The Vicious Family's Cruelest Deception

I handed my resignation to my husband, Charles, ending seven years of being the secret genius behind his jewelry empire.

I thought I was just leaving a cheater, but then I learned the horrifying truth.

My stepsister, Haylee, hadn't just stolen him; she had tampered with my medication, deliberately causing every single one of my previous miscarriages.

When I tried to escape, the nightmare truly began.

Haylee killed her own poodle and framed me for it.

To "teach me a lesson," Charles locked me in a pitch-black closet for hours, ignoring my severe claustrophobia.

He dragged me out, forced my pregnant body to kneel, and slammed my head against the marble floor until I bled.

Then, he made me dig the dog's grave with my bare hands while my own mother watched and sneered.

Lying in the dirt, broken and bleeding, I realized they thought they were destroying Charles's heir.

They were wrong.

I dialed the number of the billionaire tycoon who had been waiting in the shadows.

"Grayson," I whispered through cracked lips. "The baby is yours. Come get us."

Chapter 1

The crisp resignation letter felt heavy in my hand, a physical manifestation of the end. My fingers trembled slightly as I placed it on the polished mahogany desk, its edges a stark white against the dark wood. Seven years. Seven years of my life, compressed onto a single sheet of paper.

"Abigail, are you serious?" Sarah, my colleague and the only person who bothered to ask, looked up from her screen, her brow furrowed with concern. "You're eight months pregnant. This is a terrible time to quit."

I didn't meet her eyes. A bitter laugh caught in my throat, a dry, rasping sound that felt foreign even to me. If she only knew. If anyone only knew.

My mind replayed the last seven years, a highlight reel of carefully constructed lies and shattered dreams. Charles Howard, CEO of Howard Luxury Group, my husband. He was charming, ambitious, everything I thought I wanted. I poured my soul into his company, designing the jewelry that kept his empire afloat, always in the shadows, always "Eos," the anonymous genius. I believed in him, in us. I believed in the future we were building, even through the pain of repeated losses.

The miscarriages. Each one a tiny death, a piece of my heart torn away. Charles held me through them, his eyes filled with a manufactured sympathy that now felt like a cruel joke. He'd tell me it wasn't my fault, that we'd try again, his words a balm that soothed the raw edges of my grief, even as my body failed me again and again. He was so convincing, so perfectly heartbroken. I blamed myself, my fragile body, my inability to carry a child. The doctors had no answers, just pity.

Then, the truth had slammed into me with the force of a physical blow. Haylee, my stepsister, in Charles's office, in his arms. Their whispers carried through the half-open