Chapter 2

Spencer let out a heavy sigh, his face drawn with exhaustion.

"I'll find the money for the private jet."

"The company's cash flow is tight right now. Just wait half a year. Half a year, all right?"

His tone softened, as though he were trying to soothe a child in the middle of a tantrum.

"I set you up with a team of a hundred postpartum nannies on that island. You have fresh ingredients flown in every day from overseas. All you have to do is lie in the sun and enjoy the breeze."

"Vanessa graduated top of her class from Harvard. She quit her job as group general manager just to take care of you. She went there to be your caretaker."

"What more could you possibly have to complain about?"

Complain.

What was there to complain about?

If only any of that had actually been true.

For the past five months, I'd done everything I could to save enough money to feed my three children.

I'd even fought over scraps of dog food.

Never mind Vanessa.

The childhood friend Spencer thought so highly of had been no help at all.

Before I went into the delivery room, she told me everything was arranged, and all I had to do was relax and deliver my babies.

Just then, the tourist whose phone I'd snatched poked his head out from behind me.

He leaned in and stared at Spencer on the screen, looking utterly bewildered.

"Huh, Mr. Hargrove, all this stuff you're talking about—is it some kind of fantasy?"

"I've been wandering around this island for half the day. How come I haven't seen a single bit of it?"

As he spoke, he took his phone back and slowly panned the camera around the island.

The ruined fishing shack creaked in the sea breeze, looking ready to collapse.

Mud and potholes stretched as far as the eye could see.

The camera swung back to me.

I stood there in rags, shaking uncontrollably in the cold sea breeze.

The three babies in my arms were wrapped in tattered cloth, their tiny bodies so frail and bony that they looked like three newborn kittens.

The tourist couldn't hide his disbelief.

"At first, I thought whoever grabbed my phone was some crazy old woman."

"Turns out she's the daughter-in-law of the Hargroves, New England's shipping dynasty?"

"Tsk, this high-society life really isn't fit for a human being. Look what it's done to her."

On the other end of the stream, Spencer's face turned livid.

"How could this be?"

"Vanessa sent me photos just yesterday—photos of you sunbathing on the beach in a bikini!"

"She said she had everything taken care of!"

I managed a bitter smile.

"I never saw any luxury island."

"After I had the babies, I opened my eyes and I found myself stranded on this island, surrounded by nothing but fish."

After three seconds of silence, the comments in the livestream turned against Spencer completely.

"Oh my God! Is Spencer an Oscar winner? He's over there playing the devoted-husband act?"

"He dumped his wife and kids on a wrecked island to die, then sat around getting all emotional over fake photos of her? Disgusting!"

"This isn't scum anymore. This is murder!"

I looked at Spencer's shocked, confused face and continued.

"If the babies hadn't come down with fevers, and there wasn't a single tablet of fever medicine to buy on this island, I wouldn't have done this."

A flicker of pain crossed Spencer's face, but irritation quickly overtook it. He still couldn't seem to understand what was happening.

"Then why didn't you contact me?!"

How had I not contacted him?

I'd spent the past five months trying every way I could think of to reach him.

I'd borrowed phones from tourists and even stolen them from fishermen.

But every message, every call, went unanswered.

I looked at Spencer, my voice hoarse.

"I couldn't reach you."

Spencer looked at me as if I were the one who'd let him down beyond repair.

"You couldn't reach me, so you couldn't think of any other way? You just let the kids suffer like this with you?"

I forced a smile more painful than tears.

With the Hargroves blocking every way out, what else could I have done?

At first, I'd naively assumed the Hargrove security system was simply set to block calls from unknown numbers.