After six years together, Serena Kline discovered the love she trusted had been nothing but a lie. Her husband seized her father’s company and coldly handed her the divorce papers, as if she had never mattered at all.

“You never loved me?” she asked.

Nathaniel, her husband, looked at her with no trace of love left in his eyes and said, “Never.”

With no hope left for her marriage, Serena walked away with empty arms and a fierce will to rebuild her life.

***

Nathaniel Thorne believed he was prepared to lose anything to get retribution. But vengeance came with a cost he never understood until it was too late.

When fate brought him into the same room with Serena again, he prepared himself for the rage, for her retaliation, but instead, Serena calmly asked, “So… was it worth it? Your ultimate revenge?”

“I’m doing well,” he answered plainly, hiding the truth behind his commanding facade.

Serena smiled, beautiful in a way that made his chest tighten. “Then, I’m happy for you. Peace and closure look good on you.”

Her words landed sharper than she intended. Because the truth was, he had never found the peace she spoke of.

: Revenge

Serena Kline built her life around the man she called her husband, her love, her anchor, her choice. But after six years, he repaid her devotion with divorce papers and a cold dismissal. That was the moment her world broke, yet somehow she found the strength to walk away.

***

It took only two months for everything to collapse.

Serena’s husband, Nathaniel Thorne, had completely ignored her.

He became CEO of Kline BioSolutions.

Her father was arrested for patent fraud and murder.

Her mother died from the shock.

At present, Serena was at Velmon City Memorial Park, about to bury her mother, Roselind Kline.

She wasn’t grieving the way others expected her to. She had never been close to her parents, a truth she rarely voiced. Not even her husband knew just how much. Her heart had always looked for comfort elsewhere, and she thought she found it in Nathaniel, her husband… until the recent months proved her wrong.

The sun began to set, and the very few guests who attended her mother’s funeral started to whisper. They had been waiting for two hours, but there was no sign of Nathaniel Thorne.

“How long are we going to wait?”

“Will he really come? Didn’t he just put Serena’s father behind bars?”

“I saw the trending feed on social media. Nathaniel is attending the award show with Vanessa Holt, the actress. See?”

Serena’s eyes fluttered. Her hands trembled as she searched online. True enough, her husband was with Kline BioSolutions’ brand ambassador, Vanessa Holt. Together, they looked like the perfect pair.

She couldn’t deny the pictures and videos that were taken of her husband.

Nathaniel was the kind of man who drew eyes without trying. He had broad shoulders, flawless posture, and dark hair that never fell out of place. Confidence radiated from him, even through a mobile screen.

Why did she even bother waiting for him?

Despite everything, she had hoped. After all, she and Nathaniel were not just a married couple, but they were college sweethearts, at least, that was what she thought.

Nathaniel had not returned home since her father’s arrest. They had never really discussed it. All her calls went to voicemail, and because of her mother’s recent health issues, she hadn’t been able to see him at the office either. However, it was evident that her husband came after her father, Victor Kline, for revenge.

“Let’s bury her,” Serena’s voice came through, trembling.

An hour later, her mother’s coffin was fully buried. The guests offered their final respects, but only one person wept. It was her mother’s loyal assistant.

Her parents weren’t really the best people in the world, even to her, their own daughter. The Klines were good to Nathaniel because he was talented and driven, someone Serena’s parents had entrusted the company with. If they only knew, Nathaniel had meant to snatch it all away from them.

When everyone else had left, Serena finally wept, not because she lost her mother nor the fact that her father is behind bars, but because of the weight of everything that was happening around her, the lies, the humiliation, and the betrayal.

“Serena, what will you do now?” Alice Hartley, her old college friend, asked.

“I had already accepted the situation with my parents,” Serena replied.

“But what about Nathaniel?” Alice asked.

Serena looked down and softly answered, “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.”

Nathaniel did not come home that night. Serena never expected him to. So the next day, she went straight to the office and finally settled the score.

On the fifteenth floor, her husband's assistant tried to chase after Serena. “Miss Kline, you can’t enter the CEO’s office.”

“Why not? Am I not his wife?” Serena snapped.

She forced her way into his office and instantly froze.

Vanessa Holt sat on Nathaniel’s lap, and he didn’t seem bothered about it.

Serena’s heart ached. She almost forgot how to breathe.

