Chapter 4

# Stacy POV

The hotel door swung inward with a violent, splintering crash.

The moment Ethan and Tania looked up to see me standing on the threshold—flanked by two towering, plainclothes detectives—the blood drained completely from their faces. Shock, raw and jagged, locked their features in place. They stared at me as if they were looking directly at a ghost returned to haunt them.

I didn't blink. I didn't breathe. My gaze swept past their pale faces, searching the room with frantic, desperate urgency.

And then I saw her.

Tania was standing near the foot of the bed, and huddled right behind her—her little face streaked with tears, red and swollen from crying—was my baby.

Our eyes locked across the space.

*"Mommy!"*

The heartbroken shriek tore through the room. Without a second thought, my daughter bolted across the carpet, her small body hurling itself straight toward me.

"Baby!"

I dropped to my knees, throwing my arms wide open just as she crashed against my chest. I caught her tight, wrapping my entire body around her as a fierce, shuddering sob broke from my own lips. I buried my face in her soft hair, breathing in her sweet, familiar scent like pure oxygen after drowning.

"My baby," I whispered, pressing frantic, tearful kisses to the side of her head. "Mommy's here. Mommy's got you."

She clamped her tiny arms around my neck with all her strength, clinging to me as if the universe itself might try to pull us apart again. "I knew you would come for me," she sobbed into my shoulder. "I knew it!"

Her shattered little voice broke whatever remaining restraint I had left. I pulled back just enough to frame her tear-stained face between my trembling hands, my eyes desperately scanning every inch of her.

"Did they hurt you, sweetheart?"

She shook her head furiously. "No, Mommy."

"Did they scare you?"

She hesitated, her lower lip trembling violently. Her wide, frightened eyes flicked past my shoulder toward Ethan and Tania.

My heart turned to molten iron. I didn't need her to utter another word.

I looked up, locking eyes with the lead detective behind me. "Please hold my daughter."

The officer stepped forward gently, but my daughter immediately panicked, clutching desperately to my coat sleeve. "Mommy, don't leave me!"

"I won't, baby," I promised, pressing one last fierce kiss to her forehead. "I'm right here. I'm never leaving you again."

With agonizing care, I unspooled her tiny fingers from my jacket and handed her over to the detective, who scooped her safely into his arms.

Then, slowly, deliberately, I stood up.

I turned around to face them.

My eyes landed on Ethan. My husband. The man I had loved more than my own life, the man who had promised to stand by me through every storm, the man who had sworn a sacred oath before God and our family.

He stood in the center of the room—hollow-eyed, pale, and shaking. For the first time, I saw genuine, naked fear written across his face.

"How?" My voice didn't shake. It was flat, lethal, and laced with absolute venom. "How could you do this to me?"

Ethan swallowed hard, his throat working as his voice barely scraped out a rasp. "Stacy—"

"Don't!" I snapped, raising a hand to slice through his words. "Don't you dare say my name as if we are having a normal conversation. You betrayed me." Hot tears spilled over my lashes, burning my skin, but I didn't wipe them away. "You betrayed your wife."

I rotated my hand, pointing a rigid, unyielding finger straight at my sister. "And you did it with my own blood!"

Tania averted her gaze, her jaw tightening defensively.

I let out a harsh, broken laugh that held no humor at all. "Do you know what the sickest part is, Ethan? I used to look at you every single day and thank God for giving me a husband like you. I genuinely thought you were too good for me."

A single tear tracked down my cheek, catching the harsh hotel light. "I thought you were a good man. But I was blind."

Ethan stepped forward, his hands raised in a desperate, pleading gesture. "Stacy, please. I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Sorry?" I stared at him, my disbelief morphing into pure, unadulterated fury. "You never wanted to hurt me? You packed up and abandoned our home! You stole my child! And you expected me to just sit quietly while I discovered my whole life was a lie?"

I pointed a finger straight at my own chest. "Tell me, Ethan. Which part of that grotesque little performance was supposed to spare my feelings?"

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

I shook my head, my eyes hardening into solid ice. "I used to think you were out of my league. But I was wrong. You weren't too good for me at all." I flicked a lethal glare at Tania. "You two deserve each other."

I spun around to face my sister head-on. "And you."

Tania finally snapped her head up, her eyes flashing with sudden, defensive venom. "What, Stacy? What do you want?!"

"I gave you everything," my voice trembled with rising rage. "I brought you into my home when you had nothing. When you needed money, I handed it to you without counting. When you needed a career, I built a path for you. I trusted you! I trusted you inside my home, around my husband, around my child!"

Tania crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her face twisting into an ugly sneer. "Are you quite finished with your speech?"

I froze. "What?"

"Shut your trap, Stacy," she spat, her voice dripping with poison.

The hotel room plunged into a suffocating, heavy silence. Even the detectives behind me stiffened at the sudden sharpness of her tone.

I stared at my sister, utterly paralyzed. After everything I had sacrificed for her, after every safety net I had thrown her way, she looked me dead in the eye and told me to shut my trap.

Tania stepped forward, her high heels clicking sharply against the floorboards. "Why do you always play the victim? Why do you act like such a saint?"

