A black Lincoln Navigator pulled up to the grand entrance of the Long Island estate.

Irina Kovacs, the head housekeeper, rushed down the steps holding an umbrella. She opened the door, her eyes darting nervously to the ground.

Bridget stepped out. She wore a beige trench coat, a small clear bandage covering the stitches on her forehead.

She walked up the steps and pushed open the heavy double doors.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

The Ming dynasty vase that had sat in the foyer for three years was gone. In its place stood a cheap, twisted metal modern art sculpture.

Bridget walked into the main living room. Her stomach plummeted.

The antique French provincial furniture was gone. The Persian rugs were gone. Everything had been replaced with sterile, beige, minimalist garbage. It looked exactly like Golda's tasteless apartment.

"Irina," Bridget said, her voice dangerously low. "What is this?"

Irina swallowed hard. "Mr. Cline ordered it, ma'am. He said the house needed better feng shui for the new guests."

Bridget's vision swam with red.

Before she could speak, a delicate, tinkling melody drifted down from the second floor. A music box.

Bridget sprinted up the spiral staircase. She ran down the hall and shoved open the door to her locked private collection room.

Pippa was jumping up and down on the silk rug, wearing her dirty sneakers.

Around Pippa's neck hung a heavy, flawless emerald pendant.

It was Dr. Eulalia's necklace. The only physical thing Bridget had left of her dead mother.

Bridget crossed the room in three strides. She grabbed Pippa by the shoulder, her grip like a vice.

"Who told you to come in here?" Bridget yelled.

She ripped the emerald necklace off Pippa's neck, clutching the cold stone against her racing heart.

Pippa screamed. She threw herself on the floor and started wailing at the top of her lungs.

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Golda rushed into the room, wearing a pair of Bridget's silk slippers.

Golda dropped to her knees and pulled Pippa into her chest, looking up at Bridget with wide, terrified eyes.

"She's just a baby!" Golda cried out. "Jayson said she could look at anything in the house!"

Jayson strode into the room, fresh from the office. He took one look at the crying child and the cowering woman, and his face twisted in absolute fury.

He marched up to Bridget. "Have you lost your damn mind? She doesn't have a father, and you're attacking her over a piece of jewelry?"

Bridget held up the emerald. Her hand shook with rage. "This is my mother's. It's not a toy for a thief."

"Thief?" Jayson barked. He stepped into Bridget's personal space, towering over her. "You're delusional. The crash scrambled your brain. You're acting like a maniac."

"She broke into my locked room!" Bridget shouted.

"The door was open!" Jayson lied, his voice booming. "Golda apologized. You're just a hysterical, jealous mess."

Bridget stared at him. The gaslighting was so blatant, so suffocating, it made her physically sick.

"You disgust me," Bridget whispered.

Jayson's eyes flashed. He reached out and grabbed Bridget's arm, trying to yank her forward to face Golda. "Apologize to them."

Bridget ripped her arm out of his grasp with violent force.

Jayson lost his temper. He shoved her hard in the chest.

Bridget's heels slipped on the silk rug. She fell backward.

Her right hand slammed down onto the floor to break her fall. It landed directly on the shattered glass of a picture frame Pippa had knocked over.

The jagged glass sliced deep into her palm—the exact same hand that still bore the bruised puncture mark from her hospital IV.

Blood immediately pooled on the floor, soaking into the rug.

Bridget sat on the floor. She stared at the blood pouring from her hand, the crimson stark against her pale skin. Her eyes were completely dead.

Golda gasped. She took a step forward, pulling a lace handkerchief from her pocket. "Oh my god, Bridget, let me help-"

Bridget raised her uninjured left hand and slapped Golda's hand away with a sharp, echoing smack.

"Get away from me," Bridget said, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm register.

Jayson pointed a finger at her face. "You are out of control. You're a violent lunatic."

Bridget didn't look at him. She pushed herself off the floor, ignoring the burning agony in her right hand. She walked straight past them, out of the room, and down the stairs to the living room.

She walked to the security console hidden behind a wood panel in the wall.

"What are you doing?" Jayson demanded, following her down the stairs. "Stop touching that."

Bridget ignored him. She typed a twelve-digit override code into the keypad using the clean fingers of her left hand. It was a master root access code installed by the private security firm she had secretly hired months ago when she first suspected him of cheating-a backdoor Jayson didn't even know existed.

She pulled up the camera feed for the second-floor hallway from ten minutes ago. She hit a button, casting the video directly onto the hundred-inch media screen on the living room wall.

The screen flickered to life.

The video showed Golda holding Pippa's hand. They walked up to the locked door of the collection room. Golda reached into her pocket and pulled out a brass master key.

She unlocked the door. She pointed directly at the glass case holding the emerald necklace and whispered something into Pippa's ear.