She couldn’t believe this was the same man who promised to devote his life to her!

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Vanessa, the actress, got up from Nathaniel’s lap. She flushed, explaining her side. “Please don’t misunderstand, Serena, I slipped, and Nathan caught me.”

The way her husband’s first name casually slipped out of Vanessa’s lips said it all. Nothing about this meeting between them was business-related.

“You slipped right into his lap?” Serena questioned.

“Enough,” Nathaniel said, his gaze glacial. “Vanessa, leave.”

“Okay, Nathan, I’ll see you at your mother’s house later,” Vanessa said, smiling at Nathaniel. “Aunt promised to cook me a lovely meal.”

“Mmmm.” Nathaniel just hummed, nodding in Vanessa’s way.

Serena’s stomach twisted.

It made her feel so small. Over the years, Nathan’s mother had treated Serena respectfully, but never warmly. Now she knew why.

After Vanessa left, Serena finally said, “Nathan, we need to talk.”

“We sure do,” Nathaniel said. He averted her gaze and fetched a document from his drawer. He handed her the papers and said, “Let’s get a divorce.”

Of all the things he could say… it had to be that word.

Divorce.

After two years of dating in college, and after four years of marriage, they were going to leave everything behind.

“Why?” She questioned, her voice shaking. “Are you leaving me for Vanessa?”

He stared into her eyes with no emotion at all. “Don’t drag Vanessa into this. She’s the company’s brand ambassador, even your father himself praised.”

Then Nathaniel told her the truth she had already known. “Our marriage was never real. I used it to get close enough to destroy your father.”

For a moment, her mind went blank, tears slipping down her cheeks. She said, “That can’t be true. We were together for six years—”

“I had the right motivation to be convincing,” Nathaniel said curtly.

“I told you about him. My father meant the world to me.” As Nathaniel spoke, his voice strengthened, his blue-gray eyes looking fierce. “My father developed a drug that could reverse Type 2 diabetes. Your father stole the formulation patent, filed it under Kline BioSolutions, and had him killed to erase his claim. That drug built your family’s empire.”

“But none of that was my fault!” Serena reasoned. “I had no involvement in it. My father had always been cr -”

“It doesn’t matter.” His jaw tightened. “You are still his daughter and have benefited from his crimes. From the beginning, Serena, I was never meant to love you.”

Serena’s body went stiff. She didn’t know how long she stood there, too shocked to move, before she finally found her voice. “So in all those years, you never… You never loved me? You just used me?”

Nathaniel looked at her with pure hatred. He said, “Never. It was all a lie.”

Six years ago, he swore he would love her for the rest of his life. He repeated those vows at the altar, promising forever.

Who could have known?

He hadn’t meant a single word.

: Dianna's Visit

Dianna’s Visit.

“You can keep the house.”

“You can keep working here as the Director for Clinical Research.”

Serena stared blankly at the divorce papers in her hands while Nathaniel explained the agreement.

“You can keep the money in our joint account.”

Nathaniel calmly resumed, “My mother did not want to leave you any alimony, but I have prepared a separate check for the sake of our six-year relationship. My mother doesn’t have to know.”

“Don’t contest the divorce. I don’t have time to deal with it,” he firmly warned. “I will have my lawyers file them tomorrow, and after the cooling-off period, we can get our certificates together.”

She did not say a word, but reached out for the check, her hands shaking. She looked down at it, thinking, ‘So all those lies, the six years we had built together, the deception, were worth nothing more than five million dollars.’

The Thornes were now worth twenty billion dollars. Kline BioSolutions was worth ten billion dollars, but she was only worth five million dollars in Nathaniel’s eyes.

Serena couldn’t stop herself from looking at Nathaniel again.

He sat there, calm and distant, his strong jaw clenched, and the faint stubble on his face made him look even colder. His gray-blue eyes, once warm and gentle, now looked sharp and unfeeling. Even his perfectly shaped features, the straight nose, the firm lips, felt unfamiliar, like he had become someone else entirely.

She still couldn’t believe this was the same man she fell in love with, the same one who had doted on her for six long years. Every bit of love she once saw in him was gone, replaced by an emptiness that made her chest hurt.

Her heart broke, but anger began to rise with it. How could he look at her like that, as if she meant nothing at all?

