Ava Miller POV

I didn't leave immediately.

I couldn't.

My grandfather, the Old Don of the Miller family, had summoned me.

If I didn't show, he would know something was wrong before I could even clear the city limits.

The Blackwood Family Foundation Gala was the event of the season. Every crime boss, corrupt politician, and money launderer in the state was there, clinking crystal glasses and pretending to be civilized.

I wore black.

It felt appropriate for a funeral.

Because that's what this was. The funeral of my fake life.

I stood by the champagne tower, alone. Donovan wasn't here. He was still on the "business trip" that everyone knew was a romantic getaway with Chloe.

Whispers followed me like smoke.

*Where is he?*

*She can't keep a man.*

*Pathetic.*

A hand clamped onto my elbow. It was bony, cold, and strong.

I turned to see my grandfather. His eyes were like coal, hard and unyielding.

"Where is your husband?" he hissed.

"He is working," I lied, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands.

"Liar."

A young cousin of mine, a girl of sixteen with eyes too sharp for her age, walked past us. She held up her phone, a cruel smirk playing on her lips.

"Did you see this?" she giggled. "It's trending."

She showed the screen to my grandfather.

It was a new photo. Donovan and Chloe, kissing on the deck of a yacht. The timestamp was two hours ago.

The ballroom seemed to go silent. My grandfather's grip on my arm tightened until I felt a bruise forming beneath the silk of my sleeve.

"Come with me," he said.

He dragged me out of the ballroom and into a private study reserved for the family elite. He shoved me inside.

I stumbled but caught myself on the edge of a heavy mahogany desk.

"You are embarrassing this family," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

"I can't control him," I said quietly.

"You are his wife! You are a Miller! You are supposed to be strong!"

He raised his cane.

I didn't flinch. I had learned a long time ago that flinching made it worse.

He struck me across the legs.

The wood cracked against my shin with a sickening thud.

Pain shot up my body, white and hot. I bit my lip until I tasted copper to keep from screaming.

"Fix this," he spat, looming over me. "Or next time, I won't use the cane. I'll use a bullet."

He left me there.

I waited until the pain subsided to a dull throb before I limped out the back exit.

I took a taxi back to the Blackwood Estate and dragged myself up the stairs to my room.

The door opened.

Donovan was there.

He was sitting on my bed, head in his hands. He looked tired.

He saw my limp. He saw the tear in my stocking where the cane had hit.

"What happened?" he asked.

I sat on the vanity stool, turning away from him.

"I fell," I said.

Donovan stood up. He walked over to me and crouched down. He reached out, his fingers warm as they brushed the red mark on my shin.

"Who did this?" he asked, his voice tight.

"It doesn't matter," I said. "You were busy."

He flinched. He actually flinched.

"I was working," he said automatically.

I looked at him.

"I know," I said.

I knew he was lying. He knew I knew.

He stood up and ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply.

"I'll call the doctor," he said.

"No," I said. "I'm fine."

He lingered in the doorway. He looked like he wanted to say something. But he didn't. He left.

Three days later, he dragged me out of the house.

He was angry about the rumors. Not because they hurt me, but because they made him look like he couldn't control his household.

He took me to a boutique downtown.

"Pick something," he ordered. "We have a dinner tonight. You need to look... alive."

He treated me like a doll. I tried on a red dress. It was tight. It showed too much skin.

Donovan stared at me in the mirror. His eyes darkened. For a second, there was heat in his gaze.

Then he looked out the window.

His body went rigid.

Chloe.

She was walking across the street. She looked upset, crying into a phone.

Donovan dropped the bags he was holding. He didn't say a word to me. He ran out of the store.

"Donovan!" I called out.

I followed him to the door.

He was running across the street toward her.

Chloe looked up. She saw him and stopped in the middle of the road, putting on a face of tragic betrayal.

Above her, construction scaffolding groaned ominously.

The metal snapped.

A pile of steel pipes and concrete debris tipped over the edge, falling straight for her.

Donovan screamed her name.

He didn't look at traffic. He didn't look at me.

He dove.

He tackled her, covering her body with his own as the world crashed down around them.

Ava Miller POV

Dust choked the air, thick and acrid.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder with every heartbeat.

I stood frozen on the sidewalk, watching the man I married bleed for another woman.

Donovan was moving before the dust had even settled.

He shoved a heavy steel pipe off his leg, ignoring the dark stain spreading on his own trousers.

He didn't check his own injuries. He didn't even look for me.

