Chapter 3

I closed my eyes, and all I could see was the blood covering the ground from the moment my daughter died.

I won't let any of these monsters get away with this. I’m playing the long game now.

Lucas Anderson, the man my father handpicked, was nothing more than a glorified errand boy at my dad’s company.

Maybe it was my family's wealth that gave him the perfect cover—everyone thought he was the ideal husband.

Everyone, including me, believed I had found the best man on earth.

It wasn’t until the end that I learned the truth.

Lucas called it "suffering in silence for a better future." But that future was never with me—it was always with Megan Stone.

Megan had even timed her pregnancy to align with mine, delivering early by C-section to swap our babies.

Chloe, the little snake, was born small and frail, premature. I had spent my last life nursing her back to health, pouring every bit of my energy into her.

She grew strong enough to push me into the freezing Hudson River.

Lucas had been my father’s top choice, a man he believed could help carry the burden of the family business. He had chosen Lucas from among the scholarship recipients he had sponsored, thinking Lucas had the potential to succeed.

Dad said Lucas was handsome, disciplined, and hardworking—a man with promise.

Mom, however, insisted I should marry someone from an equally wealthy family.

But I was blinded by Lucas’s charm, convinced he was the one for me. I even talked my mom into supporting our marriage.

Looking back now, I was completely blind and foolish.

I never saw the rotten core underneath Lucas’s polished exterior.

As for when Lucas and Megan started their affair, I have no idea. But Megan’s due date was after mine, so he had to have been cheating on me while I was pregnant.

Once I got pregnant, my focus shifted entirely to Grace. I slowly handed over control of the family business to Lucas, thinking he could handle it.

This time around, Lucas won’t get a single cent from the Evans fortune.

Once I recovered physically, I moved into the luxury Park Avenue Postpartum Retreat I had reserved.

Back when we got married, we didn’t dig deep enough into Lucas’s past. We didn’t realize he had been pining after Megan all along.

I contacted Uncle George, the head of security at Evans Family Enterprises, to dig into Lucas’s life thoroughly.

The fact that he had managed to evade a professional background check told me he had planned this for years.

Lucas claimed to have no family—his parents were dead, and he didn’t keep in touch with relatives. My parents and I had pitied him, bending over backward to make him feel like part of our family.

I had even suppressed my privileged upbringing, afraid of hurting his fragile ego.

Looking back now, I realize I was nothing but a fool.

A man who could abandon his own daughter to a homeless camp deserves nothing less than to lose everything and end up alone.

Business was busy, and most of the time it was just me and that little snake, Chloe.

Watching her, this ungrateful, feral child, made me clench my fists just to stop myself from choking her.

Meanwhile, my true daughter, Grace, was out there suffering, while this monster lay in the most luxurious postpartum retreat money could buy.

Maybe it was the icy glare in my eyes, but Chloe started to cry.

And then—two loud sounds. She had soiled herself.

In my past life, I had pushed through my disgust, changing her diapers and cleaning her up time and time again.

But not this time. This time, I didn’t care if she got a rash that covered her entire face.

I had already refused to breastfeed her, and even though Lucas tried to hide it, I could see the resentment in his eyes. He was already planning his revenge, no doubt.

Too bad for him—this time, I’m the one keeping score.

Without a penny to his name, Lucas, the dependent son-in-law, couldn’t survive without me.

No matter how angry he was, he had no choice but to swallow it.

My parents, always so thoughtful, had sent high-end, imported baby formula. But I rejected it outright. I insisted on the cheaper kind.

Even the staff at the retreat gave me strange looks.

They wondered how someone as wealthy as me could be so stingy with a newborn. Some of them whispered that I must really favor boys over girls to act this way.