Chapter 1

"Yes."

I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms.

[Mission suspended. Forty-eight-hour countdown initiated.]

Drew Carell reached over and smoothed my hair back, gentle as ever, though his voice stayed flat.

"You've been punished for six years now. It's time you learned your lesson.

"Valerie's already brought Asher back into the country. Behave yourself and stop trying to compete with her for attention."

I slapped his hand away.

"Why should I? She stole my son. She's the one who caused all of this!"

Drew's brow creased.

"Don't say things like that. Valerie only wanted a child to keep her company. You've spent years diving for corpses—you carry that kind of negative energy on you. You're not fit to raise a child. Valerie's thoughtful and generous, and she's raised Asher well. You should be grateful, Carrie, not bitter."

Cold flooded through me all at once.

Six years ago, I'd nearly died giving birth to my son, Asher Carell, and he was taken before I ever got to hold him. The kidnappers demanded an outrageous ransom and swore they'd kill him the moment the money didn't show.

Of course, that was exactly when Drew's investments had collapsed, and he couldn't scrape together a cent of it. I drained every last bit of my savings hiring the best detective money could buy. But even a man with a spotless record couldn't find a trace of my son.

With nowhere left to turn, I went to beg the wealthiest man in the city for help. I knelt outside his mansion gates until my knees split open and bled, and all I got back was a single word: no.

That refusal set the kidnappers off. They killed my son. My parents, who'd gone to try to save him, were murdered too.

After the tragedy, I became the most hated woman in Pisceno City—a curse everyone wanted dead, and my own brother hated me for it. Drew, grieving the loss of our son, sank deeper into despair with every passing year.

I'd come into this world with one job: to redeem him and my brother. So for six years, I worked as a body diver.

Asher's body was never found. My parents had been silenced and dumped in the ocean by the kidnappers, and their bodies never turned up either. I thought that if I could just find them, I could pull Drew and my brother back from the edge.

I never imagined the whole thing was a lie.

My chest ached until I could barely breathe, but I held back my tears.

"The only reason I became a body diver is because of you. Isn't it?"

"That was your punishment." My brother, Rick Forrest, didn't hold back his disapproval. "You used your position as the real heiress to walk all over Valerie for years. She suffered six years of misery because of you."

"I was the one who got bullied, all this time!" I said, tears choking my voice. "You even asked my teachers and the school nurse back then. They confirmed it was Valerie who hurt me, who isolated me at school. Why won't any of you believe—"

"Shut up!" Rick cut me off, sharp. "Even now, all you want to do is hurt people. You used the Forrest family's power to force them into lying. Hasn't Valerie suffered enough?"

My parents were just as quick to blame me.

"Valerie's been sweet and obedient since she was a child. Not like you, raised by traffickers—you've always been the one stirring up trouble. We owe you, yes. But that doesn't give you the right to keep going after Valerie."

A sharp pain seized my chest.

"It was Valerie's own mother who hired that trafficker. She's the one who ruined my life. Have you all really forgotten that?"

My parents froze for a moment.

Rick let out a cold laugh. "Mrs. Watson told us everything. You ran away from home because you couldn't stand being poor, and that's how you got taken. She showered you with love like you were her real daughter."

Drew's face darkened. He grabbed my arm.

"Carrie, why do you always assume the worst of people? Since you clearly haven't learned a thing, you need to spend more time reflecting."