday. And tell him to enjoy every minute of what he has. Because it won't last."

The lawyer left quickly, his polished shoes clicking a nervous rhythm down the hospital corridor.

By Thursday, I'd moved my things into a modest one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that my parents helped me secure. Three suitcases. That's what eight years of marriage amounted to—three suitcases and a box of books.

Mila called me that night. She'd stolen Noah's iPad to FaceTime me.

"Mommy, when are you coming home?" Her voice was small, confused. "The new lady says we have to call her Mama now. But she smells like perfume and she doesn't know how to make pancakes the way you do."

My heart cracked clean in half.

"Baby, I—"

The call cut off. Someone had taken the iPad.

Seconds later, a text from an unknown number: "Stop confusing the children. They're not yours. Move on. —C"

I stared at that message for a long time.

Then I opened my laptop and began to work.

See, there was something Viktor never knew about me. Something I'd kept hidden for our entire marriage—not out of deception, but because he'd never bothered to ask.

Before I met Viktor, before I was a waitress in my father's restaurant, I'd been something else entirely. Something I'd walked away from at nineteen because I wanted a normal life.

My phone rang. A number I hadn't dialed in eight years.

I picked up.

"Grandmother," I said. "It's Elara. I'm ready to come home."

The voice on the other end was crisp, aristocratic, and utterly unsurprised.

"I've been waiting for this call for eight years, darling. The jet will be at Teterboro in two hours."

I hung up and looked at my reflection in the dark window of my Brooklyn apartment—tired eyes, messy hair, a woman who'd been hollowed out and discarded.

But beneath that reflection was someone Viktor Ashford had never met.

And she was about to burn his world to the ground.