Joseph stood frozen beside the idling Maybach. He stared at Deanna, his legs suddenly too heavy to move. She looked like a corpse dragged out of a shallow grave, her clothes torn, her hands dripping blood onto his pristine driveway.

Candy didn't miss a beat. Seeing her protector arrive, she shifted her expression instantly. The cruel sneer vanished, replaced by wide, tear-filled eyes. She scrambled down the marble steps, clutching Poppy to her chest, and threw herself at Joseph.

"Joseph!" Candy sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder. "She broke in! She smashed my phone and tried to grab Poppy! She's completely lost her mind!"

Joseph reacted on pure instinct. He wrapped his arms tightly around Candy and the little girl, pulling them flush against his chest. His large hand stroked Candy's back in a soothing, rhythmic motion.

That simple, subconscious gesture of protection twisted a rusty blade deep into Deanna's gut. It shattered whatever microscopic fragment of hope she had left.

Deanna wiped the tears from her face with the back of her wrist, smearing blood across her cheek. She dragged her injured leg forward, her boots crunching loudly on the gravel as she closed the distance between them.

Joseph looked up over Candy's shoulder. His eyes were a chaotic mess of guilt and panic. He tried to soften his face, attempting to summon the gentle tone he used to use to calm her down.

"Deanna," Joseph started, his voice trembling slightly. "Let's just calm down. This is all a massive misunderstanding."

The nausea hit Deanna again. "Misunderstanding?" she snapped, pointing a shaking finger at the five-year-old girl hiding against his leg. "Did you misunderstand the timeline before I left for the Middle East?"

Joseph's jaw tightened. He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose-his telltale sign of lying. "It was a mistake. I was drunk... it was a business dinner... I thought you were dead..."

"Shut up!" Deanna lunged forward. She grabbed the silk fabric of his expensive tie, wrapping it around her fist, and yanked him downward so he was forced to look her in the eyes.

"Where are my parents?" Deanna demanded, her voice vibrating with a terrifying intensity. "And what the hell did you do to their trust fund?"

At the mention of her parents, Joseph's pupils contracted to pinpricks. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple. He grabbed Deanna's wrists, trying to pry her fingers off his tie.

Deanna held on with a death grip. Her knuckles turned white. Her fingernails dug through his shirt, scratching the skin of his neck.

Two security guards sprinted up the driveway, reaching for Deanna's shoulders to rip her away.

Joseph held up a hand, stopping them. He needed to maintain his image. He couldn't have his ex-wife dragged away screaming about stolen money.

Joseph took a deep breath. He smoothed out his features, replacing the panic with a mask of profound, tragic sorrow.

"Deanna," Joseph said, his voice dropping to a somber whisper. "During your first year missing, your father made a terrible investment on Wall Street. A massive fraud scheme. The family went completely bankrupt."

Deanna's eyes widened. She shook her head violently. "No. My father was conservative. He never touched high-risk portfolios. You're lying."

Joseph ignored her, his tone turning icy and clinical. "They couldn't handle the shame of the bankruptcy. They locked themselves in the old estate in Connecticut."

Joseph paused, letting the silence stretch for a fraction of a second before delivering the kill shot.

"A year ago, a fire broke out in the middle of the night. They both died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning."

Died in a fire.

The words detonated in Deanna's brain. The sound of roaring flames filled her ears, entirely deafening her. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision.

Deanna let go of his tie. She stumbled backward, her boots slipping on the gravel. "No," she mumbled, her lips numb. "No, no, no. It's a lie."

Candy peeked out from behind Joseph's back, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Joseph even paid for their funeral out of his own pocket. You should be thanking him for handling their ashes."

Betrayal. Erasure. The murder of her parents.

The triple impact of the trauma hit Deanna's nervous system all at once. It was too much. The human brain wasn't built to process this level of destruction.

A sharp, tearing pain ripped through Deanna's chest, as if her heart had literally split in two. Her throat closed up entirely. She couldn't breathe.

Deanna clutched the fabric over her chest, her fingers twisting the material. Her knees buckled. She crashed down hard onto the sharp cobblestones.

