Anissa's heels sank into the thick Persian runner as she climbed the stairs. She headed straight for her old bedroom at the end of the hall.

Heavy footsteps pounded behind her. Lorraine chased her up the stairs, her face twisted in rage. Lorraine lunged forward and grabbed Anissa's wrist, her manicured nails digging painfully into the skin.

"Stop this act right now!" Lorraine hissed, her chest heaving. "A man like Harding Snow doesn't marry girls like you! This is just a PR stunt to punish Connor!"

Lorraine sneered, her breath hot on Anissa's face. "Once the news cycle dies, he will throw you out like the trash you are."

Anissa yanked her arm back with brutal force. She looked at the red crescent marks Lorraine's nails had left on her skin. The last microscopic shred of hope for a mother's love died in her chest.

She looked up, her eyes dead. "Is that what I am to you? Trash?"

Lorraine flinched, but her pride forced her to double down. "If you weren't so miserable and boring, Connor wouldn't have looked at another woman! You have half of Ashlee's warmth!"

Anissa didn't yell. She started clapping. The slow, sarcastic claps echoed in the hallway. "Your gaslighting really is a masterpiece, Mother. Twenty years, and you haven't lost your touch."

Anissa took a step forward, forcing Lorraine to back up against the wall. "When I was ten, I had a 104-degree fever. You left me with the maid so you could take Ashlee to Paris because she scraped her knee."

"When I was sixteen, I got early admission to the Ivy League. No one came to dinner. Because Ashlee failed her exams and was crying in her room."

Anissa's voice was low, but every word was a knife slicing through the family's perfect facade.

Lorraine's face went from red to a sickly pale green. Panic flashed in her eyes because she couldn't deny it. She resorted to her only weapon: authority.

"You hold grudges over petty nonsense!" Lorraine screamed. "You are a cold-blooded monster!"

Anissa turned away in disgust. She grabbed the brass handle of her bedroom door and pushed it open.

She stopped. The room was completely unrecognizable.

Her antique oak desk was gone. In its place was a massive, pink velvet clothing rack stuffed with Ashlee's overflow designer dresses. Her bookshelves had been ripped out to make room for shoe displays.

Anissa's blood turned to ice. She slowly turned her head to look at Lorraine. "What is this?"

Lorraine avoided her gaze, crossing her arms defensively. "Ashlee has too many clothes. You were moving out to marry Connor anyway. The room was empty."

Anissa let out a dark chuckle. They had erased her existence from this house before she even put on her wedding dress.

"Where is the Cartier sapphire necklace Grandmother left me?" Anissa demanded, her voice dropping an octave. "And where are my trust fund documents?"

Lorraine stammered, taking a step back. "The necklace... Ashlee is borrowing it for the Debutante Ball next week."

"And the trust?" Lorraine lifted her chin, trying to look brave. "I transferred it to Ashlee this morning. As compensation for the trauma you caused her yesterday."

Pure, unadulterated rage exploded in Anissa's chest. She pulled her phone from her pocket and hit speed dial.

Harding's assistant answered on the first ring. Anissa put it on speaker.

"Please send Mr. Snow's corporate legal team to the Long Island estate right now," Anissa commanded, her eyes locked dead on her mother. "I have reason to believe someone has tampered with my personal trust fund. Have the lawyers investigate every transaction. I want them to use whatever aggressive legal measures are necessary to recover what is mine and handle the perpetrators according to the law."

"Understood, Madam," the assistant's crisp voice replied. "A helicopter will land on the estate lawn in ten minutes."

Lorraine's knees buckled. She slammed her hand against the doorframe to keep from collapsing. The words federal prison echoed in her brain.

She stared at her daughter in absolute terror. She finally realized Anissa wasn't throwing a tantrum. Anissa was going to burn them to the ground.

Anissa didn't give her mother another glance. She turned and marched down the hall toward Ashlee's massive master suite.

She lifted her leg and kicked Ashlee's door open with a deafening crash.