Pippa dragged a heavy wooden chair over, climbed up, and popped the latch on the case.

Golda stood in the hallway, leaning against the doorframe, a smug, calculated smile plastered on her face.

The living room fell dead silent.

Golda's face turned the color of ash. She stumbled backward, hiding behind Jayson's broad shoulders.

"The... the video doesn't have sound," Golda stammered, her voice cracking. "Pippa ran in there, I was trying to stop her."

Bridget hit pause. The screen froze on Golda's malicious smile.

Bridget turned to Jayson. She tilted her head. "Is this the fatherless victim you're protecting?"

Jayson stared at the screen. His jaw worked furiously. He knew he had been played. He knew Bridget was right.

But his ego refused to let him admit it.

Jayson turned his glare onto Bridget. "You have hidden cameras inside the house? You're spying on us? That's a violation of privacy."

Bridget blinked.

"Even if she made a mistake," Jayson gritted his teeth, doubling down, "you didn't have to throw yourself on the floor and cut your own hand just to frame her for assault."

Bridget let out a laugh. It started low in her chest and bubbled up into a loud, echoing sound of pure, unadulterated contempt.

She laughed until her ribs ached. She looked at Jayson as if he were a rotting carcass on the side of the road.

She grabbed a handful of paper towels from the bar and wrapped them tightly around her bleeding hand.

She pointed her bloody finger directly at the front door.

"Take your whore and her thief daughter, and get out of my house," Bridget commanded.

Jayson's face flushed purple. "Half of this house is mine!"

"Check the prenup, Jayson," Bridget sneered. "The estate is a Powell family asset. You have ten seconds before I call the police and have you trespassed."

Jayson had no leverage. He grabbed Golda's arm, yanked Pippa by the hand, and stormed out the front door, slamming it so hard the windows rattled.

Bridget leaned against the wall, her knees shaking. The marriage was dead. Now, it was time for the autopsy.

At 7:00 AM, Bridget stood in the center of the living room. Her hand was wrapped in fresh white bandages.

She looked at the beige, minimalist couches and the cheap modern art. Her stomach churned with nausea.

"Irina," Bridget said, not turning around. "Call the fastest moving company in New York."

"Yes, ma'am," Irina whispered. "Which storage facility should I send the new furniture to?"

"No storage," Bridget said coldly. "Load it all into dump trucks and take it to the South Shore landfill. I want it crushed."

Three hours later, a crew of men in overalls dragged the custom-made, hundred-thousand-dollar sofas out the front door and tossed them into the back of a garbage truck.

The house was empty. It echoed. But the air finally felt clean.

Bridget's phone buzzed violently in her pocket. The screen flashed: Archer Powell.

She answered.

"Get your ass to my office in thirty minutes!" Archer's roar nearly blew out her earpiece.

Bridget changed into a sharp black Yves Saint Laurent suit. She slid on a pair of dark sunglasses and had her driver take her to the Powell Building in Manhattan.

She pushed open the heavy glass doors of the top-floor executive suite.

Jayson was sitting on the leather sofa, holding a cup of coffee, looking like a battered saint.

Archer stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He turned, grabbed an iPad from his desk, and shoved the screen toward Bridget's face. The bold black headline on Page Six screamed: CLINE WIFE GOES BERSERK, TRASHES MILLIONS IN FURNITURE.

"You are a disgrace to this family!" Archer bellowed, pointing his cigar at her face.

Bridget slowly took off her sunglasses. "He moved his mistress into my house, Dad."

"I don't care who he screws!" Archer slammed his fist on the desk. "Cline Medical goes public next month. The family trust has billions tied up in this M&A. As long as he is the CEO, you are his wife."

Bridget stared at her father. The man who had raised her.

"You're causing pre-market volatility over a petty catfight," Archer sneered. "If your sister Cheryle were in your shoes, she wouldn't be acting like a hysterical idiot. She actually went to Harvard."

The comparison hit Bridget like a physical blow to the ribs. Her breath hitched.

Jayson set his coffee down. "She's unstable, Archer. I think the crash triggered a manic episode. She needs a psychiatrist."

Archer waved his cigar dismissively. "Bridget, you will apologize to Jayson right now. And you will issue a joint PR statement welcoming Golda into your social circle."

Bridget looked at the two men. She was completely alone in this room. Her own blood had sold her out for a stock ticker.

She lowered her head. She let out a long, shaky breath, burying the absolute, murderous rage burning behind her eyes.

When she looked up, her eyes were wide and submissive.

"I'm sorry," Bridget whispered, letting her voice tremble. "I... I overreacted."

Jayson smirked, leaning back into the sofa. Archer nodded, satisfied that he had brought his useless daughter to heel.

Inside the pocket of her YSL blazer, Bridget's thumb pressed firmly down on the 'Save' button of her digital voice recorder.