Joseph took a half-step forward, his hand reaching out instinctively to catch her.

Candy's manicured fingers dug into Joseph's bicep like claws, jerking him back. She shot him a warning glare that screamed don't touch her.

Deanna threw her head back, looking up at the pale, indifferent moon. A horrific, animalistic scream tore out of her throat-a sound of pure, unadulterated agony.

She bit down on her lip so hard that a stream of hot, dark blood poured from her mouth, dripping down her chin and staining her collar.

Her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body went completely limp, dropping forward like a severed marionette. Her forehead cracked against the cold stones, and the world faded into absolute blackness.

Joseph stared at the pool of blood forming under Deanna's face. Panic finally broke through his composed mask. He ripped his phone from his pocket and dialed the emergency number for the private hospital he owned shares in.

Deanna was falling. The darkness swallowed her whole, filled with the phantom smell of burning wood and the imagined screams of her parents trapped in the flames.

Then, the sharp, chemical stench of medical bleach forced its way into her nostrils, dragging her back to consciousness.

Deanna's eyelids felt like they were lined with sandpaper. She slowly blinked them open. The blurry shapes above her sharpened into the ceiling of a lavish, sterile white VIP hospital room.

She tried to sit up. Her left arm yanked to a sudden, painful halt.

Deanna looked down. Her left wrist was strapped to the metal bed rail with a thick, white medical restraint. An IV needle was taped to the back of her hand, feeding clear liquid into her veins.

Panic spiked in her chest. She yanked her arm, the restraint biting into her bruised skin.

Before she could scream for help, the sharp clack-clack-clack of designer heels echoed on the marble floor outside her door, accompanied by high-pitched, mocking laughter.

The heavy door was shoved open. Candy strutted into the room, wearing a flawless Chanel pre-fall tweed suit. Flanking her were two women dripping in Cartier jewelry-her socialite friends.

Socialite A pinched her nose in exaggerated disgust, looking down at Deanna. "Oh my god, Candy. Is this the crazy woman who went missing? She looks like a stray dog. And she actually thinks she can steal your husband?"

Socialite B pulled out her phone, the camera flash going off right in Deanna's face. "I'm sending this to the group chat. Everyone needs to see what a delusional mistress looks like."

Mistress.

The word was a poisoned needle driven straight into Deanna's eardrum. Her chest heaved. She glared at them, her throat too raw and dry to form words, managing only a low, furious hiss.

Candy walked right up to the edge of the bed. She looked down at Deanna, her eyes shining with the absolute arrogance of a victor.

Candy leaned in close, the smell of her expensive perfume suffocating Deanna. "I sleep in your bed," Candy whispered, so low the other women couldn't hear. "I spend your parents' money. And you are nothing but a crazy whore tied to a bed."

Pure, blinding rage ignited in Deanna's blood. She didn't care about the pain. She thrashed violently against the bed, throwing her entire body weight sideways. The sudden movement yanked the IV tube tight. The needle tore at her vein, and a rush of dark red blood shot backward up the clear plastic tubing.

The socialites shrieked and jumped back, horrified by the blood.

Candy sneered and slammed her hand on the nurse call button. "Get in here and sedate this psycho!" she yelled.

A nurse rushed in holding a syringe, but before she could approach the bed, the door opened wider.

Joseph walked in. His suit was immaculate, not a single wrinkle in the fabric.

Deanna stopped thrashing. She looked at Joseph, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes begged him to tell the truth. To tell these women that she was his legal wife, the woman he had sworn to love.

Socialite A immediately grabbed Joseph's arm, pouting. "Joseph, this crazy woman just tried to attack Candy! She's dangerous!"

Joseph's eyes flicked to the blood dripping down Deanna's hand. He stared at it for exactly one second before his gaze turned as cold and dead as a frozen lake.

He looked at Candy, then at the socialites. He needed the Riley family's money. He needed the public image of a perfect marriage.

Joseph said nothing. He didn't correct them. His silence was the final nail in Deanna's coffin, cementing her status as the delusional mistress.

