"Damien, I have the most amazing news to tell you!"I said as I pushed open the bedroom door with a smile on my face, clutching the pregnancy test in my purse and ready to share the news with Damien.

But the sounds stopped me before I could take another step into the room.

Moaning and heavy breathing filled the air, along with the rhythmic creaking of our bed.

I looked up and my entire world shattered right in front of my eyes.

Damien was on our bed completely naked, and beneath him was Caroline, my younger sister, with her platinum blonde hair spread across my pillow and her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Damien?" My voice came out broken.

They both froze and turned to stare at me.

"Adeline!" Damien practically threw himself off Caroline and scrambled to grab his pants from the floor. "This isn't what it looks like!"

"Really? Because from where I'm standing, it looks exactly like you're having sex with my sister in our bed!"

Caroline sat up slowly and didn't even bother covering her naked body with the sheets. "Oh please, Adeline, don't be so dramatic about this."

"Dramatic?" Hot tears were already burning in my eyes. "You're sleeping with my husband and you're telling me not to be dramatic?"

"He was never really yours to begin with," Caroline said while reaching for her clothes on the floor. "We should all just be honest about that right now."

Damien finally pulled his pants on and turned to face me with cold eyes. "Adeline, you need to calm down so we can discuss this like adults."

"Calm down? You actually want me to calm down right now?"

"How long has this been going on?" I demanded, looking between them both.

"Over a year now," Caroline answered without any shame. "Every single time Damien told you he was working late at the studio, he was actually here with me."

I turned to stare at Damien, silently begging him to tell me Caroline was lying but he just stood there without saying a word.

"Is that true?" I asked him directly.

"Does it really matter at this point?" he replied coldly.

"Matter? Of course it matters! I've done everything for you, Damien! I worked three different jobs to support your music career when nobody else believed in you! I was the one managing your catalog, booking your shows when no venue would give you a chance—"

"And I'm supposed to be grateful for that?" Damien interrupted me, his face twisting with anger. "You trapped me in this marriage, Adeline! You and your sickle cell disease and your constant neediness!"

"I loved you with everything I had!"

"Well, I never loved you," he said without emotion. "You were useful, that's all but now you're just a lowlife sickler holding me back from everything I deserve."

The cruel words hit me like a physical blow, and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

My trembling hand moved to rest on my stomach. "I'm pregnant," I said quietly.

Damien's eyes went wide for a second before he started laughing right in my face.

"Pregnant? You're actually pregnant right now?"

"Yes," I whispered. "I found out this morning and came home to tell you."

Caroline suddenly grabbed her purse and pulled out a thick stack of cash. She threw the money at me, and bills scattered across the floor at my feet.

"There," she said with a cruel smile. "That should be more than enough for you to get rid of it."

I stared at the money in shock. "What are you talking about?"

"Go get an abortion, Adeline," Caroline said casually. "Nobody wants that baby, especially not Damien."

I looked at Damien one last time, hoping he would say something different but he didn't.

"She's right," he said flatly. "I don't want a child with you, especially not one that might inherit your sickle cell."

Something inside me broke completely in that moment.

"You're both going to regret this," I said, my voice deadly calm despite the tears. "I swear I will destroy both of you for what you've done. You'll wish you never met me when I'm finished."

Damien rolled his eyes. "Sure, Adeline. Whatever makes you feel better."

I didn't say another word. I just turned and walked out, leaving the money scattered on the floor.

Caroline's laughter followed me down the hallway.

---

I made it to my car with shaking hands and started driving away from that house as fast as I could.

The tears were coming so hard that I could barely see the road, but I didn't care where I was going as long as it was far from them.

I thought about everything I'd sacrificed for Damien over the years. I was the one who managed his entire music catalog when he was nobody, organizing every demo and track he'd ever recorded. I was the one booking his shows when no venue wanted him, making call after call until someone finally said yes.

I had stood backstage at every concert, watching him perform, watching him dance with beautiful women as part of his act, telling myself it didn't mean anything because it was just for the show.

I believed in him when nobody else did.