He was frantically cupping Chloe's face, his hands shaking.

"Chloe! Chloe, look at me!"

She was unconscious, her body limp like a ragdoll.

Blood was pooling under her head, a stark crimson against the gray concrete.

I walked toward them, my movements mechanical.

My heels crunched on broken glass, a sickening sound in the sudden silence.

Donovan looked up.

His face was a mask of gray dust and red smears, his eyes wild.

"Help her!" he screamed at me, his voice raw.

I knelt down beside the woman who had ruined my life.

I checked her pulse.

It was there, but it was weak. Thready.

The ambulance arrived two minutes later, chaos descending in flashing lights.

I rode in the front.

Donovan rode in the back, holding her hand, whispering prayers he never said for me.

At the hospital, chaos reigned.

Doctors shouted codes I didn't understand, their voices sharp with urgency.

Donovan was pacing the waiting room like a caged tiger, his bloodied shirt clinging to his chest.

A doctor came out, looking grim.

"She's losing blood fast," he said, his tone grave. "We need an immediate transfusion, but the blood bank is critically low on AB Negative. It's rare. We're calling other hospitals, but time is—"

Donovan grabbed the doctor by the collar, slamming him against the wall.

"Find it!" he roared, the sound echoing down the sterile hall. "I will buy this entire goddamn hospital if I have to! Just find it!"

I stood up, my legs trembling slightly.

"I'm AB Negative," I said.

The room went silent.

Donovan turned to look at me, his grip on the doctor loosening.

His eyes were wide, filled with disbelief.

"You?" he asked.

"Take it," I told the doctor, rolling up my sleeve. "Take as much as you need."

They rushed me to a chair next to her bed.

They hooked me up.

I watched my red blood flow through the clear tube.

It was draining out of me.

Going into her.

It felt twistedly poetic.

I had given my life, my youth, and my heart to this marriage. And now, I was giving my literal blood to the woman who had destroyed it.

Donovan came in while I was squeezing the stress ball, pumping life into his mistress.

He stood by the bed, his gaze shifting between Chloe's pale face and the tube connecting us.

"Why?" he asked.

His voice was hoarse, broken.

"Why are you doing this? After everything?"

I looked up at the sterile ceiling tiles, counting the dots.

"I didn't want you to be sad," I said softly.

It was the truth.

If she died, she would become a martyr. He would mourn her forever. He would never let me go, binding me to his grief.

If she lived, he would have her. And I could finally leave.

Donovan reached out.

He took my free hand, his fingers warm against my cold skin.

"Thank you, Isabella," he whispered.

He squeezed my hand.

For the first time in three years, he looked at me with something that wasn't hate. It looked almost like... regret.

The doctor poked his head in.

"She's awake, Mr. Blackwood."

Donovan dropped my hand as if it were a burning coal.

He turned and ran out of the room without a backward glance.

I was left alone with the needle in my arm.

I felt cold.

So incredibly cold.

An hour later, I was discharged.

I felt dizzy, lightheaded from the blood loss, but I walked to Chloe's room.

I wanted to tell Donovan I was going home. I wanted to tell him it was over.

I stopped at the door.

Chloe was crying, her voice pitched high and frantic.

"She looks so smug, Donovan!" she sobbed. "She looked at me like she wanted me to die! She probably paid the construction workers to drop it!"

"Chloe, that's crazy," Donovan said, his voice gentle, soothing. "She gave you her blood. She saved you."

"She's manipulating you!" Chloe shrieked. "She wants you to think she's a saint! Prove you love me, Donovan. Please. I'm so scared of her."

There was a long, heavy silence.

Then Donovan spoke, his voice dropping an octave.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get rid of her," Chloe whispered, the malice dripping from her tone. "Not... not kill her. But show her she means nothing. Show her she's trash compared to me."

I held my breath, my hand hovering over the door handle.

"Okay," Donovan said.

"Okay."

He walked out of the room.

He saw me standing there.

His face had hardened into a mask of stone. The regret was gone.

"Come with me," he said.

He drove us to the cliffs.

The ocean was raging below, the water black and freezing against the jagged rocks.

"Get out," he commanded.

We stood on the edge of the pier, the wooden planks slick with sea spray.

The wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes.

Donovan looked at me.

There was conflict in his eyes, a flicker of humanity, but it was buried under duty. Under his sickness for her.

"She needs to know she's safe," he said, as if trying to convince himself.

I didn't say anything.

I just looked at him, waiting.