The light in Deanna's eyes died completely. The desperation vanished, replaced by an icy, hollow void. She finally saw the monster hiding beneath his tailored suits.

Joseph stepped toward the nurse. "Hold the sedative," he ordered, using his authority as a board member. He turned to Deanna, leaning over the bed.

"If you ever go near Candy again," Joseph whispered, his voice a lethal threat, "I will use every judge I own to have you permanently committed to the State Psychiatric Hospital. You will never see the sun again."

Deanna looked at the lips that used to kiss her. She felt a surge of bile rise in her throat. She stopped pulling against the restraints.

"Get out," Deanna rasped, her voice devoid of any human emotion.

Joseph flinched slightly at the pure hatred in her eyes. He adjusted his tie, turned his back on her, and escorted Candy and her friends out of the room.

The door clicked shut. The room fell into a dead silence, broken only by the steady beep of the heart monitor. Deanna didn't cry. Her tears were gone. Only stone remained.

She closed her eyes and waited.

Hours passed. The lights dimmed. Deanna lay perfectly still, feigning a deep, sedated sleep every time the nursing staff checked on her-which they did every thirty minutes like clockwork. She memorized their patterns. At exactly 11:45 PM, a code blue alarm blared from the opposite end of the VIP wing. The sudden chaos drew the heavy footsteps of the floor's security detail and the primary night nurse away from her door. It was a chaotic, three-minute window of shift-change confusion and emergency response. The hallway outside fell momentarily silent. Deanna's eyes snapped open.

She twisted her body, bringing her restrained wrist close to the metal bed rail. Her keen eyes had spotted a loose, jagged screw protruding slightly from the adjustable hinge of the rail. She pressed the thick plastic buckle of the restraint against the sharp metal edge. Gritting her teeth against the agonizing pull on her bruised wrist, she began to saw the plastic back and forth with frantic, relentless friction. Her muscles burned, and sweat beaded on her forehead, but she didn't stop until the weakened plastic finally gave way with a dull snap.

She ripped her arm free. Without hesitating, she grabbed the IV needle taped to her hand and ripped it out. Blood immediately welled up, dripping onto the white sheets. She pressed her thumb hard against the puncture wound.

She swung her bare feet over the edge of the bed, her toes hitting the freezing linoleum floor. She opened the small closet. Inside hung a gray utility jacket left behind by the cleaning staff. She pulled it on over her hospital gown.

Moving like a ghost, she slipped out the door. She hugged the walls, avoiding the red glow of the security cameras, and pushed through the heavy metal doors of the fire escape stairs.

She descended six flights in the dark. She hit the ground floor and slammed her shoulder against the emergency exit bar.

The door flew open. A blast of freezing rain and wind hit her face. Deanna stepped out into the black, storm-swept alley of Seaport City, running into the night.

The icy rain of Seaport City sliced through the air like thousands of tiny glass shards. Within seconds, the thin gray cleaner's jacket clung to Deanna's shivering body, soaked to the bone.

She walked barefoot down the dark, flooded back alley behind the hospital. The rough, broken asphalt tore at the soles of her feet with every step. She couldn't feel the pain. Her body was running entirely on adrenaline and the burning need to escape Joseph's reach.

A speeding car flew past the alley entrance, its tires hitting a massive pothole. A wave of filthy, freezing water splashed half a meter into the air, drenching Deanna from the waist down. She didn't even flinch. She just raised a numb hand, wiped the gritty mud from her eyes, and kept walking.

Her brain was a chaotic mess of static. She had no money, no identity, and nowhere to go. But her muscle memory, driven by a desperate need for the only safe place she had ever known, pointed her toward the outskirts of the city. Toward the Conner family estate.

She walked for what felt like hours. Her feet left faint, watery bloody footprints on the pavement that the rain instantly washed away.

Finally, she reached the edge of the cliffs. She stood at the rusted, broken iron gates of her childhood home.

Deanna looked through the rain. There was no house. Just a massive, blackened crater of charred support beams and collapsed stone. The beautiful marble fountain where she used to play was swallowed by overgrown, dead weeds.