“Sign it,” he said. “And you can leave after. I will give you another week of bereavement leave, but no more than that. You have been out of work much longer than you were supposed to.”

Serena, “???”

Still, she said nothing, but inside, she was burning with rage.

She signed every page of the divorce papers, her hands cold and sweating. After that, she stood up, took her copy of the agreement, and glanced at the man she had loved for so long.

He didn’t look at her. He was simply unbothered.

Serena turned on her heel with the check in hand. But just as she made it halfway through his office, the control she’d been clinging to finally broke.

Her hands clenched on the check. She walked back to Nathaniel, tore the check into pieces, and threw them into his face! She said, “You can keep your mother’s pity!”

She saw him startled, stunned by her sudden courage, but she did not give him a chance to speak. Instead, she slapped him hard!

“I hate you!” she shouted. “If I’d known you’d only use me, I would have wished I was never born!”

Finally, she walked away.

“Serena?”

“Serena! Get back here!”

She heard him, but there was nothing else left to say.

What for?

***

“That asshole! That scumbag! That jerk!” Alice screamed. “How could he be so heartless?”

Instead of heading home, Serena went straight to see her best friend at her office. There, she cried out all her pain.

“But I don’t get it,” Alice said, slamming her back against the chair. “I could have sworn he was so much in love with you.”

At that point, even her friend cried with her. “He can’t be such a perfect actor. Can he?”

“Apparently, it was all a lie,” Serena said, wiping her tears.

“Maybe something changed. It has to be,” Alice tried to find a logical reason for everything. “What if it’s really that actress, Vanessa Holt? Haven’t they been spending time together?”

“I don’t know,” Serena clenched her jaw. “Even my parents used to take Vanessa out for dinners, right after she became the ambassador of the company.”

“Nathan’s attack on my father was real,” Serena said. “You should’ve seen the hate in his eyes when they arrested Victor. I guess, he hates me just as much.”

Serena remembered it vividly. Her father was announcing his retirement to the board when the police entered the room with a warrant. In an instant, his pride at trusting the company to his son-in-law vanished, replaced by sheer horror.

That was when the layers of Nathaniel’s motives began to unravel. Serena couldn’t accept it at first. She was still in denial up to earlier that day. But now, everything was clear.

It was like what he said.

He never loved her.

“Serena, have you ever confessed to Nathan how Victor treated you, especially when you were a child?” Alice asked, sniffing her tears away. “Maybe he will see things differently.”

“And what will I get, Alice? Pity from him?” Serena shook her head. “That’s not what I want. I want the old Nathaniel, the one who seemed to love me, but since all of that was a lie, then there’s no point telling him.”

“But…” Alice frowned. Among Serena’s friends, Alice was the only one who knew every detail of her hardship as a daughter of the Klines.

“No. There is no point anymore,” Serena insisted.

***

The next day, Serena and Alice went to her marital home.

Serena needed to pack. She couldn’t live in a house filled with memories between her and Nathaniel. Just as she and Alice arrived, she spotted her mother’s loyal assistant, Dianna.

She was waiting outside the gates of the villa.

After rolling down the window of her car, Serena asked, “Dianna?”

Dianna was a woman in her late forties. The last time they met was at her mother’s funeral.

“Serena, can I have a moment with you?” Dianna asked.

Later, the two spoke outside the house. Dianna did not bother to go inside.

“I remember your friend. I’m glad you have her to talk to,” Dianna glanced at Alice, who was standing by the door.

“Serena, I know I never treated you well,” Dianna began. “But what Nathan did was terrible. He never should have included you in his revenge.”

“But this is the least that I can do for you,” Dianna said, hesitating. “I have a suspicion.”

“What suspicion?” Serena asked.

Instead of saying it out loud, Diana whispered into Serena’s ear.

Instantly, her skin crawled.

What Serena learned broke her heart again, but… it also made sense.

: Matrimonial Home

Matrimonial Home.

Inside the villa.

Serena used to have a very vibrant look on her face. She had fair, luminous skin and bright hazel eyes. Her long, light brown hair had perfect curls that waved down her back.

Alice used to say she became more and more beautiful after she got together with Nathaniel.

Serena supposed her friend was right, because right now, without her husband, there was nothing radiant about her. Her eyes had no life, her hair was tied into a messy bun, and her face was pale.

Dianna’s revelation left Serena completely stunned, and it was the same with Alice.

