At first, it was small things.
The kind of things that sounded ridiculous when spoken out loud.
A bowl of boiling soup spilled over her own arm the exact moment Marcus walked into the dining room.
Then she collapsed to the floor sobbing, “Marcus, help me. Ava said she wanted to ruin my face. She said there isn’t room for both of us in this house.”
I stood there in shock, my own hands still dry, while he rushed past me to carry her away.
Then Nathaniel was poisoned during a deal gone wrong and fell unconscious for three days.
I never left his bedside.
For seventy-two hours, I stayed there, wiping his forehead, checking his pulse, begging him not to die.
The second he opened his eyes, Seraphina pushed me aside and burst into tears over his chest.
“Nathaniel,” she cried, “I stayed with you the whole time. I was so scared you wouldn’t wake up.”
He looked at her.
Not me.
Her.
And thanked her with eyes that had once belonged to me.
Then there was Julian.
I had risked everything to help him crush the rebellion inside his syndicate. I handed him information, contacts, routes, names. I helped keep him alive long enough to claim his place.
Seraphina waited until he was passing through the hall, then slapped herself so hard her cheek swelled.
When Julian stormed in, she was already crying.
“Ava, don’t worry,” she whispered, trembling theatrically. “I would never tell Julian it was me who helped fund his operation. He can keep thinking it was all you.”
One lie.
Then another.
Then another.
Every time I defended myself, I sounded more bitter.
Every time she cried, she looked more innocent.
They began watching me with suspicion.
Then with disappointment.
Then with annoyance.
And finally with contempt.
By the time Nathaniel married me, he already looked at me like I had trapped him into it.
I cried. I fought. I begged them to remember who I had been to them.
All I got in return was Nathaniel’s cold answer.
“If you can’t handle it, Ava, then we can divorce.”
At the time, I had just found out I was pregnant.
Two months.
I told myself my child deserved a complete family.
So I gave in again.
And again.
And again.
Until the day I lost that baby.
Until the day grief finally devoured every ounce of patience I had left.
Until the day I slapped Seraphina.
That one slap bought me five years of ruin.
A faint shimmer flashed before my eyes.
07:03:11.
The countdown dragged me back to the present.
I pushed myself upright against the wall and looked at Marcus without blinking.
“I’m not pretending,” I said.
My voice sounded dead even to me.
“If all of you hate me this much, then give me the divorce papers. And a statement cutting every tie between us.”
I didn’t want love from them anymore.
I didn’t want justice.
I didn’t even want explanations.
I just wanted out.
The words had barely left my mouth when a loud bang cracked through the room.
Nathaniel stood at the doorway, his face dark as a storm.
At his side was Seraphina, her eyes red, her lips trembling, every inch the picture of injured innocence.