Chapter 1
Five days after my son was cut from my body via a C-section, my husband stood outside the hospital doors, casually jingling a twenty-dollar bill and a few loose coins into my palm. The sharp metallic edges of the coins dug into my trembling skin, leaving a red, bleeding scratch. He looked at me, coldly uttering a single sentence:
"Take the bus home."
Not an Uber.
Not a cab.
And certainly not the sleek black Maybach parked less than three meters away—the car where my initials were still discreetly stitched into the premium leather headrests.
Just the bus.
I stood there, clutching our newborn son tightly against my chest. The incision from the surgery still burned, throbbing painfully beneath the waistband of the loose maternity leggings the nurse had helped me pull on earlier. My milk had come in that morning, painfully, engorged and uneven. Over the last five days, I had slept for less than four hours in total. The hospital identification band still clung to my wrist like living proof that I had just survived a life-or-death ordeal.
Yet Caleb Thorne, my husband of two years, looked at me with an annoyed glare, as if I were nothing but an inconvenience disrupting his schedule.
"Don’t make that face, Cordelia," he said, glancing down at the expensive watch on his wrist. "My parents are already waiting."
I stared at him blankly, my ears ringing, wondering if I had misheard: "Waiting for what?"
Caleb sighed—the kind of exasperated sigh a powerful boss gives when his secretary forgets his morning coffee, not the sigh of a husband to a wife who is pale, barely able to stand, holding their newborn child in her arms.
"Dinner," he said matter-of-factly. "I told you. My mom, Brenda, and Dad want to celebrate. I already booked a table at Harrington’s in the Meatpacking District."
The nurse standing beside me suddenly froze; the air in the room turned to ice.
She was the one who had wheeled me from the postpartum ward down to the discharge exit, smiling politely the entire time to save me from embarrassment while Caleb didn't even bother to ask if his wife was in pain. Now, she looked at Caleb, then at me, and finally down at the baby sleeping soundly beneath the blue hospital blanket.
"Mr. Thorne," the nurse spoke up carefully, "Mrs. Thorne shouldn't be walking much yet. She just underwent major abdominal surgery."
Caleb flashed a tight, arrogant, practiced smile. "I know. That’s why she’s going straight home."
"On... on a bus?" I whispered, my voice trembling violently.
He pressed the loose change into my hand once more, forcing the coins deeper into my flesh. "It’s not rush hour. You’ll be fine."
Behind him, the Maybach flashed its headlights twice, as if urging him to hurry.
That car was a 21st birthday gift from my father. When we were dating, Caleb used to criticize it as "too flashy." But after we married, he claimed it was "perfect for investor meetings." Over time, he drove it more than I did, until he eventually monopolized it completely. Somewhere between my prolonged bouts of morning sickness and his first magazine interview, my car had naturally transformed into his symbol of success.
My husband turned his back and walked toward the vehicle.
His mother, Marjorie Thorne, was sitting in the back seat, wearing a luxurious cream coat and a pearl necklace—the very necklace she had once passive-aggressively pressured me to pay out of my own pocket to have tailored to her size. His sister, Brenda, slid into the passenger seat with a booming laugh, her bright red lips prominent and her meticulously manicured nails tapping against the dashboard as if she were the rightful owner. His father got in last, without so much as glancing in the direction of my baby and me.
Not a single soul got out of the car to look at the child.
Not a single soul asked if I could even stand.
Caleb opened the driver’s door, then, as if remembering one final chore, he turned his head and shouted:
"There are leftovers in the fridge. Heat them up yourself. And don’t forget to wash the baby bottles. Mom said you should start getting used to the routine of housework by now."
Slam.
The car door shut tightly. The city bus let out a heavy sigh, its brakes screeching piercingly as it pulled up to the stop right by the curb behind me.
The nurse gently touched my elbow, her eyes filled with profound sympathy. "Mrs. Thorne... do you want me to call someone to help?"
For a split second, I almost said no.
For the past two years, I had always refused help. I brushed off my father's worries and ignored my mother's warnings. I had suppressed every instinct screaming at me that Caleb's love had morphed into toxic possession the moment he realized I was willing to shrink myself—to break my own wings—just to fit into his world.