“I’ll see what I can find,” Alice said, leaning back on the sofa in the house.

Serena nodded. She looked around the living room and said, “Yeah. It’s just a suspicion. What’s important right now is for me to pack my things.”

“And I’m here to help,” Alice declared. She took a break from work just to give Serena a hand.

What Dianna said would have to wait. Some things were better kept quiet until there was proof.

Serena had decided to live with Alice for now. Her best friend had two spare rooms in her apartment, more than enough space for them.

The idea of leaving the city was lingering in her head, but Serena hadn’t fully decided yet.

Velmon City was her home. It was hard to start all over again in another town.

Serena started with her clothes, but the moment she opened her closet, memories came flooding back.

Almost all of her clothes were bought by Nathaniel.

Every month since they were married, he took her shopping. Sometimes, his assistant pre-ordered designer clothes for her. Nathaniel knew her body well. He knew what fit her and what looked good on her.

Serena couldn’t believe Nathaniel went through so much effort to make her feel so treasured, yet it was all fake.

In the end, she only took about fifteen items of clothing, four bags, and five pairs of shoes, the ones she bought with her own salary. After packing her personal items, she returned to the living room.

Alice was emptying her fridge. Since she was alone there, Serena found herself recalling the number of movie nights she had spent with Nathaniel in that same spot.

She recalled the laughter, the teasing, and the kisses they shared.

They were all lies.

Then, her eyes landed on their wedding photo mounted across the TV. Serena frowned. The sparkle in Nathaniel’s eyes looked so genuine, she almost convinced herself she was simply having a very bad dream.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she sniffed them back. She fetched a small ladder, took the portrait to the stone fire pit at the back of the house, and burned it!

But that wasn’t enough.

Serena went back inside, searched for her old wedding gown, and burned it too.

Next, she went back for their photo albums, the ones that contained her memories with Nathaniel, and set them on fire.

When Serena realized she was still wearing her wedding ring, she took it off. She was about to throw it into the burning pit when Alice grabbed her hand. “Hey!”

“Stop!” Alice said. “I hate Nathan too, but let’s be real. You could use whatever money you have left.”

“Let’s sell every damn thing he gave you,” Alice proposed. “Including this—”

Alice looked around, looking regretful of the vast estate. “Including this beautiful house?”

The villa was Nathaniel’s pre-wedding gift to Serena. It was a six-hundred-square-meter, two-story home. It had a circular driveway in front and a small backyard with a stone patio and fire pit.

Nathaniel promised they would raise a family here. It was another lie she was foolish enough to believe.

Once, the place felt warm and alive. Now, it felt empty and cold. It was still beautiful, but to Serena, it no longer felt like a home.

“Yes.” Turning to Alice, Serena agreed. “Let’s sell everything. I bet this house would easily give me around six million or seven.”

Serena did not bring much. She was planning to sell the furniture along with the house. After loading everything she had into the car, she and Alice got ready to leave.

They were using Serena’s SUV. She was about to hop into the vehicle when she felt like someone was watching her.

Instantly, she looked out the gates.

Serena felt a chill run down her spine when she spotted a car parked right outside the grilled fences. As soon as she noticed the vehicle, it drove off, as if it feared her stare.

She frowned. As much as she wanted to identify the car, it was already dark by the time she and Alice were done. Through the dim light, all she could make out was the silhouette of a black car. A BMW, she thought.

‘What if it’s another one of my father’s rivals?’ she muttered in her head. ‘Then, it’s just right that I sell the house.’

Victor Kline had many rivals. Over the past years, a few had targeted her because she was his daughter. Her nanny once told her she was almost kidnapped when she was three years old. That was why, even though her relationship with her parents wasn’t the best, she was at least thankful that they had assigned her a private car since she was young.

They never gave her the tender loving care that many children received growing up, but at least her parents protected her.

“Let’s go,” Serena said to Alice. “The house is just giving me the chills right now.”

Serena kept herself busy in the following days, selling her wedding ring and every piece of jewelry Nathaniel had given her. An agent took care of the rest, including her designer clothes, luxury bags, and even the house. She meant to sell everything until there was nothing left to remind her of the life she once had with Nathaniel Thorne.

She found a new resolve, but even then, nothing could prepare her for what would come next. It was something Serena never expected.