The heavy French doors of Ashlee's suite slammed against the wall, the wood splintering around the hinges.

Inside, Ashlee was sitting at her vanity mirror, holding her phone to her mouth, recording a voice note. "...she's just a pathetic dumped bride, I'm sure Connor will-"

The explosion of the door made Ashlee scream. She dropped her phone. It bounced off the velvet rug.

Ashlee spun around in her chair. Her eyes widened in terror as she saw Anissa standing in the doorway, radiating the energy of a grim reaper.

Anissa's eyes swept the room. It was three times the size of her own. Her gaze locked onto the vanity table. Sitting right next to Ashlee's makeup brushes was a carved rosewood jewelry box.

It was her grandmother's box.

Anissa marched across the room. Ashlee jumped up, holding her hands out. "Anissa, what are you doing in here-"

Anissa didn't speak. She grabbed a fistful of Ashlee's expensive cashmere sweater and violently shoved her out of the way.

Ashlee tripped over her own feet and crashed to the floor. Her perfectly styled hair fell into her face as she shrieked in shock.

Anissa flipped the lid of the rosewood box open. The priceless Cartier sapphire necklace rested on the velvet. Right beneath it was a folded legal document.

Anissa pulled the paper out. It was the trust fund transfer agreement. At the bottom, on the signature line, was her name. It was a sloppy, blatant forgery.

Anissa gripped the necklace in her left hand. She held the forged document in her right. A murderous calm settled over her.

Heavy footsteps thundered into the room. Cameron, Brendan, and Dylan rushed in, having heard the crash. They saw Ashlee sobbing on the floor.

"Are you insane?!" Cameron roared. He lunged forward, reaching out to grab Anissa by the shoulders.

Anissa didn't flinch. She grabbed a heavy, crystal bottle of Chanel perfume from the vanity and smashed it directly onto the hardwood floor at Cameron's feet.

The glass shattered into a hundred pieces. The overpowering stench of alcohol and floral perfume exploded into the air, forcing Cameron to jump back, coughing.

Anissa turned to face her brothers. She held up the forged document.

"You're a lawyer, Cameron," Anissa said, her voice cutting through the fumes. "Tell me. What is the mandatory federal sentence for forging a signature to embezzle a multi-million dollar trust?"

Cameron's angry expression vanished. He stared at the paper in her hand. His eyes locked onto the fake signature. All the blood drained from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse.

He knew exactly what that piece of paper meant. It meant disbarment. It meant prison. It meant the end of the Roy family.

Brendan and Dylan froze. They were stupid, but they weren't blind. They looked at the paper, then down at Ashlee.

Ashlee scrambled backward on the floor. She pointed a shaking finger at the door where Lorraine had just appeared. "I didn't do it! Mom did it! Mom said she signed it!"

Lorraine gasped, clutching her chest as her precious adopted daughter threw her straight under the bus.

Before anyone could speak, a deafening roar shook the windows. The heavy curtains whipped wildly as the downdraft from a helicopter rotor battered the glass.

Harding's Blackwater security team and a squad of corporate lawyers had touched down on the lawn.

The lead attorney walked into the bedroom, flanked by two massive men in tactical suits. He completely ignored the Roy family. He walked straight to Anissa and bowed.

He turned to Harold, who had just dragged himself up the stairs. The lawyer held up a manila folder. "By order of the court, all assets belonging to the Roy family are officially frozen pending a federal fraud investigation."

Harold grabbed his chest. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed against the hallway wall, gasping for air.

Anissa unclasped the Cartier necklace and fastened it around her own neck. The cold sapphire rested against her collarbone.

She picked up her small leather bag. Surrounded by a wall of black-suited guards, she walked out of the suffocating house, leaving her family drowning in the ruins they built.

The heavy blackout curtains in the Tribeca penthouse were drawn tight. The air inside the luxury duplex was stale, reeking of sour bourbon and regret.

Connor Snow groaned. He lay face down on the Italian leather sofa. A blinding headache pounded behind his eyes.

