ELARA

I was drowning.

I fought the water with every ounce of strength I had left, but I was fighting the panic too. The trauma dragged me under like a physical weight—the jagged memory of the first time I had met Shawn.

He had saved me then, a nerdy girl being tormented by bullies who thought it was fun to try and drown me inside the school pool.

I could still hear their high-pitched laughter. I could still feel their small, cruel hands forcing my head down. I remembered the burning in my chest, the terror, and the absolute helplessness.

I had hated the water ever since.

And yet, knowing my past—knowing that water was my greatest fear—he had pushed me into it. He knew it traumatized me. He knew I could die.

He wasn't just angry. He was trying to murder me.

The realization was harder and colder than the water flooding my lungs.

I struggled, my limbs thrashing weakly as I refused to let my story end in this dark, silent deep. I refused to let my revenge be stalled before it even began. I refused to let my baby die.

Yet… my muscles burned with exhaustion, my chest screamed for oxygen, and my vision blurred into a stinging, chlorine-stained haze.

I tried to scream, but I only swallowed more of the pool’s emptiness. I sank, my body growing heavier with every passing second, my silk dress tangling around my legs like a snare. Tears spilled even underwater…

Please…

My thoughts began to scatter as the darkness crawled closer, whispering for me to just let go.

In those final seconds, I wanted to call my father. I wanted my brothers.

A wave of regret swamped me, more suffocating than the water. I should have listened to them when they warned me. I should have listened when they fought against this marriage, when they begged me not to donate a part of my body to a man they didn't trust.

I should have—

I heard a splash. Distant. Muffled.

Did Shawn come back for me? Did he finally remember who I was to him? Did he actually care?

Did he—

The darkness claimed me before I could find the answer.

—

When I regained consciousness, the rhythmic beep of a monitor was the first thing I heard.

I floated in the gray space between sleep and awareness, my body feeling like it was made of lead and my head pounding with a thrum. The sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic settled over me before my mind could fully catch up.

Hospital.

When I finally managed to peel my eyes open, they found a stark white ceiling, the edges blurred. Slowly, my gaze drifted down to a nurse in pale blue scrubs, flipping through a chart at the foot of my bed.

“Hey…” I croaked. My throat felt like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. My voice was barely a rasp.

Her eyes widened slightly, and she rushed to my side. “Hey, Miss Elara. Take it easy. How are you feeling?”

“Fine…” I whispered weakly, swallowing against the pain. “Water…”

She nodded quickly, pouring water into a plastic cup. She slid a hand behind my head to support me, tilting the straw to my lips. The first sip burned like fire. The second was heaven.

“How do you feel now?” she asked softly, her eyes full of a professional kind of pity.

“Better…” I murmured. I tapped her wrist gently with a trembling hand. “Can you lift me up? I want to sit up…”

She hesitated, her eyes flickering to the monitors, torn between caution and compassion.

“It’s okay,” I assured her quietly, trying to find a spark of my old strength. “I think I’m fine…”

With a soft sigh, she adjusted the bed, the motor whirring as it propped me up.

“Thank you,” I whispered, leaning back against the thin pillows. “Has anyone come for me? What hospital is this?”

“You are in Gracefilled Hospital,” she replied. “And yes, the gentleman who brought you in... he’s been checking on you every hour.”

For a second, my heart twisted with a phantom hope. Shawn?

Then she added, “He says he’s your friend. Your lawyer, to be exact.”

I shut my eyes as the hope died a cold death. Cassius. Of course it was him.

He must have come to the party to pay his respects to Grandpa Max. He must have noticed I was missing. He was the only one who ever looked for me. He must have followed the trail of destruction Shawn left behind and found me drowning in the dark.

Tears slipped from under my lids before I could stop them.

When I opened them again, the nurse looked alarmed.

“Are you in pain anywhere? Should I call the doctor?”

I shook my head slowly. The pain wasn’t something a doctor could fix. It lived in the hollow of my chest. It lived in my memories.

It was pain, and a crushing gratitude. Cassius had saved me from being murdered by my own husband.

“There was an old man who came earlier, too,” she added gently. “Your grandfather?”

My throat tightened. What had those people told Grandpa Max? Had anyone checked the CCTV, or had Shawn already erased the evidence? Did the old man believe their lies about me pushing Miranda?

Ignoring the pounding in my skull, I asked for my phone. She retrieved it from the bedside drawer and handed it over.

“Thank you…”

As she turned to leave, a cold remembrance slammed into my gut, turning my blood to ice.

