Chapter 3
I woke up to the smell of coffee.
Sunlight was streaming through the big windows of the clinic room, soft and golden.
J was sitting in the same chair, a paper cup in his hand, dark circles under his eyes.
He hadn’t slept.
“Hey,” he said, smiling a little when he saw me awake. “How do you feel?”
“Sore,” I said, trying to sit up.
He moved fast, helping me prop myself up on pillows, adjusting the blanket so it didn’t rub my back.
“Easy. Doctor said no sudden moves.”
He handed me a cup of coffee, just how I liked it—cream, two sugars.
I stared at him.
“How do you know how I take my coffee?”
He looked down at his hands.
“Your dad told me. Once, when we were working late. Said you were the only person in the world who could drink that much sugar and still function.”
My throat tightened.
I hadn’t thought about my dad in so long.
Not without the sharp pain of losing him, of losing everything he’d built to Ethan.
“J,” I said, setting the coffee down. “I need to know something.”
He looked up, eyes steady.
“Anything.”
“My mom’s treatment. Ethan said if I left, he’d stop paying. Is that… is that still a threat?”
J was quiet for a second.
Too quiet.
My stomach dropped.
“J?”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Ethan stopped paying the bills six months ago, Lila.”
The words hit me like a punch to the chest.
I couldn’t breathe.
“What?”
“His family trust cut him off last year. He blew through all his own money on Sophia—cars, trips, jewelry. He couldn’t afford the clinic anymore.”
I shook my head.
No.
That couldn’t be right.
I’d taken two hundred lashes for those bills.
I’d suffered three years of hell for those bills.
“Then who—”
“I’ve been paying,” J said, voice soft. “I found out the day he stopped. I called the clinic, told them to send all the bills to me. I didn’t tell you because I knew if you found out, you’d leave him. And I wasn’t sure I was ready to protect you yet.”
Tears spilled down my face, hot and fast.
All that pain.
All that fear.
For nothing.
“I suffered,” I whispered, hands shaking. “I let him break me. For nothing.”
J reached out, took my hand in his.
His was big and warm, wrapping all the way around mine.
“No,” he said, firm. “You did it because you love your mom. That’s not weakness. That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a thick manila folder, and set it on the bed.
“There’s more,” he said. “Ethan didn’t just marry you for your money. He married you to steal your dad’s company.”
I flipped the folder open.
Bank records.
Forged signatures.
Emails between Ethan and his lawyer, talking about how to get me declared mentally incompetent so he could take full control of all my assets.
“He forged my name on the transfer papers three days after the wedding,” J said. “Your dad left you 75% of the company. Ethan took it all. Left you with nothing but the mansion and a credit card he monitored every second.”
I stared at the papers.
At my own signature, copied so perfectly I almost couldn’t tell it was fake.
All the times Ethan had told me the company was failing.
All the times he’d said I was too stupid to run it, too emotional, too weak.
All lies.
I closed the folder, hands still shaking.
But this time, the shaking wasn’t from fear.
It was from rage.
Hot, bright, burning rage that chased away the last of the pain meds’ fog.
“I want it back,” I said, voice steady.
J looked at me, eyes sharp.
“All of it?”
“All of it,” I said. “The company. The money. The mansion. Every last thing he stole from me. And I want him to pay for what he did.”
J stood up, a slow smile spreading across his face.
May you like
The kind of smile that meant someone was about to lose everything.
“Then let’s go to war, little bird.”