My parents were no better. They'd always favored Caroline even though I was their biological daughter and she was adopted. They treated her like she was perfect while treating me like a burden because of my sickle cell disease.

Caroline got everything she wanted while I got nothing but disappointment.

Damien had promised to love me when we met. He said he'd take care of me and never leave me. I helped him become the music star he was today, and this was how he repaid my loyalty.

My phone buzzed on the passenger seat, it was a text from Sophie, my best friend.

Sophie: Where are you? We need to talk. This is urgent.

I was about to reply when I saw the headlights coming straight at me from the side.

The car slammed into mine with devastating force.

Glass shattered everywhere, my car bonnet crushed and pain exploded through my body.

My car spun and flipped violently.

When everything stopped, I was hanging upside down, blood running into my eyes and mouth.

I tried to move my legs but they wouldn't respond. My arms felt impossibly heavy.

My hand found my stomach, trying desperately to protect my baby even though I knew it was too late.

Through my shattered window, I saw someone walking toward me.

Sophie.

"Sophie," I tried to call out. "Help me."

She came closer, and I saw her face clearly in the streetlight.

She was not even worried or concerned, she was miling wide like this was entertaining.

"Sophie?" I gasped, confused and terrified.

She knelt beside my window, still smiling. "Oh, Adeline. Their secret dies with you tonight."

She started laughing then, a cold, cruel sound I'd never heard from her before.

"What secret?" I tried to ask, but she was already standing up.

She turned and walked away into the darkness, still laughing.

"Sophie, please!" I begged, but the words barely came out.

My vision blurred as darkness crept in from all sides.

The last thing I saw was Sophie's back disappearing into the night.

The last thing I heard was her laughter and the last thing I felt was my hand on my stomach then everything went black.

My hand went to my stomach the second I woke up and it was flat, panic hit me so hard I couldn't breathe properly.

"My baby," I whispered. "Where's my baby?"

The door opened and a doctor walked in, but she wouldn't look me in the eyes as she approached my bed.

"Miss Monroe, I'm Dr. Chen," she said quietly. "I'm very sorry, but you lost the child in the accident."

The words didn't make sense at first.

"What do you mean I lost the child?" I asked. "Where is my baby?"

"The trauma from the crash was too severe," Dr. Chen explained, still not meeting my eyes. "We did everything we could, but we couldn't save the pregnancy. I'm so sorry."

That's when it hit me that my baby was gone.

I started crying, and once I started, I couldn't stop.

Dr. Chen stood there awkwardly for a moment before she spoke again. "There's something else I need to tell you."

"What?" I managed to ask through my tears.

"The damage to your body was quite severe," she said carefully. "Combined with your sickle cell disease, you won't be able to have children in the future. I'm very sorry."

I felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out.

I would never be a mother now.

I cried so hard that my entire body shook with it, and I cried until I literally had no tears left to cry anymore.

Dr. Chen eventually left the room, and a nurse came in to check on me a little while later.

When she looked at me, I could see pity written all over her face, but there was something else there too.

It was like she thought this was somehow my fault for being careless enough to get into an accident while pregnant.

She didn't say anything to me, just checked my vitals and left quickly.

That's when I noticed my phone buzzing nonstop on the table beside my bed.

I reached for it and saw dozens of messages waiting for me.

The first one was from my mother.

Mom: What were you thinking, running off like that? You've embarrassed this entire family.

She was not even messaging me to check up on me or even ask about the accident.

Just blaming me for causing problems.

I scrolled through more messages and they were all the same.

My father telling me I needed to apologize to Caroline and Damien.

My aunts and uncles saying I was being dramatic and selfish.

Not one person asked if I was alive.

I opened Instagram with shaking hands and immediately saw Caroline's newest post.

It was a photo of her with Damien, both of them smiling and looking happy.

The caption said: "Real love always wins."

The comments section was filled with people congratulating them and saying how perfect they looked together.

I felt physically sick looking at it.

I kept scrolling and found a post from Sophie, my best friend.

"Sometimes trash takes itself out."

My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the phone.

Then a news notification popped up on my screen.

DAMIEN HAYES TRENDING - NEW ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT

I clicked on it even though I knew I shouldn't.

