Two days after my wedding, my mother-in-law fired the longtime maid, threw her stained apron at me, and sneered, “You married into this family to serve it, not to sit around like a queen.” My husband watched silently as she ordered me to clean their mansion from dawn to midnight. I calmly packed my bags and walked toward the door—just before the maid slipped something into my suitcase and whispered, “Leave now. They’re terrified you’ll discover what’s on this drive.”

As Ethan began addressing the surrounding reporters who were rapidly gathering near the VIP perimeter, Lachlan grabbed my arm and dragged me into the quiet, dimly lit corridor leading to the private terrace.

“Sarah, please!” he sobbed, dropping his pompous facade entirely. He fell to his knees on the cold marble floor, grasping at the hem of my emerald dress. “I am begging you! Talk to your cousin! Have him pull the filing!”

I looked down at the man I had once believed was my protector. Seeing him cowering on the floor, weeping like a pathetic child, made me wonder how I had ever been blinded by his surface charm.

“Pull the filing?” I asked coldly. “So you can go back to stealing from young women and forcing them to scrub your mother’s floors?”

“It was all my mother!” Lachlan wailed, his eyes wide with desperate self-preservation. “She forced me to do it! She controlled the bank accounts! She told me if I didn't go along with the plan to take your trust fund, she would disinherit me and leave me with the gambling debts!”

He was throwing his own mother under the bus without a single second of hesitation.

“You watched her throw that apron at me, Lachlan,” I said, my voice devoid of any emotion. “You told me to adapt to your family's customs. You were perfectly happy to watch me suffer as long as your debts were paid.”

“I can change!” he pleaded, reaching up to grip my hands. “We’re still legally married! We can take what’s left of the trust, leave the country, and start over in Europe! Just destroy the drive!”

I slowly pulled my hands away from his grip, taking a step back into the moonlight.

“The drive is already in the hands of the federal prosecutor, Lachlan. And as for our marriage?”