"What are you talking about?!" I choked out.

"You knew I loved him!" Tania screamed, pointing a shaking finger directly at my face. "You knew I loved Ethan before you ever even looked his way!"

I whipped my head toward Ethan, then back to my sister, my mind reeling. "What?!"

"He knew me first!" Tania shrieked, tears of pure bitterness spilling over her cheeks. "I loved him first! Ethan and I had a history long before you ever swooped in with your billion-dollar ego and your corporate money to trap him!"

"So that's your justification?" I laughed, a cold, sharp sound. "You sleep with my husband behind my back because of some high-school crush?!"

"You stole him from me!" she raged.

"Stole him?" I turned my glare back onto Ethan, who stood mute and paralyzed. "Was he a piece of property sitting on a shelf? Did I kidnap him into marriage?"

Ethan remained completely silent, staring blankly at the carpet.

I turned back to Tania, my voice dropping an octave into absolute ice. "Your problem isn't that I 'stole' Ethan, Tania. Your problem is that out of the two of us, he chose to marry *me*. That's what has eaten away at your soul for years."

Tania's face distorted with rage, her mouth opening to scream another insult, but I raised my palm, cutting her off completely.

"I'm done," I whispered, exhaustion finally pulling at the edges of my fury. "I'm done listening to your pathetic excuses. You love each other? Fine. Keep each other."

Ethan's head shot up, sheer panic flashing in his eyes. "Stacy, wait—"

"No," I cut him off, holding up a firm hand. "I don't care anymore. You two want to play house? Do it. My husband, my sister—take him, Tania. He's all yours."

Ethan looked as though I had struck him across the face. "Stacy, please—"

"The divorce papers will be drafted by noon today," I said, my voice dead and unyielding.

"Stacy, no, don't do this—"

"And there is one thing," I stepped forward, my eyes locking onto his with terrifying intensity, "that you will *never* have."

Ethan froze in his tracks.

"My daughter."

"Stacy, she's my daughter too!" Ethan protested, desperation cracking his voice.

"She is *my* child," I hissed, closing the distance between us until I was staring right up into his face. "You forfeited any right to call yourself a father the moment you plotted against me and dragged an innocent child into your filth. If you want to play house with my sister, go ahead. But my daughter has nothing to do with your betrayal."

Ethan's eyes reddened, tears spilling over as he dropped his gaze to the floor, his voice breaking. "Please don't take her away from me, Stacy. Please. I love her."

I stared at him in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.

"You love her?" I echoed, my voice shaking with disgust. "Then why did you rip her out of her bed in the middle of the night? Why did you traumatize her?"

"I was scared!" he sobbed, completely breaking down. "I was terrified you'd shut me out, that you'd use your lawyers and your money to never let me see her again!"

"You brought this on yourself the second you betrayed our family," I said coldly, turning my back on him.

I raised my hand and signaled the two detectives standing near the door.

"Arrest them."

Ethan's head snapped up. "What?!"

I pointed a steady finger right at his chest. "They stole from me. They looted hundreds of thousands of dollars from my corporate and personal accounts."

Tania panicked instantly, lunging forward. "Stacy, you can't—that's a lie! We didn't—"

"Then let the financial crimes unit figure that out during the investigation," I retorted without flinching.

The two detectives stepped forward, closing in on them.

Ethan turned pale as a sheet. "Stacy, please, don't do this to me! Think of our history!"

"Ethan!" Tania screamed as the second officer grabbed her arms to cuff her behind her back.

She began thrashing and fighting against the officer, crying hysterically. "Stacy! Please! Don't do this to your own sister! Please!"

I stopped. For a fraction of a second, the heavy weight of our childhood flashed before my eyes—the laughter, the shared secrets, the illusion of a family that loved me.

Then I remembered the cold betrayal in the letter. The empty house. My daughter's terrified cries from inside this room.

My heart turned back to stone.

Without looking back, I walked over to the detective holding my daughter. He handed her safely back into my arms, and I buried my face against her shoulder, shielding her eyes from the chaos behind us.

"Let's go," I told the officers, stepping toward the ruined doorway and turning my back on them forever.

I had won. I had found my child. I had dismantled their pathetic little lives and exposed them for the parasites they were. It was over.

Or so I thought.

As I crossed the threshold into the hallway, a desperate, broken cry echoed behind me.

"Stacy!"

I paused, my spine stiffening. I didn't turn around.

"Stacy, please! Listen to me!" Ethan's voice cracked, thick with a terror that had nothing to do with the police.

I closed my eyes, tightening my protective grip on my daughter.

And then, the man who had just tried to destroy my entire empire said the one thing that made the air freeze in my lungs:

"I love you!"

My entire body turned to solid ice.

The hallway went completely, terrifyingly silent, save for the low hum of the overhead lights.

Slowly, against every survival instinct screaming at me to keep walking, I turned around.

Ethan was staring at me past the steel cuffs binding his wrists, tears streaming freely down his face, looking at me with an expression so intensely desperate it made my stomach churn.

"I love you, Stacy," he choked out, his chest heaving. "I swear to God, I love you. It was always you."