There was an interview with Damien where he was talking about his upcoming album and his "inspiration" for the music.

"This album is really special to me," he was saying. "Caroline has been my muse through this entire process. She's my everything, my real ride or die."

The album I had helped him create.

My ideas, my late nights working on it, my creative input and he was giving her all the credit like I had never existed.

I threw my phone across the room as hard as I could, it hit the wall and the screen shattered into pieces.

Just like my heart had shattered into pieces but as I sat there staring at my broken phone on the floor, something changed inside me.

The tears stopped falling and my jaw clenched tight.

I wasn't sad anymore about what they had done to me.

Ip was furious.

The door to my room opened, and my grandmother Eleanor walked in.

She was eighty years old with silver hair pulled back elegantly, and she had sharp eyes that never missed anything.

She was the only person in my entire family who had ever truly loved me.

When she saw me lying in that hospital bed, her eyes filled with tears, but her face stayed strong.

"Adeline," she said, and her voice was shaking. "My sweet girl."

"Grandma," I said.

She came to my bedside immediately and pulled me into her arms.

"I heard about the accident from a neighbor who saw it on the news," she told me. "Your parents didn't even bother to call me and tell me what happened to you."

"They don't care, Grandma," I said. "Nobody cares."

"I care," she said firmly. "I've always cared about you."

I told her everything about catching Damien with Caroline in our bed.

About being pregnant and losing my baby in the accident and never being able to have children again.

About Sophie being the one who caused the crash that nearly killed me.

Grandma listened to every word, and with each thing I told her, her face got harder and more determined.

When I finished, she pulled back and looked me straight in the eyes.

"I need to tell you something, Adeline," she said quietly. "I'm dying. I have cancer, and it's stage four. The doctors say I have maybe six months left."

My world felt like it was ending all over again.

"No, Grandma, please," I whispered.

"Listen to me carefully," she said, gripping my hands. "Before I die, I'm giving you everything. All the money your grandfather left when he passed away. The properties. The investments. We're talking about millions of dollars, and it's all yours now."

She pulled a thick envelope out of her purse.

"But I have one condition before I give this to you," she continued. "I don't want you to just survive what they did. I want you to destroy all of them. Show them exactly what they lost when they threw you away like you were nothing."

I looked into my grandmother's fierce eyes and saw the same burning anger that I felt inside my own chest.

For the first time since I'd woken up in this hospital, I smiled.

It wasn't a happy smile or a sad smile.

It was cold and determined and absolutely dangerous.

"I'll make them all pay, Grandma," I said, and my voice was steady and strong. "Every single one of them."

Grandma smiled back at me with pride in her eyes.

"That's my girl," she said.

One morning I got a text and it was from an unknown number.

Unknown: Heard you survived. It's a pity.

I stared at my phone screen in the darkness of Grandma's study, then deleted the message without responding.

They wanted a reaction but I wouldn't give them one.

Instead, I opened my laptop and went back to work.

It's been three months of teaching myself everything Damien had relied on me to know. Contracts. Rights. Distribution. The ugly machinery behind the music industry that most artists never bothered to understand.

I'd always been good at this part. The business side and the strategy but now I was going to be exceptional at it.

My phone rang and it was Grandma's care facility.

"Miss Monroe, your grandmother is asking for you."

I was there in twenty minutes.

Grandma looked smaller than last week, her skin paper-thin, but her eyes were still sharp when I walked into her room.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Good morning to you too."

"When's the last time you slept?"

"I sleep."

"Liar." She patted the bed beside her. "Sit and tell me about the plan."

I sat and told her everything I'd been working on. The research, the preparation and the one missing piece.

"I need to find someone," I said. "Someone talented enough to be a real threat. Someone Damien wronged badly enough to want revenge as much as I do."

"You'll find them," Grandma said with certainty. "And when you do, you'll burn his entire world down."

She smiled when she said it.

That's where I got it from, I realized. This capacity for cold, calculated destruction.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Like I'm dying." She laughed at my expression. "Don't look so tragic. I've made my peace with it. I just want to live long enough to see you destroy those bastards."