He had spent the entire night at Mount Sinai Hospital holding Seraphina's hand while she cried about her broken leg. He hadn't gotten back to the apartment he shared with Anissa until dawn.

"Anissa," Connor croaked, his throat dry. "Get me some ice water. And the aspirin."

Silence. The only sound in the massive apartment was the faint humming of the Roomba vacuum sweeping the far corner of the living room.

Connor frowned. He pushed himself up, rubbing his temples. A spark of irritation flared in his chest. She was taking this tantrum way too far.

In his mind, Anissa was a dog on a leash. No matter how badly he treated her, if he ignored her for a day, she would always break first. She would make him breakfast and beg for his attention.

He dragged his feet to the kitchen. The marble island was spotless. There was no glass of water. No pills.

"Fine. Play hard to get," Connor muttered to himself, tugging at his wrinkled shirt collar.

He walked down the hall and pushed open the door to their massive walk-in closet to get a clean shirt.

He stopped dead.

The left side of the closet-Anissa's side-was completely empty.

The hangers were bare. Her shoes were gone. Her bags were gone. Even the faint, lingering scent of her cedarwood perfume had been scrubbed from the air.

Connor's heart skipped a beat. A cold, creeping sense of panic started to wrap around his lungs. He quickly pushed it down with his massive ego.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up with thirty missed calls. They were all from his grandfather Aurthur and his frat brothers.

There wasn't a single text from Anissa. Not even a call from the Roy family begging him to come back.

He assumed the Roys were playing hardball, trying to pressure him. He scoffed, dialed Anissa's number, and held the phone to his ear. He was ready to offer her a fake apology and tell her they could reschedule the wedding.

A robotic female voice answered. "We're sorry. The number you have reached is disconnected or no longer in service."

Connor pulled the phone away and stared at the screen in disbelief. She canceled the number she had used for ten years?

Suddenly, the smart lock on the front door beeped. The heavy door swung open.

Connor's chest flooded with relief. A smug smile spread across his face. He walked toward the foyer. "I knew you wouldn't actually leave me-"

He froze.

Standing in the doorway was not Anissa. It was his personal wealth manager, flanked by two stone-faced corporate lawyers from the Snow family's legal department.

The wealth manager was sweating profusely. He looked at Connor with a mix of pity and absolute terror.

The lead lawyer stepped forward. He handed Connor a thick document stamped with the red seal of the Snow empire.

"Mr. Snow," the lawyer said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "Due to your unilateral breach of the marriage contract, your grandfather has officially revoked your status as a beneficiary of the family trust."

"Furthermore," the lawyer continued, "all credit cards in your name have been deactivated. This property is owned by the trust. You have twenty-four hours to vacate."

Connor felt like he had been hit by a freight train. He snatched the document, his eyes tearing through the legal jargon. "This is bullshit! My grandfather wouldn't cut me off over a stupid woman!"

The lawyer adjusted his glasses, his expression remaining a mask of absolute, chilling professionalism. He looked at Connor without a shred of emotion. "Mr. Snow, the revocation of your beneficiary status is based strictly on your failure to fulfill the marriage contract with Ms. Roy, and the subsequent, severe damage to the Snow family's public reputation. Furthermore, Harding Snow's marriage to Anissa Roy was legally executed today. Her interests are now directly tied to the family, rendering your previous actions a direct conflict of interest."

Connor's brain short-circuited. He stared at the lawyer, his mouth opening and closing. "What matriarch? What the fuck does Anissa have to do with a matriarch?"

The wealth manager couldn't take it anymore. He pulled out his iPad, tapped the screen, and shoved it into Connor's chest. "Look at the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Connor."

Connor looked down.

It was a high-definition photo taken inside Trinity Church.

His uncle, Harding Snow, was sliding the legendary blue diamond matriarch ring onto Anissa's finger. And in the center of the frame, Harding was kissing her.

Connor's legs gave out. He collapsed onto his knees, staring at the screen as his entire world burned to ashes.