Chapter 1

Scarlett’s POV

The silence in the room was heavier than lead, broken only by the fractured, ragged rhythm of my own breathing.

My knees were bruised, embedded deeply into the rough, unforgiving hardwood floor, yet the physical pain was nothing compared to the suffocating weight in my chest.

"How dare you take my heiress away from me!” Aiden Cole’s voice didn't roar.

It didn't need to. It was terrifyingly calm. One that drifted across the room like a death sentence, freezing the blood in my veins.

My vision swam through a thick, hot veil of tears, blurring the sharp angles of his imposing figure.

"Aiden, please," I choked out, my voice cracking into a jagged whisper before rising to a desperate, clawing shriek that tore at my vocal cords. “She’s my daughter as well! You can’t just snatch her away from me!"

"Your daughter?" A cruel, humorless curve touched his lips, his eyes devoid of any human warmth.

"The minute I laid my eyes on that princess of mine, she stopped being your daughter.”

A violent, uncontrollable shudder escaped my lips, rattling my entire frame. Dignity? Pride?

I abandoned those the second he stepped foot through my door, trading away every shred of my self-respect just for a fraction of mercy.

I scrambled across the floor, throwing myself at his feet, desperately clutching the hem of his custom-tailored trousers.

"Aiden, please," I sobbed, shaking my head so violently my hair whipped wildly across my face, sticking to my damp skin. "I would die without her. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do, who to turn to. Please, just don’t take her away from me. Take everything else, strip me of whatever you want, just leave me my baby!"

He can’t take her. He just can’t. I literally went through hell to get that girl, clawing my way through nightmares just to keep her safe.

People talk about trauma, but they don't know what it’s like to bleed in silence, to starve for days so your toddler can have half a piece of bread, to run until your lungs feel like glass shards and your legs give out beneath you.

Every scar on my body, every dark, hollow circle under my eyes was a testament to how fiercely I loved her, how desperately I protected her world from shattering.

Two pairs of heavy, unyielding hands suddenly descended on my shoulders, yanking me back with brutal force. Aiden’s guards.

They held me pinned ruthlessly to the floor as he gracefully rose to his feet, adjusting his cuffs with sickening indifference, as if my agony were nothing more than a minor inconvenience to his schedule.

I looked up at him through a blinding mess of hair and tears, pressing my palms together in a pathetic, prayer-like gesture, every fiber of my being trembling with unbearable terror.

"She’s no longer yours. Forget you ever had a daughter," he murmured with chilling finality, turning his back on me and walking toward the grand double doors.

Something inside me snapped.

The last frayed tether holding my sanity in place parted violently, leaving a vast, howling void in its wake.

"Where the fuck were you when I got pregnant with her?!!" I screamed at his retreating back, my voice tearing through my throat until it tasted like copper and ash.

“Were you there when she had the high fever and turned blue in my arms, gasping for air while I prayed to a God I didn’t believe in to take me instead? Were you there when she cried from hunger, her little tummy aching while I cried myself to sleep because I couldn't feed her enough?!”

He stopped. Slowly, rigidly, he turned back around, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

I thrashed against the guards, my muscles straining to the absolute breaking point, every instinct in my body screaming to reach my child.

The grip only tightened, biting viciously into my skin, but I didn't care about the pain. Driven by raw, feral instinct, I lunged forward and sank my teeth into the meaty part of one of the guard's hand.

He cursed sharply, his grip faltering for a split second and that was all the opening I needed. I broke free, dashing across the room straight at Aiden like a missile fueled by pure desperation.

"You can’t just take my daughter away from me!" I wailed. My fists hammered uselessly against his solid frame while the guards converged on me again, dragging me back.

My nose flared with hot, trembling fury, tears blinding my vision now while he looked down at me not with anger, but with a repulsive, clinical disgust that cut deeper than any blade.

"The minute you decided you’d let a Cole heiress suffer in the dirt with you was the day your ruin started," his voice dropped into an icy register that made my blood run cold.

He studied my tear-streaked face, his expression twisting into a scowl of utter disdain. "And look at you. You look entirely unhinged, pathetic, and broken. You were training my daughter to live like this?"

My arms went completely limp in the guards' grips. The blood rushed entirely from my face, leaving me pale as a corpse, unable to form the words to defend myself.

"I’m not crazy," I whispered, the words trembling so hard they barely registered in the heavy silence.

Then, a fresh, scorching surge of white-hot fury bubbled up, scalding my throat and bringing a violent flush back to my skin.

"You arrogant bastard! You can’t just take my daughter away because she carries your blood. She’s also mine, you narcissistic loser! Mine!"

He can’t do this.

He can’t just slap a label on me, call me crazy, and erase every sacrifice, every tear, every drop of blood I poured into raising her.

"She ain’t yours. You’re just a womb donor," he spat back, his voice dripping with venom. "And get your dirty hands on me again, and you’re losing them. Bet on me."

With a final, hateful glare, he turned and walked through the door.