Chapter 2 - The Cold Awakening
For four long years, Emily had been the submissive, quiet wife who endured Margaret’s subtle insults and Andrew’s cruel neglect. She had tolerated their arrogance because she believed in love, duty, and family. But three nights ago, the mask fell off forever.
When Emily discovered that Andrew and Margaret had been secretly transferring funds from her late father's real estate trust, she confronted them in the kitchen of their private mansion. Instead of apologizing, Margaret had shoved her down the grand marble staircase. As Emily lay broken on the cold tile, her femur shattered and blood pooling beneath her leg, Andrew and his mother simply walked past her, locked the front doors, and drove away to attend a charity gala, leaving her to bleed out in the dark.
They thought she would die. They thought her death would be ruled a tragic fall, leaving her entire thirty-million-dollar estate in Andrew's hands.
They didn't know she had managed to drag herself across the kitchen floor to reach her phone.
Slowly, Emily turned her head. Her dark eyes locked onto Andrew’s pale, sweat-streaked face. The sheer intensity of her gaze was so lethal, so unyielding, that Andrew involuntarily flinched, shrinking back an inch on his knees.
"You thought leaving me on that kitchen floor would break me," Emily said, her voice dropping into a low, steady, and bone-chilling tone.
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Andrew’s throat hitched, his tongue feeling like sandpaper. "E-Emily... it was an accident! Mother panicked, and I—"
"It only made me stronger," Emily interrupted softly, her whisper cutting through his lies like a razor blade.
