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…

“The weather in upstate New York is quite damp, dear,” Beatrice chimed in, leaning toward Silas’s receiver with a malicious, cackling grin. “I hear the heating in the reception wing hasn’t worked since November. Make sure you don’t catch a chill. We wouldn’t want Arthur’s little orphan dying before her time.”

Khloe patted her rounded belly, offering me a look of sickening, artificial pity. “Silas and I are boarding the Gulfstream for Dubai on Friday, Eleanor. We bought the three-story penthouse at the **Bulgari Resort**. The nursery overlooks the Arabian Gulf. It has a private pool and four live-in nannies. We’ve already registered our son under the name Arthur Thorne.”

The name hit my sternum like an iron spike, but my face remained an unreadable sheet of ice.