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…

I sat down in my father’s high-backed leather chair.

Khloe let out a strangled, terrified squeak, grabbing her designer handbag, trying to stand up from her seat.

“Sit down, Khloe,” I commanded softly.

She froze, her knuckles turning white around the leather strap, her face trembling with the raw, naked panic of a thief caught in the master bedroom.

“Harrison,” I said, leaning back in the chair, resting my hands flat against the polished walnut. “Distribute the executive packets.”

Harrison stepped forward, dropping thirty-four identical, two-hundred-page red-tabbed folders onto the table before the directors.