The shrill alarm clock shattered the silence of the bedroom. Ellery jolted awake. Her heart was racing from a nightmare she couldn't remember.

She reached her hand across the mattress. The sheets on Holland's side were cold. He had left hours ago.

She glanced at the clock and gasped. She was thirty minutes late.

Ellery rushed through her morning routine. She pulled on a high-necked silk blouse to hide the faint bruises on her collarbone. She grabbed her purse and ran down the grand staircase.

Goldia was sitting in the formal living room, sipping tea from a bone china cup.

"You are late," Goldia said without looking up. She tapped her long fingernail against the saucer. "Not only are you failing to provide an heir, but you also lack basic discipline."

Ellery stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She kept her head down. "I apologize."

"If you don't have good news by the end of this month, I will make a single phone call to the landlord of your building and have your lease shredded before noon. Half of your high-end fabric suppliers rely on the Sutton family's shipping lines. Care to guess who they will choose to do business with?" Goldia threatened, taking a sip of her tea.

Ellery gripped the strap of her purse tightly. She didn't say a word. She turned and walked out the front door.

When she arrived at TT Couture, she pushed the glass doors open and walked into her private office.

Her best friend and business partner, Ira Saunders, was sitting on the edge of Ellery's desk. Ira's face was red with anger.

Ira slammed a glossy tabloid magazine onto the desk. Next to it was a stack of printed screenshots from a private Instagram account.

"Look at this," Ira demanded.

Ellery looked down. The headline of the tabloid read: SUTTON HEIR DROPS MASSIVE CHECK TO PACIFY EX-LOVER.

Ira pointed to the screenshots. "My private investigator managed to get into Crystal's locked social media circle. She posted a picture of a cashier's check from Holland's private account, bragging about it to her little friends. He wrote Crystal a check for five hundred thousand dollars yesterday afternoon. After you canceled her card, he just bought her off!"

Ellery stared at the string of zeros. A bitter, hollow laugh escaped her lips. Holland had defended her in public, only to secretly pay off his mistress behind her back.

She pushed the magazine away. She walked over to her drafting table and started organizing a pile of silk fabrics.

Ira stared at her in disbelief. "Are you not even angry? He is humiliating you!"

"I don't have the right to be angry, Ira," Ellery said. Her voice was completely flat. "I am just a tool. As long as he pays my mother's hospital bills, he can write checks to whoever he wants."

Ellery picked up Crystal's order form from yesterday. "I'm still going to make her lingerie. The commission is too good to pass up."

Ira snatched the fabric out of Ellery's hands. "You are letting them turn you into a robot! You need to hire a lawyer, gather evidence of his cheating, and divorce him!"

"I can't," Ellery whispered, her voice finally cracking. "Hayward will let my mother die."

Suddenly, the intercom on the desk buzzed loudly.

"Ms. Garza," the receptionist said, her voice shaking. "Crystal is outside with three of her friends. They are trying to get in."

Ira's eyes flashed with pure rage. She slammed her hand down on the intercom button. "Lock the front doors. Do not let them in."

Ira marched out of the office and walked straight to the front glass doors. Crystal was standing on the sidewalk, glaring through the glass.

Ira stood right in front of Crystal. She raised her hand and flipped Crystal off with her middle finger.

Crystal screamed something through the thick glass and stomped her foot, but she couldn't get inside.

Ellery watched Ira defend her. A small, warm feeling bloomed in her frozen chest.

Ira walked back into the office. She pointed a finger at Ellery. "If you don't start fighting back, I am done being your friend. I mean it."

Ellery looked down at her cell phone resting on the desk. The screen lit up with a notification from her university alumni group chat.

The message was from Kyle Calderon.

I'm back in New York. Let's catch up.

Crystal was still pacing outside the glass doors of the studio, pointing her finger and yelling at the receptionist.

Ellery's phone vibrated in her hand. The caller ID showed Holland's private number.

She answered it.

"Drop whatever you are doing and come back to the estate," Holland ordered. His voice was hard and impatient.

"I can't," Ellery said, looking out the window. "There is a situation outside my studio. And I have work to finish."

Holland let out a dark, humorless chuckle. "The trash outside your door is already being taken care of."

Right as he spoke, two black Range Rovers pulled up to the curb outside the studio. Four massive men in black suits stepped out.

They walked straight up to Crystal. One of the men grabbed her by the arm. Crystal shrieked, thrashing wildly, but the men easily shoved her into the back of the SUV. The cars sped away, leaving the sidewalk empty.

Ellery stared through the glass in shock.

"You have thirty minutes to be standing in the living room," Holland said, and hung up.

Ellery grabbed her coat, hugged Ira goodbye, and ran down to the parking garage.

Exactly thirty minutes later, Ellery walked into the living room of the Sutton estate. The air in the room felt suffocatingly thick.

Goldia sat in her usual spot on the sofa. Holland stood by the massive stone fireplace, swirling a glass of bourbon in his hand.

Goldia picked up a piece of thick, expensive paper from the coffee table and tossed it toward Ellery. It landed at her feet.

"Sign it," Goldia commanded.

Ellery looked down. It was a formal letter of resignation, completely severing her ties with TT Couture.

"You are starting an intensive IVF cycle next week," Goldia stated. "You will not be working. You will stay in this house and focus on your duty."

Ellery's blood ran cold. The studio was the only thing she had left. It was her only escape.

She stood up straight, looking Goldia in the eye. "No. I will not sign it."

Goldia slammed her hand on the table. "You ungrateful brat! If you don't sign it, I will poison the old man's ear against your brother's pathetic company! Do you really think Holland will even get the chance to ask his grandfather for that investment without my blessing? I will personally ensure the Garza Group never sees a single cent of our money!"

Panic flared in Ellery's chest. She turned her head and looked at Holland, silently begging him to intervene.

Holland took a slow sip of his bourbon. His dark eyes locked onto hers, completely devoid of warmth.

"My mother is right," Holland said slowly. "But she is leaving out a crucial detail."

He walked toward Ellery, stopping just inches away from her.

"I don't have the authority to approve the White-Peak project," Holland said, his voice dropping to a low, cruel whisper. "Only my grandfather, Mr. Sutton Sr. , can sign off on funds that large."

Ellery's breath stopped. Her mind spun.

"And my grandfather," Holland continued, "will not sign a damn thing until he holds a great-grandson in his arms."

Ellery felt like she had been punched in the stomach. She had been played. Hayward had lied to her. Holland had lied to her. She had been enduring this torture for a promise that Holland couldn't even keep.

She was trapped in a cage with no doors.

For a long, excruciating moment, she just stared at the floor. The realization crashed over her in suffocating waves. Every bitter pill she had swallowed, every humiliation she had endured, every time she had let Holland crush her dignity-it was all for absolutely nothing. She had been the perfect, silent puppet in a play where the script was completely fake. A cold, terrifying clarity began to replace her despair. A sudden, violent surge of adrenaline, fueled by years of repressed rage, rushed through her veins.

Ellery bent down and snatched the resignation letter off the floor. She held it up in front of Goldia and Holland.

With one swift, aggressive motion, she ripped the thick paper in half.

The sound of the tearing paper echoed sharply in the quiet room.

"If you force me to quit my studio," Ellery said, her voice shaking with pure rage, "I will stop the IVF treatments. I will not take another pill. I will not let another doctor touch me."

Goldia gasped, clutching her chest. "How dare you!"

Holland's eyes turned pitch black. The muscle in his jaw ticked furiously. He raised his hand and hurled his crystal glass at the stone fireplace.

The glass shattered into a thousand pieces, the loud crash ringing in Ellery's ears.