He put his hands on my shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Then he pushed me.

I fell backward into the void.

The water hit me with the force of a concrete wall.

The cold stole the air from my lungs instantly.

I sank.

Saltwater filled my nose, burning like acid.

I didn't fight.

I was so tired.

Strong hands grabbed my coat before the darkness could take me completely.

Donovan's bodyguards hauled me out.

They threw me onto the wooden planks like a sack of unwanted refuse.

I coughed up water, shivering violently, my body convulsing.

Donovan was standing over me.

He looked pale.

He looked like he might vomit.

He had done it.

He had proven his loyalty to the mistress by trying to drown the wife.

"Take her home," he told the guards, his voice trembling.

He walked away.

I lay on the wet wood, shaking uncontrollably.

And in the cold, I realized something.

He didn't push Isabella.

He pushed me.

Ava.

And Ava was done.

Ava Miller POV:

I woke up in the back of a moving car.

My teeth were chattering so hard I thought they would crack under the pressure.

Donovan was on the phone in the front seat, his voice low and tight.

He sounded frantic.

"She was mumbling something," he said to the person on the other end. "About leaving. About a contract."

He hung up abruptly when he saw me moving in the rearview mirror.

Without stopping the car, he climbed into the back seat.

He wrapped a heavy blanket around me, tucking it in tight.

His hands were trembling.

"What did you mean?" he asked.

His eyes were searching mine, desperate for reassurance.

"You said 'It's over.' You said 'I'm free.' What did you mean?"

I looked at him, my expression blank.

He looked guilty. Guilt was written in every line of his face.

Good.

"I was dreaming," I whispered, my voice raspy. "I was delirious."

He let out a shaky breath.

He pulled me against his chest, burying his face in my neck.

"I'm sorry," he said into my hair. "I had to. She was hysterical."

I didn't hug him back.

I sat there frozen, unyielding, like a statue.

*

The next day, Chloe sent an invitation.

A charity party on the Blackwood Yacht.

Ostensibly, it was to celebrate her recovery.

And to celebrate the "unity" of the family.

It was a trap.

I knew it was a trap. Every instinct screamed at me not to go.

But I put on a white dress anyway. I would not hide.

I walked onto the boat, head held high.

Music was playing. Champagne was flowing.

Chloe was holding court in the center of the deck, surrounded by admirers.

She saw me and smiled.

It was the smile of a predator spotting wounded prey.

She walked over, linking her arm through Donovan's possessively.

"Look who decided to show up," she said loudly, drawing the room's attention. "The mermaid."

People laughed.

Donovan looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight.

"Stop it, Chloe," he muttered.

She ignored him completely.

She cornered me by the railing as the crowd dispersed.

We were alone for a moment.

"You're a good actress," she hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "Giving me blood? Pretending to be weak? I know you're plotting something."

"I'm leaving," I said quietly. "You can have him."

She laughed, a cold, sharp sound.

"I don't just want him," she said. "I want you destroyed."

Suddenly, the boat lurched violently.

A massive wave from a passing tanker hit the side of the yacht.

Chloe stumbled.

She grabbed my dress to steady herself, her fingers digging into the fabric.

We both went over the rail.

We hit the water together with a bone-jarring splash.

This time, there were no bodyguards on the pier.

We were in the deep ocean.

The current was strong, pulling at my limbs.

My dress was heavy, soaking up water instantly. It dragged me down.

Chloe was screaming, thrashing in the water panic taking over.

"Help! Donovan!"

I saw the spotlight from the boat sweep over the dark water.

A rescue boat was lowered rapidly.

Donovan was at the bow, screaming.

I treaded water, trying to keep my head up against the weight of the gown.

The rescue boat got close.

It was between us.

They could reach me. Or they could reach her.

"Grab my wife!" a guard shouted, reaching toward me.

"No!" Donovan's voice cut through the wind. It was a primal roar.

"Get Chloe! Get Chloe first!"

The crew hesitated, confused.

"DO IT!" he screamed.

The boat turned away from me.

They reached for Chloe.

I stopped kicking.

A strange calm settled over me.

He chose.

Again.

He would always choose her.

I let the water take me.

I sank beneath the surface.

It was quiet down here.

Then, pain exploded in my leg.

Something struck me hard.

Debris? A shark? The propeller?

I didn't know.

The water turned red around me.

My vision went black.

The last thing I heard was the muffled sound of Donovan screaming my name.

But by then, it was already too late.