The doctor lowering her mask at my abortion consultation was my husband's sister—and hours later, I filed to divorce Chicago's most feared man.

The silence that stretched between them through the receiver was heavy enough to crush a mountain.

Sophia felt the blood drain from her face, replaced instantly by an icy, searing rage.

*He knows.* Elena had told him.

"Is that what you think of me?" Sophia said, her voice dropping to a deadly, cold whisper. "You think I woke up and casually decided to discard a life?"

"No—Sophia, no, that's not what I meant—"

"You never ask why, do you, Luke?" Sophia interrupted, her words hitting him like silver bullets. "You never asked why I sat in that clinic alone. You never wondered what it felt like to hear your mother tell Vanessa she was the only woman who belonged in the Morgan family, right in the foyer of our home."

"My mother has nothing to do with us—"

"Your mother has everything to do with you because you let her!" Sophia spat, tears finally spilling down her cheeks, silent and hot. "For three years, I lived in your shadow. I watched you leave dinners to answer Vanessa’s calls. I listened to your sister treat me like a stranger until I ended up on her examination table! And the moment you find out, your first instinct is to ask if I murdered your heir?"

"Sophia, please, listen to me—"

"Don't look for me, Luke," she choked out. "The divorce will proceed. If you send your men after me, I will file a restraining order that will make the front page of the *Chicago Tribune*."

She hung up and immediately pulled the battery chip from the burner phone, dropping it into the trash can.

Across town, in the high-rise Morgan Tower, Luke slammed the receiver into the wall, shattering the glass panel behind his desk into a spiderweb of cracks.

"Sir?" his head of security, Mark, hurried in, alarmed.

Luke was breathing heavily, his tie loosened, his eyes rimmed in red. "Find Vanessa."