Chapter 1

Three Years Earlier

At a private club in the capital, Lily Yates struggled as she scrubbed a toilet, her oversized work uniform making her thin frame look even smaller. By the time she finished, she was so exhausted that she sank to the floor and pulled out a photograph of herself with her father and younger sister.

"Lily! Someone threw up in the Heaven on Earth suite. Go clean it up."

She carefully tucked the photograph away and got to her feet.

It had been three months since her release from prison. The first thing she'd wanted to do was bring her younger sister, Yvonne Yates, home from the orphanage, but with a criminal record, she needed to find steady employment before she could take custody of her.

Unfortunately, finding work had proved nearly impossible. Between her high school diploma and her criminal record, she couldn't even get hired as a waitress. The club, at least, attracted all sorts of people and didn't care about her past.

Inside the private suite, a dozen or so young people were having a party, playing cards and singing karaoke. Everyone was enjoying themselves far too much to pay any attention to the cleaning woman who entered.

Lily knelt on the floor and began cleaning up the vomit.

"Well, look who it is! Isn't that the straight-A beauty from Capital High, the most prestigious high school in the city?" a man suddenly called out. "Back in school, if someone so much as borrowed her pen, she'd spend forever disinfecting it with rubbing alcohol. Now look at her, kneeling in someone's puke like it doesn't bother her at all!"

Lily recognized him immediately. It was Derek Collins. He'd pursued her in high school, and when she turned him down, he'd graciously offered to remain friends. But after everything that happened, he'd become one of her worst tormentors.

She kept her head down and worked faster, desperate to finish cleaning the filthy mess and leave.

Before she could, Derek kicked her hard, sending her sprawling into the sticky vomit.

"I'm talking to you, bitch! Are you deaf?"

"Ah!"

Lily winced against the pain and revulsion, bitterness rising in her throat.

Deaf? In one ear, yes.

After Mason Whitmore had sent her to prison on a fabricated charge, he'd arranged for her to receive special "care" behind bars. During her very first month, an explosion in a so-called safety accident had destroyed the hearing in her left ear.

Derek was about to attack her again when another former classmate stopped him.

"Come on. Why waste your energy getting mad at trash like her?

"Lily Yates used to think she was better than everyone. She had everything going for her, too. Sure, her mother died young, but her father was the best surgeon in the capital. She was beautiful, and Mason Whitmore, the golden boy of the Whitmore family, absolutely adored her.

"Look at her now. You can hit her, insult her, do whatever you want, and she won't even fight back."

Someone spat at her, and Lily felt the saliva land on her head.

Once upon a time, she would have fought back without hesitation. But the bullying she'd endured during her senior year, the three years of torment after graduation, and another three years in prison had crushed every last bit of pride she'd once possessed.

If she'd been alone in the world, she might have been willing to die defending her dignity. But she wasn't. She still had Yvonne to protect, and any attempt to fight back would only make her little sister the next target of Mason's cruelty.

"She had it coming!" someone else chimed in. "Mason treated her so well! Remember when the equipment storage room at school caught fire? He barely escaped with his life, but the second he heard Lily was still trapped inside, he ran straight back in to save her. He's still got a huge scar on his back, and it took six months for his voice to recover!

"And how did she repay him? She resented Mrs. Whitmore for opposing their relationship, so while Mason was recovering, she pushed his mother down the stairs and left her in a vegetative state!"

The former classmates grew increasingly indignant as they dredged up the past. Under their accusing stares, Lily found herself reliving the nightmare of her senior year.

Back then, everyone had blamed her for what happened to Margaret Whitmore. Even Mason had hated her to the bone.

With a single word, he'd destroyed her father, Lawrence Yates' reputation, turning a celebrated surgeon into a man reviled as a murderer. Lawrence had eventually taken his own life in prison, supposedly out of guilt.

Mason had also turned Capital High into Lily's personal hell, ensuring she was bullied every single day. At first, she'd fought back with everything she had, even trying to transfer to another school. But every act of resistance brought news that Lawrence had been injured in prison.

And when she finally tried to transfer, the news that came was of his death.

On the day of Lawrence's funeral, Mason had done something entirely unexpected. He arrived carrying a single daisy and even bowed respectfully to Lawrence.

His words, however, were as cold as his gesture was polite.

"Stay in the prison I've built for you, and your sister will be safe. You don't want her ending up as a pile of ashes too, do you?"

Somehow, Lily had made it through senior year and earned excellent scores on her college entrance exams. Yet Mason had used his influence to ensure that no university would admit her, leaving her with no choice but to find work.

Even then, Mason despised her so thoroughly that he wouldn't allow her to hold any job that offered even a shred of dignity. All she was permitted to do was wander the streets, sing for spare change, scavenge through trash, or beg.

He'd stripped away every opportunity she had to lead a respectable life, reducing the once-beautiful Lily Yates to a disheveled outcast whom everyone shunned.

And with one calculated move, he'd sent her to prison for three years.

By the time Lily finished cleaning up the vomit, she was desperate to get away. She practically fled the private suite, only to collide with a woman as she turned to leave.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Lily apologized, bowing repeatedly.

"Ah! My bag! You're filthy! Get away from me!"

Lily froze.

She knew this woman. It was Grace Walker, Mason's girlfriend from college.

Back when Lily worked at their university, she'd seen Mason kiss Grace with such tenderness countless times.

He really did love Grace. So much so that when Lily accidentally dirtied one of Grace's leather shoes, he'd sent her to prison just to make Grace happy.

"I'm sorry! I'll get out of your way!"

If Grace was here, that meant Mason might be...

No. She couldn't let him find her!

Keeping her head down, Lily tried to slip past Grace.

Then a familiar voice stopped her cold.

"Lily Yates."

A chilling, mocking laugh followed.

"Long time no see."