Chapter 2

### Stacy POV

Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, hot and blinding, soaking straight through the paper in my trembling hands.

My entire body shook. This wasn't just a breakup; it was a systematic execution of my soul.

I had spent years believing I was the luckiest woman alive. I thought I had married the best man on earth. Ethan was supposed to be my safe harbor, my best friend, the sanctuary I ran to when the cutthroat corporate world tried to tear me apart. I had trusted him with every fiber of my being—my heart, my secrets, my dreams, my home, my wealth, and my family.

And now, I was discovering that the man I loved with every breath had been secretly sleeping with my own flesh and blood.

*My sister.*

How could they? How long had this festered behind my back? How many times had I sat across the dinner table from them, laughing and passing the potatoes, completely unaware that their eyes were speaking a language I couldn't read? How many times had my sister smiled warmly at me while plotting to steal my bed? How many times had Ethan kissed my lips right after tasting hers?

My stomach heaved. I clamped a hand over my mouth as a choked sob ripped from my throat.

"How could you do this to me, Ethan?" I whispered into the empty, echoing room, my voice cracking entirely. "You promised. You promised you would love me forever."

I looked around our master bedroom. Suddenly, everything felt foreign, toxic. The king-sized bed where we had whispered our dreams, the elegant wedding portraits hanging on the wall, the warmth of the memories we had built—it was all a monstrous, cruel lie.

I wiped the tears from my face, a sudden surge of blistering heat replacing the sorrow.

*My daughter.*

My baby girl. My heart seized.

"Why did they take her?"

I jumped to my feet, fury instantly eclipsing my grief. My sister and my husband had betrayed me? Fine. If they wanted each other so badly, they could rot together. I didn't care anymore. Let them run. Let them play house.

*But they had no right to take my daughter.*

"Why would they drag an innocent child into this?!" I screamed, the sound ricocheting off the mansion walls. "They could have left alone!"

Tania was entirely innocent. She was my flesh and blood, a piece of my soul that I had carried for nine agonizing, beautiful months. I had stayed awake through a thousand midnight fevers, kissed away her scraped knees, and shielded her from a harsh world. And now, these two parasites had ripped her away from me.

They were fools if they thought I would curl up and weep. They had no idea what a desperate mother was capable of.

"I will find you," I growled, clenching my hands into fists so tight my nails dug into my palms. "I swear to God, I will tear this country apart to find you."

Snatching my phone from the bed, my shaking fingers dialed emergency services.

"Emergency dispatch. How may I help you?" a crisp male voice answered.

"My husband just took my daughter!" Panic spiked my voice into a jagged shriek. "I need you to find them, right now!"

"Ma'am, please calm down. What is your husband's name?"

"Ethan Roberts!"

"And you said he took your daughter?"

"Yes! Exactly what I just said!"

"Ma'am... is Ethan Roberts her biological father?"

I froze, disbelief choking the air right out of my lungs. "Yes! What kind of a stupid question is that?"

"Then, ma'am, unless there is an active custody dispute or a court order on file, a parent leaving with their child is typically categorized as a civil family matter, not a police abduction—"

"A family matter?!" I shrieked, hysteria bubbling over. "My husband just kidnapped my child and fled with my sister! I don't care what legal term you want to use, you need to find him!"

"Ma'am, we need more information before we can—"

"Just find him!" I roared before slamming my thumb down on the disconnect button.

I stood there, panting heavily, chest heaving. "They're idiots. Absolute idiots if they think a piece of paper or a bureaucratic loophole is going to stop me."

My eyes dropped to the heavy diamond band resting on my left ring finger. For years, it had symbolized eternal love, unwavering trust, and unbreakable vows. Now, it felt like a shackle forged in malice.

With a sharp jerk, I yanked it off my finger and clenched it tightly in my palm.

"I don't want this marriage anymore," I whispered into the dark, my voice dropping an octave into absolute ice. "I want a divorce."

The moment the words left my lips, something inside me snapped cleanly in two. I had sworn my life to that man. But he had shattered the vows, thrown our family in the dirt, and stolen my child. So I would choose myself. I would choose my daughter.

And I would choose total, merciless destruction.

"They will pay for this," I muttered. "Every single second of it."

Suddenly, my phone buzed violently in my hand.

I flinched, looking down at the screen. It wasn't a call. It was a push notification.

A bank alert.

Frowning, I unlocked the device and opened my banking app. My blood ran completely cold.

> **DEBIT ALERT**

> **Amount:** $10,000 USD

> **Type:** Wire Withdrawal

> **Account Balance:** Low

> 

"What?"

My fingers flew across the screen, pulling up the master transaction history for my corporate and personal accounts. My breath hitched.

Ten thousand dollars. Gone.

I refreshed the page. Another withdrawal. Fifty thousand dollars.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped animal. I swiped faster, my vision tunneling as line after line of unauthorized transfers flashed before my eyes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, bleeding out of my accounts in real-time.

Ethan had access to our joint accounts, of course—we had built everything together in the early days. And my sister? She had worked as a high-level executive at my firm for years. She knew the internal routing numbers, the passwords, the blind spots.

They hadn't just emotionally butchered me. They had looted me dry.

"Those absolute bastards!" I hurled my phone onto the bed, shaking with a cold, terrifying rage.

They hadn't just run away together. This was a military-grade operation. They had planned this for months, smiling in my face, sharing my bed, eating at my table, all while preparing to strip me down to nothing.

What else did they want?

My company? My entire empire?

Panic clawed at my throat as I snatched the phone back off the mattress. I navigated to my enterprise banking portal. My fingers trembled so violently I could barely hit the keys.

Then, another notification banner slid down across my screen.

It wasn't a bank alert. It was an email from my corporate legal department.

The subject line made my heart stop entirely:

> **URGENT: PENDING CHANGE OF COMPANY OWNERSHIP REQUEST**

> 

With numb fingers, I opened the file.

My eyes scanned the digital paperwork, and the ground felt like it dropped out from underneath my feet. Someone had initiated a hostile legal transfer of corporate ownership.

My company. The multi-billion-dollar empire I had built from the dirt with my own bleeding hands.

Who authorized it?

I scrolled frantically to the signature block.

There was my husband's name: **Ethan Roberts.**

And right beside it, co-signed as an executive stakeholder: **Tania Roberts.**

My sister.

The room spun violently. They weren't just running away. They weren't just stealing cash. They were executing a hostile takeover of my entire life, leveraging my absence, my trust, and my legal marriage to strip me of everything I owned.

A terrifying, chilling realization washed over me, freezing the tears on my face.

*What if Ethan never loved me at all? What if my sister had never looked at me as family?*

What if the affair, the marriage, the sweet words, and the family dinners had all been an elaborate, multi-year conspiracy designed for one single purpose: to wait until I built an empire rich enough for them to steal?

Slowly, the trembling in my hands stopped. A terrifying, dead calm settled over my bones.

I looked down at the diamond wedding ring resting in the palm of my hand. Then, I slid it into my pocket.

A cold, humorless smile touched the corners of my lips.

"Okay, Ethan. Okay, Tania," I whispered into the empty house. "If you want total war..."

I tapped my phone screen, pul

ling up my chief corporate attorney's direct extension.

"...consider it declared."