The reality of her parents' death crashed down on her. The grief was a physical weight, crushing her lungs. Deanna's knees gave out. She collapsed into the freezing mud. She dug her bleeding fingers deep into the ash-mixed dirt, letting out a suffocated, broken sob.

She was so consumed by the agony that she didn't hear the footsteps approaching.

Three men, reeking of cheap beer and stale cigarette smoke, stepped out from the shelter of a collapsed stone archway. They were local street thugs, using the ruins to stay dry.

The leader, a heavy-set man with a scar across his cheek, let out a low, sleazy whistle. The three of them fanned out, forming a half-circle around Deanna, blocking her exit.

The whistle triggered Deanna's combat-zone radar. Her head snapped up. Her eyes, red and hollow, locked onto the men with the hyper-vigilance of a hunted wolf.

The leader kicked a piece of charred wood toward her. He looked down at her soaked clothes, his eyes lingering on the way the wet fabric clung to her chest.

"What do we have here?" the man to the left sneered. "You looking for a good time out in the rain, sweetheart?" He reached down and violently yanked the gray jacket off her shoulders.

The jacket fell away, revealing the hospital logo printed on her thin gown.

The leader's eyes lit up with greedy realization. "She's a runaway crazy bitch from the rich hospital. Probably got jewelry or cash on her."

He lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of Deanna's wet hair. He yanked her head back, exposing her throat. "Give us what you got, bitch, or we take it out of your hide."

The blinding pain in her scalp snapped Deanna out of her grief. A lethal, cold focus washed over her. Her right hand slid through the mud, her fingers wrapping around a jagged, six-inch shard of broken window glass.

The leader cursed when she didn't answer. He reached his free hand down, aiming for the collar of her gown.

Deanna didn't hesitate. She tightened her grip on the glass and slashed upward with brutal force.

The jagged edge sliced deep across the leader's forearm.

The man screamed, dropping her hair and stumbling backward. He clutched his arm, dark blood spurting between his fingers and mixing with the rain.

The other two thugs froze for a second, then their faces twisted in fury. "You dead bitch!" the man on the right roared.

Both men dove at her. They tackled Deanna back into the mud, pinning her shoulders down. She thrashed wildly, kicking and biting, but her feverish, starved body was no match for the weight of two grown men.

The man on top of her raised a heavy, dirt-caked fist, aiming directly for her face. Deanna squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the bone-crushing impact.

It never came.

Instead, a sickening, wet CRACK echoed through the rain, followed instantly by a blood-curdling scream.

The weight vanished off Deanna's chest. She opened her eyes just in time to see the thug who had been pinning her fly through the air. He crashed into a charred brick wall ten feet away and slumped to the ground, completely unconscious.

The remaining thug stood frozen in terror.

Deanna looked up through the heavy rain. A massive, towering silhouette stood in the darkness. He looked like the Grim Reaper himself.

The man wore a pitch-black tactical waterproof trench coat. His posture was perfectly straight, radiating an overwhelming, suffocating aura of violence. The rain bounced off his broad shoulders.

The standing thug panicked. He whipped out a switchblade, screaming as he charged at the dark figure.

The man in the coat didn't even flinch. He stood utterly still until the blade was inches away. Then, his left hand shot out like a striking viper. He clamped his hand around the thug's wrist and twisted.

The sharp snap of breaking bone was louder than the thunder. The thug dropped the knife, howling in agony.

The man caught the falling knife by the handle. In one fluid, merciless motion, he slammed the heavy metal butt of the knife into the base of the thug's skull. The man dropped face-first into the mud like a sack of rocks.

The entire fight lasted less than ten seconds. It was a display of military-grade, lethal efficiency.

The man dropped the knife. He turned slowly, his heavy combat boots squelching in the mud as he walked toward Deanna.

A massive fork of lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating the ruins in a flash of blinding white light.

For a split second, the light hit the man's face. Deanna saw his sharp jawline, his cold, unblinking eyes, and the small scar above his left eyebrow.

Deanna's heart stopped dead in her chest.