I was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for my billionaire adoptive father’s death. As the guards prepared to take me away, my mother-in-law pretended to cry while my husband gently rested his hand on his pregnant mistress’s belly. They believed they’d stolen my freedom and gained control of a nearly $5 billion empire. I simply smiled and revealed one name: “Clara Thorne.” My husband’s expression changed instantly. Seconds later, the prosecutor shouted, “Stop the transfer!” But the secret surrounding his first wife’s disappearance five years earlier was only the beginning…

And between them sat Khloe, her hair blown out into golden waves, wearing my favorite ivory silk Chanel blouse—the one Arthur had bought me in Paris on my thirtieth birthday.

Silas picked up the black plastic telephone receiver.

He tapped the glass with his heavy platinum signet ring, smiling with the radiant, untroubled warmth of a man who believed the universe existed solely to serve his appetites.

I picked up my receiver. I held it to my ear and said nothing.

*”Well, Eleanor,”* Silas’s voice purred through the earpiece, smooth as twenty-year-old single malt scotch. *”Tomorrow is the grand exodus. Twenty-five years. You’ll be fifty-five when you first become eligible for a parole hearing that the Vance board will personally ensure you never receive.”*