Chapter 1
I stood there holding the positive pregnancy test my husband's mistress had sent me.
The two dark red lines in the tiny window were impossible to ignore.
I had spent two hours alone in a cold restaurant, waiting for a husband who never showed up.
Meanwhile, Julian was celebrating in Suite 702.
A silver-frosted cake sat on the marble counter.
The message piped across it read:
“Happy 23rd Birthday, Chloe—and Congratulations on the Baby.”
Julian had completely forgotten my thirty-eighth birthday. Instead, he was throwing a party for his pretty young mistress.
I pushed open the heavy door.
Julian stood before the windows with a whiskey tumbler in one hand.
Chloe clung to his arm in a backless silk dress.
"You're late, Evelyn," Julian said without even turning around.
He tossed a thick document envelope onto the table beside Chloe's birthday cake.
"Sign it. Happy birthday, Evelyn. Consider this divorce settlement my final gift to you."
My gaze dropped to the bold heading on the first page.
DIVORCE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.
"Julian... today is my birthday. It's also our anniversary," I said softly.
My voice was barely audible. Every word sent another vicious pulse through the migraine throbbing behind my temple.
"Face reality, Evelyn." Chloe gave me a mocking smile as her manicured hand caressed her still-flat stomach.
“Julian needs a wife who can give his empire an heir—not some bankrupt charity case who’s pushing forty and already smells like a nursing home.”
Julian took an unhurried sip of whiskey, his eyes cold and lifeless.
"Without my family name, you're nothing. I've paid to keep you alive for fifteen years. I'm even letting you keep the town house. You should be grateful."
He had no idea that for fifteen years, I had been drawing his family's generations-old curse into my own bones.
My failing body was the only reason every investment he touched had earned him billions.
I didn't cry.
A cold stillness settled between my ribs.
I walked to the table, uncapped the pen, and drew a hard black line through the name Evelyn Vance.
Then, in sharp, elegant strokes, I wrote the surname I had been born with.
Evelyn Sterling.
The instant the final letter dried, the silver wedding band on my finger cracked.
It crumbled into gray ash.
The pain buried deep in my spine—the agony that had tormented me for fifteen years—vanished in a single second.
A cold, violent power erupted through my veins.
The haze clouding my vision cleared, and a deep violet flame ignited behind my irises.
All the misfortune, decay, and disaster I had carried for Julian over the past fifteen years tore free from my blood like a receding tide.
Then it surged violently back toward its source.
"Ugh!"
Julian doubled over with a strangled retch. Hideous black-purple veins erupted beneath his skin.
At the same moment, his phone erupted into a shrill ring on the table.
He snatched it up, and every trace of color drained from his face.
"What did you say? The FBI just raided headquarters? The ten-million-dollar investment has been frozen?"
He spun around, desperate to run, but stepped into the champagne spilled across the floor.
His feet flew out from under him.
His ribs slammed into the sharp corner of the marble coffee table with a sickening crack.
Chloe screamed and lunged toward him. The heel of her stiletto snapped, sending her face-first into the shattered crystal scattered across the floor.
I stepped over my bleeding estranged husband and walked straight out the door.