The marble floor of our Gold Coast penthouse was cold beneath my palms, but the pain radiating from my ribs burned like liquid fire.

The restraining order was served forty minutes later by two armed Cook County sheriffs right in the hospital lobby.

Vincent didn't fight them. He stood numbly as the legal documents were thrust into his chest, forbidding him from entering Claire’s floor, her recovery facility, or any location within five hundred yards of her person.

"Mr. Moretti," Julian said, stepping off the elevator, adjusting his cuff links with surgical precision. "Consider this your only warning. Step onto the fourth floor again, and I won't just have you arrested for violating a protective order. I will unseal the domestic violence police report and hand it to every major news outlet from Bloomberg to the Wall Street Journal."

"Julian, please," Vincent begged, his voice raspy from crying. "Just let me pay for her care. The best private hospital in Zurich, the top obstetric surgeons in the world—"

"Our family has money, Vincent. We don't need your blood currency," Julian said with utter contempt. "What you need to worry about is your penthouse. The police have executed a search warrant."

Vincent’s head snapped up. "What?"

"Did you really think Sophia’s greed stopped at embezzling your corporate accounts?" Julian leaned in, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Go home, Vincent. See what your childhood sweetheart has been doing while your wife lay in a coma."

Vincent practically broke the speed limit driving his Aston Martin back to the Gold Coast high-rise. His mind was an inferno of guilt, horror, and burning suspicion.

When he unlocked the heavy double doors of the penthouse, the silence of the crime scene greeted him. Yellow evidence tape had been removed from the dining room, but the dark, dried stain on the mahogany table’s edge and the hardwood floor remained.

Vincent looked at the dried blood, and a dry heave tore through his throat. He fell to his hands and knees, sobbing violently against the floorboards, pressing his palms near the stain where Claire had suffered alone.

A rustling sound upstairs interrupted his breakdown.

Vincent rose, his tears drying instantly into a mask of pure, murderous rage.

He climbed the floating staircase, his footsteps silent on the runner, and walked toward the master guest suite.

The door was ajar.

Sophia was there.

She wasn't weeping. She wasn't worried about Claire or the baby.

She was frantically stuffing Birkin bags, diamond necklaces, bearer bonds, and high-end watches into three massive Louis Vuitton suitcases laid out across the king-sized bed. She had a phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, speaking in a hurried, panicked voice.

"I don't care what the wire fee is, get the charter flight ready for Nassau by midnight!" she hissed into the phone. "The Moretti family knows about the four million. Vince is completely losing his mind over that stupid bitch's pregnancy—he's not going to protect me this time. I need to be out of U.S. jurisdiction before the grand jury indicts me!"

She slammed the phone down and reached into Claire's jewelry armoire, grabbing a rare emerald choker Eleanor Moretti had gifted Claire on her fifth anniversary.

"Put it down."

The voice was ice.

Sophia jumped, letting out a shriek as the emerald choker dropped onto the bed. She whirled around, her hand flying to her chest.

Vincent stood in the doorway.

He wasn't crying anymore. The grief had hardened into a pitch-black, suffocating aura of vengeance.

"V-Vince!" Sophia stammered, her voice immediately shifting into that familiar, trembling pitch. "You scared me! I... I was just packing up Claire's valuables! To keep them safe! The police were here, snooping around, and you know how untrustworthy servants can be—"

Vincent stepped into the room.

He didn't touch her. He didn't have to. The towering, lethal darkness rolling off him forced Sophia back until her knees hit the edge of the mattress.

"Nassau?" Vincent asked quietly. "A midnight charter?"

Sophia's face drained of all color. "Vince, listen to me—"

"Ten years," Vincent murmured, his voice shaking with a terrifying quietness. "Ten years I protected you. When your father went bankrupt, I cleared his debts. When you cried that you were lonely, I made sure you had an apartment in my building. When you said Claire made you feel unwelcome, I believed you."

He took another step. Sophia began to shake violently.

"And all along," Vincent continued, his gaze drifting to the forged bank drafts sitting on the vanity, "you were drugging me with your pathetic little victim routine. You orchestrated arguments with my wife so I wouldn't give her the family she dreamed of. You made me hate the woman I loved."

"You didn't love her!" Sophia screamed, dropping the facade entirely as cornered rats do. Her face twisted into an ugly, sneering mask. "You loved having a dutiful little trophy wife while I owned your mind, Vincent! You're the one who hit her! You did that, not me! You're a monster, Vincent, and now you want to make me your scapegoat?!"

Vincent stared at her. The illusion was gone. The angelic childhood sweetheart he had placed on a pedestal was nothing more than a hollow, greedy parasite.

"I am a monster," Vincent whispered, a grim, terrifying smile touching his lips. "And you made the mistake of stealing from one."

He pulled out his phone and pressed a single button.

"They're waiting downstairs, Sophia."