"You will."

"Promise me something," Grandma said, gripping my hand with surprising strength. "When you win - and you will win - don't let it consume you completely. There has to be something left of you after the revenge is done."

"I'll try."

"No. Promise me."

"I promise."

She settled back against her pillows, satisfied.

I stayed until she fell asleep, then went back to hunting.

---

The bar was called The Pit, and the name was accurate.

It had sticky floors and broken lighting, it was the kind of place where dreams came to die slow, painful deaths.

I'd been to eleven venues in the past two weeks. Watched forty-three different artists perform. Most were forgettable. Some were decent but none were what I needed.

Then he walked on stage.

He looked like he'd been sleeping rough. Clothes that had seen better days. A guitar held together with electrical tape. Dark hair falling into eyes that had seen too much but when he started playing, the entire room should have stopped.

They didn't, of course. The drunk crowd kept talking, kept ignoring him, kept treating him like background noise.

His voice was raw in a way that couldn't be taught. Pain that couldn't be faked and every note felt like it was being ripped out of somewhere deep and honest.

The song was about betrayal. About being used and discarded. About watching someone steal everything you created and claim it as their own.

I knew that feeling intimately.

When he finished, maybe five people clapped. He packed up his guitar with shoulders hunched in defeat and walked off stage.

I followed him outside.

He was in the alley, sitting on a crate, staring at nothing.

"You're wasting your talent in places like this," I said.

He looked up, instantly wary. "If this is a proposition, I'm not interested."

"It's a business opportunity."

"Same thing, usually."

"I want to make you famous," I said bluntly. "Specifically, I want to make you more successful than Damien Richards."

His entire body went rigid.

"Why?" His voice was flat, dangerous.

"Because I'm going to destroy him, and I need someone with talent and motivation to help me do it." I held his gaze. "You clearly have both. So let's talk."

He studied me for a long moment. "Who are you?"

"Adeline Monroe. And you are?"

"Kai Morrison." He stood up slowly. "And I'm listening."

---

We went to a twenty-four-hour diner that smelled like grease and desperation.

Kai ordered coffee, he didn't touch the menu even though I could tell he was hungry. I don't know whether it was pride or poverty or maybe probably both.

"Tell me about Damien Richards," I said.

"You first," Kai countered. "Why do you want to destroy him?"

"He's my ex-husband. He's also a thief, a liar, and a manipulator who destroyed my life. Your turn."

Kai's jaw clenched. "Three years ago, I wrote a song. It was the best thing I'd ever created. I sent it to a producer who said he could get it heard. That producer worked with Damien."

"Let me guess. Your song ended up on Damien's album."

"Not even my whole song. Just the hook and the melody. The part that made it special." Kai's hands tightened around his coffee cup. "He changed enough that I couldn't prove it was mine. Made millions while I lost everything trying to fight him legally."

"Do you still have the original?"

"Every version. Every demo. Time-stamped and saved."

I pulled out my phone and showed him a photo I'd taken of Damien's hard drive before I'd left. Lists of songs and annotations. Notes about "acquiring" material from various sources.

"I have proof he's stolen from at least seven different artists," I said. "Including you. I was the one who helped him cover it up because I didn't know any better. Now I'm going to be the one who exposes him."

Kai stared at the photo. "You're serious."

"Completely."

"Why me? There are bigger artists. People with actual followings."

"Because you're talented enough to be a real threat, desperate enough to take risks, and angry enough to see this through." I leaned forward. "And because watching you destroy Damien with the exact song he stole from you? That's poetic justice."

Kai was quiet for a long time.

"What's the catch?" he finally asked.

"No catch. It's a fair contract with profit sharing. You do exactly what I say, when I say it, and we both get what we want."

"And what do you want?"

"I want to watch Damien Richards lose everything he stole. His career, his reputation and his perfect life with my sister." I smiled, and I could feel how cold it was. "I want him to know it was me who destroyed him."

Kai looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.

"You're terrifying," he said.

"Is that a yes?"

He extended his hand across the table. "It's a yes."

I shook it.

"Welcome to the war, Kai Morrison."