Chapter 4

“Sue for breach of contract? That’s impossible.”

The lawyer’s voice was shaking on the phone. “Miss Aveline, this is Cillian Donovan. He writes the rules in this city. You can’t win this fight.”

He hung up.

I gripped my phone, my knuckles white.

He’d even crushed that last little bit of hope with his power.

A storm broke over Chicago.

I didn’t have an umbrella.

I walked up the hill to the cemetery. I collapsed in front of my parents’ graves.

The rain soaked through my clothes. The water stung the wound on my arm.

My hand trembled as I touched my mother’s faded picture on the headstone.

“Mom… I’m so tired.” I pressed my face against the cold stone, tears mixing with the rain and mud. “I have nothing left.”

I heard footsteps behind me. Scrambling.

I turned.

Cillian stood there, under a black umbrella.

Jenna was beside him. Behind them, a timid Maria and a few of Cillian’s huge bodyguards.

Before I could react, Jenna broke free from Cillian and walked straight to my father’s grave.

She bowed her head. Deeply.

“Dad, I came to see you.”

My whole body went stiff.

Then, five years of rage erupted.

“What did you call him?!” I lunged, shoving her hard. “Your sister stole my fiancé! You stole my husband! Now you’re going to disturb my father’s peace? Have you no shame!”

Jenna cried out and fell backward.

She didn’t hit the mud.

Cillian’s strong arms caught her. Pulled her into his chest.

He looked up. His eyes were ice, locked on me.

“Are you done?” His voice was dead. No warmth. “Aveline, you need to face reality. Jenna is carrying a bloodline that cannot be harmed. You touch her again, you’ll see what happens.”

I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood.

“She’s a thief! What right does she have to call him my father…”

“Because she is your own father’s flesh and blood.”

Maria dropped to her knees in the mud, cutting me off.

She kept her head down. “Donna, I’m sorry. Years ago, back at your family estate... I wanted to secure my place. I was cleaning your father's bedroom... I took his used condom from the trash. I… inserted it into myself.”

My stomach turned. Violently.

I stumbled back, my eyes wide with disbelief.

I looked at this woman I’d called “Aunt Maria” for twenty years. A chill ran down my spine.

“You’re disgusting,” I said, shaking uncontrollably. “You are a monster.”

Jenna leaned into Cillian’s arms. She whispered something in his ear.

Cillian listened, then gave a signal.

His bodyguards moved forward.

On their shoulders, they carried a new gravestone.

And there, in the spot that should have been only mine, was a line of gold lettering.

【BELOVED DAUGHTERS: JENNA, AVELINE】

The thief’s name. Before mine.

I couldn’t breathe.

My eyes were red, burning with fury as I stared at that stone.

“Cillian, what the hell are you doing?” I pointed at the new headstone, my voice a shriek.

Cillian shielded Jenna behind him.

A cruel sneer played on his lips. His eyes, like poisoned knives, landed on the old headstone—the one Finn had helped me pick out years ago.

The jealousy in his eyes was about to overflow.

“Jenna is your father's blood. Her name belongs on the stone,” he said, leaning in close. “Why the big reaction? Are you sad to see the old one go? Or are you sad to lose the memory of Finn helping you pick it out?”

Finn.

Always Finn.

“You bastard!” I threw myself at him, but two guards grabbed my shoulders, holding me back.

I struggled, screaming in despair. “Let me go! Don’t touch my father’s grave! Cillian, I’m begging you, don’t touch it!”

Cillian turned his back. No emotion.

He gave the order. Cold. “Smash it.”

A guard swung a sledgehammer. It crashed down on the old headstone.

Stone chips flew everywhere.

Again. And again.

They held me down in the mud. I watched the stone that held my last good memories break into a thousand pieces.

My dignity. My final boundary. All of it smashed to dust by the man I loved for five years. All for his insane jealousy. All in front of his mistress.

They set the new headstone in place.

Cillian walked over to me.

He looked down at me, a pathetic mess in the mud. For a split second, I saw it in his eyes. Panic. Regret. Something he didn’t even recognize himself.

“Stop crying. Get yourself together.” He fixed his wet cuffs, putting his mask back on. The untouchable Don. He gave his final order. “Be home by eight. Or don't come back at all.”

He thought I’d do what I’d always done.

Lick my wounds in a corner, then crawl back to my cage like nothing happened.

He was wrong.

The thunder faded. The rain kept falling.

But inside, I was calm. Ice cold.

This one-woman show was over.

I pushed the guards’ hands away. I got to my feet, swaying.

I looked at Cillian’s arrogant face. No hysterics. Not one more tear.

I reached into my waterproof bag.

I pulled out the divorce papers my lawyer had drawn up that morning.

And I threw them in his face.

“I said, we’re done. We’re getting a divorce.”