I had married him under the name Cordelia Ray—a normal girl who claimed her father owned a small apple orchard in upstate New York. I had completely hidden my true identity: Cordelia Sterling, the only daughter of Harrison Sterling—the man whose private equity decisions could move global financial markets before breakfast.
I had wanted a pure love, untainted by the glamor of the Sterling family. I wanted someone to choose me even when they thought I had nothing.
For a while, I believed Caleb was that man.
But then he tasted a bit of success.
His family grew accustomed to a lavish lifestyle funded by my money.
And I became a slow, exhausted pregnant woman, valued only as a vessel to carry on the Thorne lineage.
I looked down at the baby in my arms. Leo’s tiny lips twitched in his dreams, his fingers curled like delicate rosebuds against the blanket.
Something inside me suddenly fell completely silent.
It wasn't heartbreak. Heartbreak was too weak.
It was the cold silence that comes when the last candle in a burning house finally dies out, and for the first time, you see exactly where the emergency exits are located.
"I’m okay," I told the nurse, my voice hollow.
But I wasn't okay. I stepped onto the bus, one hand gripping the handrail tightly. Each step I took felt like a fiery blade stabbing directly through the incision in my lower abdomen. The bus driver watched me struggle but said nothing. I dropped the wrinkled cash and coins into the fare box with a trembling hand, then forced myself to move toward a seat near the window.
The bus abruptly lurched forward before I could even sit down. I nearly collapsed, barely choking back a scream as I held Leo tighter against my chest. Around me, the other passengers kept their heads buried in their phones. Not a single person looked up. New York City slid past the glass window in blurs of glass, brick, traffic lights, and strangers—people who had absolutely no idea that a woman’s marriage had just ended in humiliating fashion in broad daylight, valued at exactly twenty dollars and a bus ride.
At the very first red light, the familiar Maybach emerged from nowhere, gliding up and stopping directly alongside my bus.
I knew every curve of that car better than my own reflection. The sleek midnight-black body. The dark tint privacy glass. The Sterling family crest hidden cleverly beneath the rear license plate frame, because I had once thought humility would protect me from those who loved me for the wrong reasons.
Through the front windshield, I saw Caleb laughing.
Not a polite smile. He was laughing out loud, completely radiant.
Brenda said something from the passenger seat and tossed her stylish hair. Marjorie leaned forward from the back, her mouth wide open in a delighted conversation. Caleb’s face was relaxed, joyful—a demeanor he hadn't shown me in months.
The traffic light turned green.
The Maybach accelerated, surging forward proudly.
The aging bus groaned as it crawled along behind it.
That was the exact moment my heart completely stopped bleeding and begging. Instead, it turned to ice.
I carefully shifted Leo to one arm, using the other to reach deep into my bag for my phone. My fingers shook so violently I almost dropped it onto the dirty floor of the bus. I scrolled past Caleb’s number, past Brenda’s, past every name of the people I had once diminished myself to please.
I stopped at a single name.
"Dad."
I hadn't called this number in months. Every time he reached out, I would only text back: I'm fine. Caleb is busy with work. The baby is very healthy. We'll come visit you soon. Lies wrapped in the stubborn pride of a daughter.
The phone rang only once.
"Cordelia?" My father’s deep, commanding voice cut through instantly, unable to hide his underlying anxiety. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"
I closed my eyes. The bus slammed over a large pothole, and a gut-wrenching wave of pain from my incision shot straight to my brain, causing tears to spill over uncontrollably.
"Dad..." I choked out.
Just that one word. That was all I could manage before my throat tightened, and I burst into sobbing gasps.
May you like
On the other end of the line, the entire atmosphere surrounding the powerful man named Harrison Sterling abruptly shifted. His silence became terrifyingly suffocating. I could hear the sharp sound of his fountain pen being slammed hard onto his oak desk.
"Where are you?" His voice dropped, carrying a chilling aura of absolute fury. "Tell me, daughter. Where are you?!
