Chapter 3

The next day, I took the morning off and started packing.

There wasn't much. A few changes of clothes, my documents. That was enough.

The doorbell rang.

I thought it was the solicitor's courier with the divorce papers. I opened the door — and froze.

Bianca Whitmore was standing in the hall.

She'd dressed in a white cashmere coat, immaculate. The boy from the FaceTime call was at her side, his small hand in hers.

I gripped the doorframe hard enough to bleach my knuckles.

"Aren't you going to invite me in, Sylvia?"

She looked me over — my face, my pallor — and made no effort to conceal her satisfaction.

"I felt like we didn't get a chance to talk properly on the call yesterday. I brought Hugo along to say hello."

She nudged the boy forward. A little performance.

"Hugo's about to start nursery. Lucas is so soft about that child. He said Hugo is the Ashford heir and he wants us to move in properly."

I stared at the boy's face. He looked exactly like Lucas. The resemblance hit me like a fist.

"Get out."

I said it quietly, then louder, my voice cracking.

"Take your son and get out of my home."

I shoved the door closed. She caught it.

Her hand locked in the gap, and she leaned in close enough that I could feel her breath.

"Oh, relax," she said softly. "You think Lucas actually loves you?"

"He told me himself. Every time he had to share a bed with you, he needed sleeping pills to get through it. Every time he touched you, his head filled up with what those men did to you in that alley."

She held my gaze. Stepped closer.

"He said you were too dirty. That's why he needed me. Because only someone clean could make him feel anything."

Something snapped.

Twelve years I'd spent trying to crawl out of that alley. Twelve years of therapy and sleepless nights and learning, slowly, to let myself be touched.

He'd taken the worst thing that had ever happened to me and used it as a punchline. With her. In bed.

I didn't think.

I raised my hand and brought it down across her face with everything I had.

The crack was very loud.

Bianca stumbled, her forehead catching the corner of the shoe cabinet. Blood came immediately. Hugo burst into tears. Bianca scrambled backward, her hand pressed over her forehead.

"You're insane. You're an absolute psycho — you'll pay for this!"

She snatched Hugo up and lurched into the lift.

I slid down the doorframe and sat on the floor, unable to stand.

On the coffee table was the prenatal scan I'd been keeping for six months. A surprise. A gift I'd been saving.

I picked it up and tore it in half, then into quarters, then smaller.

The solicitor arrived with the papers shortly after. I signed them and left them on the table.

Outside, the rain started — heavy, the kind that blurs everything.

I pulled my case toward the door.

The door burst open from the other side.

Lucas stood in the entryway, forehead creased, jaw tight, eyes bloodshot.

"Sylvia. Where is he? What have you done with Hugo?"