Chapter 1

I was searching for my daughter Lily’s custom white leather shoes that she wore on her first birthday to recreate a photo for her sixth birthday party. So, I walked to my husband Arthur’s study.

I pulled the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk where I knew we had hidden the precious things of Lily but it was locked. Good thing, I registered my prints on his emergency safe before. But why would he lock this now?

I pressed my thumb against the glowing scanner. Inside, there were no tiny white shoes. There was only a gray fireproof box I haven’t seen before.

I pulled it out. It was our daughter’s birth certificate. But it looked completely different from the one we kept in our family binder in the kitchen. My eyes scanned down to the parent section.

Father: Arthur James Sterling.

Mother: Serena Claire Vance.

The air vanished from my lungs. I stared at the dark ink. I read the name again. And again.

Serena.

Serena was Arthur’s first love. She was the beautiful, tragic ghost who haunted the early years of our relationship. She was the woman he was supposed to marry. But Serena died in a horrific car crash eight years ago.

Eight years ago.

Lily was turning six today.

My hands shook violently. The crisp paper rattled in my grip. This was impossible. A dead woman could not give birth.

A dead woman could not be the mother of a six-year-old child.

I stumbled backward until my spine hit the heavy bookshelf.

I clutched the paper tightly to my chest. I stared out the large window.

Down in the sunlit yard, Lily was laughing. She spun around in circles, chasing soap bubbles with her friends.

The bright sunlight caught her face. It illuminated her striking, vivid violet eyes.

Those eyes.

For six years, the whispers had followed us.

"Her eyes are so... striking," my mother-in-law had murmured at Lily's christening, her voice laced with a cold judgment I couldn't decipher at the time.

"It is just weird genetics, Zoe," Arthur had promised me later that night in our bedroom. He had kissed my forehead. He had held me close, his strong arms wrapping around me like a shield. "My great-grandmother had violet eyes. It is a rare recessive trait. She is our beautiful miracle. She is entirely ours."

I had believed him. I had swallowed his lies because I loved him with every fiber of my being.

I trusted the man who slept beside me. I trusted the father of my child.

But looking at the official document in my trembling hands, the horrifying truth finally clicked into place.

Serena had frozen her embryos before she died. Arthur had told me once, in a moment of drunken grief, that they had planned to start a family. He had kept her embryos. He had kept a piece of her frozen in time.

He used them.

He used Serena's frozen embryos to create Lily.

A wave of pure, suffocating nausea crashed over me. The floor tilted dangerously beneath my feet.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

But the realization did not stop there. The true horror was just beginning. It clawed its way up my throat, choking me completely.

I looked down at my own stomach.

I remembered being pregnant. I remembered the agonizing morning sickness. I remembered painting the nursery yellow.

"Push, Zoe, push!" the doctor had yelled over the blinding pain of the delivery room.

"You are doing so great, baby. I am right here," Arthur had whispered, holding my hand, kissing my sweat-drenched forehead.

I gave birth six years ago. I pushed a living, breathing baby out of my own body. We did not use IVF. We conceived naturally. I remembered the positive pregnancy test. I got pregnant in our own bed.

My breath hitched. The room started to spin completely out of control.

If I got pregnant naturally... if I carried my own biological child for nine months... and if Lily is Serena's surrogate child...

What happened to my baby?

Where is the baby I carried in my own womb?

The questions hit me like a physical blow. Did my baby die? Did Arthur swap them at the hospital? Did he pay the elite doctors to take my biological child and replace her with Serena's baby? Did he steal my flesh and blood just to give himself the child he always wanted with her?

What did he do to my child?

Tears spilled down my cheeks. They blurred my vision. My entire world was shattering into a million jagged pieces.

"Zoe?"

The deep, familiar voice cut through the silence of the study.

I jumped. I spun around.

Arthur stood in the doorway. He wore a crisp white shirt and tailored slacks. He looked handsome. He looked like the perfect, loving husband I had worshipped for years.

Then, his eyes dropped to my hands.

The warm, loving smile vanished from his face instantly.

"What is this, Arthur?" I choked out. My voice was a harsh, shaking whisper. I held the paper up. "Who is this?"

The charming husband disappeared. The mask fell away completely. His jaw clenched tight. His posture went rigid.

His dark eyes turned instantly cold. They were completely devoid of love. They were the eyes of a ruthless stranger.

"Arthur, tell me," I sobbed, stepping forward. "It says Serena. It says Serena is her mother. How is this possible? Where is my baby?"

He took a slow, deliberate step into the room. He reached behind him and closed the heavy oak door. The lock clicked shut with a loud, final snap.

"Put that down," he commanded. His voice was a low, vibrating growl that shook the walls.

"No!" I screamed, clutching the paper tighter. "What did you do to my child?"