Chapter One

My seventh wedding anniversary gift was a divorce agreement. My husband and his mistress joined forces to smear me on camera, branding me as “a madwoman trying to control him with her family,” all to make room for his new bride and their unborn child. He thought that once he cast me out of the family, he could inherit everything my father left behind.

But he forgot: my father’s most valuable legacy was never the businesses everyone could see.

So the moment I was expelled from the company, I made the call.

“Clean-up. Begin.”

Half an hour later, his empire began to collapse—fast and without mercy.

……

……

On our seventh wedding anniversary, Sebastian Hawk—my husband, the young partner my father had once prized above all others—handed me a document in the top-floor office with a panoramic view of the city’s nightscape.

A divorce agreement.

“Sign it, Violetta.” His voice was as steady as if he were discussing a deal—because, in truth, that’s exactly what this was. “Chloe is pregnant. She needs a proper name. This is the most dignified solution.”

Chloe.

The girl who had shown up before me three years ago, trembling, swearing she had nowhere left to go. I gave her a surname, a roof over her head, and in the end I even introduced her to Sebastian, placing her beside him as his executive assistant.

I looked up at him. “What did you just say?”

My fingers had gone white—like the trust I had placed in everything I thought I understood. “Sebastian, you know this. In the family, loyalty is above all else. You and I—we’re an alliance, we’re—”

“The rules have changed!”

He cut me off, yanking at his tie with impatient fingers.

“Your father’s playbook is obsolete, Violetta. Look around—who runs the docks, the clubs, the corridors of the council now? Me. Hawk. And you—along with those antique ‘codes of honor’—you’re nothing but dead weight. Chloe understands what I need.”

He came around the broad mahogany desk—the one he’d replaced after taking over my father’s “business.”

He planted a hand on my chair’s armrest, and a wave of cloying cologne turned my stomach.

“Sign it, and you can keep that little casino out west. Live easy as a rich woman. Don’t force me, Violetta. You know that with who I am now… I don’t have to be too particular about methods.”

A threat. He was threatening me with the very methods my father had taught him.

I stared into his ice-blue eyes. There was nothing there but swollen ambition and the annoyance of a man obstructed.

The man who had sworn at my father’s bedside to defend the Ross family name—and me—with his life was gone.

Or maybe he never existed.

“I don’t agree.” I stood, and my voice surprised even me with its calm. “Sebastian Hawk, you’ll pay a price you can’t begin to imagine for what you said today.”

“Hmph.”

Behind me, I heard what sounded like a short, contemptuous laugh.

“Suit yourself. But remember—this time, you walked out that door on your own.”

I didn’t slow down.

The elevator’s downward drop tugged at my stomach, but my heart sank heavier. I crossed the gleaming lobby on the first floor, and beyond the revolving doors the city’s neon bled into the night.

Then—

Flashbulbs exploded without warning.

“Ma’am! Over here!”

“Violetta! Did you use your family’s power to pressure Mr. Hawk?”

“Did you break up true love?”

The crowd surged. Reporters poured in like sharks scenting blood, and security might as well have been paper. Cameras, microphones, shouting—everything shoved into my face, nearly driving me back toward the elevator.

I had just opened my mouth when a sharper, more coordinated rhythm of footsteps came from the side entrance.

Sebastian stepped out of the private elevator with several familiar “shareholders”—in reality, mid-level family captains who’d turned with the wind and backed him—watching me from above with effortless composure.

This ambush wasn’t an accident. It was a staged set.

“Everyone,” he said to the cameras, his voice terrifyingly steady, “regarding the recent rumors, I’d like to respond.”

“Violetta—my wife,” he paused, as if the words pained him, “has long used her family’s resources to interfere with my decisions, controlling my life and my career. She treated me as an accessory. She treated our marriage as a tool to expand her power.”

A wave of uproar rippled through the crowd.

“That isn’t true.” My voice left my throat, but it sounded as distant as a star. “You’re lying.”

He didn’t look at me. He only gave the reporters a small, solemn nod. “I’ve brought council and shareholder representatives today to announce this—Violetta will be removed from all positions and authorities within the group. Effective immediately.”

“What?” I lurched forward.

Security moved on reflex, blocking me like I was an intruder.

And then Chloe stepped out from behind him.

She wore the cream-colored suit I once helped her choose, her hair smooth over her shoulders.

She tucked herself into Sebastian’s embrace, lifted a fragile, pitiful face to the cameras, and spoke in a trembling voice: “Please don’t blame Violetta… she just loves Sebastian too much… but for the baby, I can only…” Her words broke; she buried her face in Sebastian’s chest.

A flawless performance. I’d spent three years raising a viper.

Sebastian patted her back gently, then faced the cameras with grief carved into his features and conviction in his posture. “I can’t stay silent any longer and let my own cowardice hurt the person I truly love—and our unborn child. So…”

He took a document from his assistant and tossed it forward.

The divorce agreement flipped once in the air and landed at my feet.

Every lens turned on me in unison, waiting for me to bend, to crack, to cry.

But I didn’t.

Amid the buzzing chatter, I slowly crouched and picked up the agreement.

Then I raised my head and met Sebastian’s eyes.

“You’ll regret this. Sebastian.”

He seemed not to expect I could still speak like that under these circumstances. He froze for a beat—then the corner of his mouth lifted into the faintest, utterly confident sneer.

“The only thing I regret is giving you too many illusions in the first place.”

Of course he didn’t believe me.

And he didn’t deserve an explanation.

I slid the agreement into my handbag. Inside was also a thin manila envelope—something he knew nothing about: the lifeline card he’d dreamed of for years.

Then I turned away and hailed a cab.

The moment the door shut, the flashbulbs outside became a silent field of white.

The driver asked, “Where to, miss?”

I laid the divorce agreement across my knees, my voice cold as steel. “To the top floor of the law firm.”

Then I dialed an encrypted number. The person on the other end said only one word: “Here.”

I watched the neon retreat in the window and spoke slowly. “Now—activate the plan.”

Half a second of silence. Then a low reply: “Understood.”

I hung up. My fingertips were still shaking, but my gaze no longer was.

On our seventh anniversary, they handed me a divorce and a sentence.

I would return the favor—

with regret.