Chapter 1

"Don't call me Daddy! I'm not your father!" My mafia husband snarls, shoving our seven-year-old daughter away right before she can blow out her birthday candles.

Sophie stumbles backward. Her little party crown slips off her head and lands on the floor.

Nobody says a word. Fifty guests. Capos. Wives. Men who kill for the Hale family. Every one of them watches my daughter fall apart.

I rush forward and catch Sophie before she hits the table. Her body shakes. She doesn't cry. She just looks up at me, confused.

"Julian." My voice comes out low. "What the hell are you doing?"

He doesn't even look at me. He reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out an envelope. Tosses it onto the cake. The white frosting smears across the paper.

"Paternity test," he says. Loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Sophie isn't mine."

The whispers start at once.

My hands go cold.

"That's a lie," I say. "She's your daughter. You know she is."

Julian straightens his tie. Calm. Collected.

He just destroyed a child's birthday.

He doesn't care.

"The DNA doesn't lie, Riley. Maybe you should think about who else you were fucking seven years ago."

I can’t breathe.

Before I can speak, my mother stands up from the head table. I think she's going to defend me. I think she's going to tell Julian he's lost his mind.

Instead, she walks over to me and slaps me across the face.

The slap is loud.

"How dare you," she hisses. "You've shamed this entire family. Wasn't it enough that you stole Elena's life? Now you bring a bastard into a respectable marriage?"

I press my hand to my cheek. The sting spreads across my whole face.

Elena. Of course.

I look past my mother, and there she is. Elena—the woman my parents believed was their blood daughter. Their lost heir. The one who replaced me overnight.

She's standing next to Julian, holding his arm. Her eyes are red. She wants everyone to think she's been crying. Then I catch her smile.

She's enjoying this.

"Riley," my father says from his seat. He doesn't stand up. Doesn't even raise his voice. "We'll discuss the family holdings tomorrow. You owe Elena that much."

Family holdings.

They don't care about Sophie. A seven-year-old just got called a bastard at her own birthday party, and they're already carving up my family shares.

Sophie tugs on my sleeve. Her voice is barely a whisper. "Mommy, can we go home?"

Home. Where is that now?

I pick her up. She buries her face in my neck. I can feel her tears soaking through my dress.

I turn to Julian one last time. He's already looking at his phone. Elena leans into his shoulder, whispering something. He smirks.

I don't say a word. I carry my daughter through the ballroom, past the staring guests, past the ruined cake.

Nobody stops me.

Nobody follows.

The valet brings my car around. I buckle Sophie into the backseat. She still has her party crown in her hands.

"Mommy?" she says quietly.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Is it true? Is he not my daddy?"

My throat closes. I look at her in the rearview mirror. She looks exactly like Julian. The same jawline. The same dark eyes. Anyone with eyes can see it.

"He's lying," I say. "I promise you, he's lying."

She nods. But something in her face has changed. Something that shouldn't change in a seven-year-old.

I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles go white.

Julian thinks I'll crawl back. He thinks I'll cry and beg and wait for him to forgive me for something I never did.

He's wrong.

I pull out of the driveway and head toward Hale Tower, the clean front Julian runs for the family. If that test is fake, there has to be proof. And I'm going to find it tonight—even if I have to tear his desk apart with my bare hands.

But when I get there, the lobby lights are still on, and I hear Julian's voice drifting through the half-open door of his corner office.

He's laughing.

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