The pregnancy kit. The double red lines. My baby.

“Wait!” I called out, my voice cracking with panic.

She turned back, her expression shifting into something guarded and somber. “Yes?”

“My baby…” My hand drifted to my stomach, trembling. “My baby… is it still okay?”

The nurse didn't speak. Her lashes dropped, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.

The silence was the only answer I needed.

A weak, broken sound tore out of me as I clutched my stomach. My breath hitched, my chest collapsing inward as the world tilted on its axis.

When she tried to step closer to comfort me, I shook my head desperately, waving her away.

She hesitated for a second, then quietly slipped out of the room.

And I finally broke.

I screamed, gripping my stomach, as sobs ripped violently out of me. The fat hot ears soaked the thin hospital gown, the sheets, and my shaking hands. My shoulders heaved with a grief that felt too massive for me to hold.

Shawn had almost killed me. But he had successfully killed my baby. He had snuffed out a life while my own kidney was the only reason he was still breathing.

How wicked could a man be? How could he be so heartless to the woman who gave him everything?

My hands shook as I wept uncontrollably, as I scrolled through my contacts, my blurred vision stopping at a name I hadn’t dared to call in five long, lonely years.

Dad.

It was time to go home. I couldn’t carry this weight alone anymore. If I tried, I knew it would finally kill me.

The phone rang twice before a deep, familiar voice answered.

“Hello?”

I swallowed hard, biting down on my lower lip until I tasted copper. “Dad…” I whispered. “It’s me.”

A long, heavy pause followed.

“Elara?”

“Dad…”

“Oh my God! Elara!” His voice broke, the shock quickly turning into intuition as he heard my agonizing sobs. “Elara? What’s the matter? Why are you crying? Where are you?”

His tone sharpened with a parental panic, and I could hear my oldest brother in the background, demanding to know what was wrong.

“Elara, tell me where you are! Talk to me! Did that bastard do something to you?!”

My sobs worsened, choking the words I desperately wanted to say. I couldn't breathe, let alone explain the horror of the last few hours. I ended the call because the silence was the only thing I could manage.

My baby…

With wet trembling fingers, I typed out the name of the hospital and hit send.

When he arrived with my five brothers, I would tell them everything. No more hiding.

And then, I would let them help me burn Shawn’s world to the ground.

SHAWN

“If anything happens to Elara, just know that you will lose your position in the company! Every single share…!”

Grandfather’s voice thundered across the hospital room, heavy with an authority that usually made my blood run cold. But I didn't look at him. Instead, I rolled my eyes discreetly, tightening my grip on Miranda’s hand as she lay in the bed next to mine, looking like a wilted lily.

“How can you not even go to visit your wife while she’s in a hospital bed?” he snapped, his glare boring straight into the side of my head.

“Elara is strong. She’s a country girl, she’ll be okay,” I replied flatly, forcing a calm I didn’t entirely feel. My chest felt tight, but I pushed the sensation down. “Miranda here has a weak heart, Grandfather. She needs actual care. I will see Elara later when things have settled.”

“I’ve told you what I told you… if she—”

My mother stepped in quickly, barely masking her irritation with the old man. “Father, let it go. He will see Elara after this drip is over. Priorities.”

Grandfather Max didn’t look convinced. His displeasure was written plainly in the deep lines of his face as he shot me one last look of pure disappointment before turning on his heel. He left the room without sparing Miranda a single glance.

“Is he gone?” Miranda whispered, her voice a fragile reed. She fluttered her lashes open, her beautiful eyes filling with tears that looked like shards of glass on the verge of shattering.

“Yes, he’s gone,” I murmured, brushing my thumb lightly over her knuckles. “Don’t worry about him, love. His bark has always been worse than his bite.”

She sniffed, managed a small, trembling smile when my mother praised her for her "strength" in the face of such a tragedy.

“Don’t mind that peasant,” my mother scoffed, her voice dripping with a bitter contempt she usually saved for the help. “I can’t wait for my son to be done with his plans and finally get married to you, Miranda. I would kill that girl off myself if I could… why didn’t she just drown?”

I pushed away the faint, irritating twist of guilt in my chest at the thought of Elara actually dying. I shrugged it off, leaning back in my chair with a nonchalant exhale. “She’ll get what’s coming to her soon enough. I still have those pictures I took... the ones that prove she's been unfaithful.”

“Good, my son. Good,” my mother nodded. “Make sure you get rid of her. Once and for all.”

I would. I had to.

