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He took the document and, even as his head fought it, the memory surfaced.

A month ago. Sera had just come back from the hospital. She'd handed him a stack of papers.

He'd been in a rush to pick up Vivienne after her shift. He hadn't read it. He'd signed the last page thinking it was a contract.

He closed his eyes. His temples were pounding.

So that had been the divorce agreement.

A month ago. She had already been planning it. She had waited for him to leave for Vivienne's birthday, and then she had walked out with her mother and her brother.

"There's more, Mr. Thorne. You should sit down."

His assistant set a laptop in front of him.

"A scheduled delivery just arrived. From Mrs. Thorne."

The video was ready.

The air thinned. He had a very bad feeling.

For three days he had been praying for word from her. Now he was here, and he didn't want to know.

Something told him that whatever was on this file was going to destroy him.

His fingers shook. He hit play.

Scene one: Vivienne grabbing Seraphina's hand and slamming it into a pot of boiling soup.

Then him bursting in. Vivienne clutching her stomach, screaming that Sera had slipped her an allergen.

He'd believed her.

Scene two: Vivienne hiring the men in hoodies to beat Seraphina. Staging the "revenge attack."

He'd believed that too. Hadn't visited her in the hospital for a week. Figured she was sulking.

Scene three: Vivienne staging her own kidnapping. Pinning it on Seraphina. And him — him having Julian dragged out of his cell and run over to force her to talk.

Final scene: Seraphina in the clinic.

Vivienne's instructions. The man she'd found hadn't gone easy.

Seraphina, strapped to a bed for ten hours at a stretch. Drugs. The shock room.

Audio of her screaming.

She had lost her mind in there, and all it had done was make the man push harder. He'd recorded it. Sent it to "Ms. Ashcroft" for approval.

A week. A full week of this.

By the end Damien's eyes were blood. His hands were shaking.

He was the one who had handed her over to this.

Every single thing had been Vivienne. All of it. And right up to the last possible moment, he had sided with Vivienne.

He had used a woman like Vivienne Ashcroft — cruel, calculating, merciless — to punish the person he loved.

He hadn't believed her.

She had cried in front of him and he had thought she was acting.

He had forced her to apologize. He had locked her up. He had poured an allergen down her throat. He had nearly killed her brother to make her confess something she didn't know. He had personally handed her over to the "therapist."

She had come out of there unable to stand, hollowed out, and he had been manipulated into thinking she was faking.

He had sent her to Vivienne's birthday in that condition.

"Where is she? Which hospital? I'm going to find her —"

He was going to get down on his knees and beg.

He was going to tell her he knew. That he had been so wrong it broke him.

He had to see her. Now.

He pushed himself up. His assistant caught his arm. Voice raw.

"Mr. Thorne... your wife... she's dead."