I was tired of tolerating Elara. Tired of the fake debt I carried for her. Every time I looked at her, I felt the phantom itch of the scar on my back, a constant reminder that I owed her my very life. It was a cage.

Watching her pretend to care for me, pretending to be the perfect, doting wife, when I knew she had been the reason for my near-death six years ago grated on me more than I cared to admit. It was a game of shadows, and I was done playing.

Maybe if her barren womb had taken pity on her, I would have stuck around longer. Maybe if she had given me something tangible—an heir to the family name, a reason to stay—I could have tolerated her boring presence.

But the fates were clearly against her. So why should I be on her side?

Since my grandfather was hellbent on denying me a marriage filled with actual passion, I would simply grab what I wanted by force. By the time the doctored images surfaced, Grandfather would be the one pleading with me, begging me to divorce Emma so that our family name wouldn't be dragged through the mud.

Just then, a sharp knock sounded on the door.

Cassius stepped in, his face an unreadable mask.

“Hey, man…” I greeted him casually, expecting the usual updates. But he ignored my greeting entirely, walking straight over to me and thrusting a thick stack of documents and a pen into my hands.

“Sign.”

I frowned, releasing Miranda’s hand to take the papers, the weight of them feeling strange. “What is this? What’s going on?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were cold, distant.

My gaze dropped to the bold heading at the top of the first page.

PETITION FOR DIVORCE.

What?

Elara was divorcing me?

“What the hell is the meaning of this?” Rage flared instantly in my veins, making me see red as I jumped to my feet.

I told myself I was angry because my game had been stolen from me. Because I wouldn't get the satisfaction of watching her break under my terms.

“Elara wants a divorce. Grant it,” Cassius said, his voice as cold as a winter morning.

“Good! The peasant finally came to her senses and realized she doesn't belong here,” my mother scoffed from the corner.

But I was restless. Why now? Why so suddenly? What the hell was going on that I didn't know about?

“Are you not my best friend, Cassius?” I snapped, the plastic of the pen creaking under my tightening grip. “Wait… tell me the truth. Are you sleeping with my wife? Is that why you're doing her dirty work?”

Cassius’s laugh was short, dripping with sarcasm.

“You think she’s anything like you, Shawn?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “She is a respectable woman who has finally come to her senses. She’s done being your doormat.”

How the hell had that woman managed to get my best friend on her side?

“What is wrong with you, Cassius? Why are you defending her like she’s some kind of saint?”

“Just sign the damn papers, Shawn. Isn’t this exactly what you’ve spent the last five years wanting?”

He turned his gaze to my mother. “Right? You want him to be free? Get him to sign.”

My mother looked momentarily confused by his intensity, but she still urged me to go ahead. “Shawn, be fast and sign before the fool changes her mind! This way, my father will have no choice but to accept it since it came from her!”

But I knew my grandfather better than anyone. He would twist this, find a way to blame me, to accuse me of pushing that "gracious" girl away until she broke.

In a fit of blind fury, I tore the papers into pieces. The sound of the ripping paper matched the violent energy inside my chest.

“Where is she?” I snarled, stepping into Cassius’s space. “Where is that damn woman? How dare she try to leave me before I discard her?”

I was about to demand he take me to her when my jaw suddenly went slack. My attention was caught by the television across the room. A breaking news broadcast was flashing a "Special Report."

Elara’s face filled the entire screen.

But it wasn't the Elara I knew. This was a glowing younger version, little below eighteen years old, her hair perfectly styled, her eyes sparking with a life I had never seen.

Next to her was an image of the Viking family, the richest, most powerful dynasty in the country.

My hand began to shake, the torn papers fluttering to the floor like snow.

The little girl laughing in the family portrait—surrounded by five older boys—had the same hair, the same unmistakable eyes as my wife, as Elara’s picture by the side.

With trembling fingers, I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up.

“...In a shocking twist of events, the daughter of billionaire mogul Silas Viking, Elara Viking—who has been hidden from the media for over a decade—has been identified. Sources confirm she is currently at Gracefilled Hospital, where she is recovering from a near-fatal incident...”

What?

My wife... a Viking?

The room went deathly silent. My mother’s glass hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces, but no one moved.

If Elara was a Viking... if those five men were her brothers…

My heart hammered against my ribs so hard it was painful, as my mind conjured up the current identities of these men.

Fuck.

I looked at the television again, then at the shredded divorce papers at my feet. A cold, paralyzing dread began to seep into my bones.

What have I done?