"I was his fiancée, his perfect future... until he chose my best friend."

Betrayed on the eve of her wedding, Ava Harper vanishes without a trace. A year later, she returns—wearing a diamond ring from the coldest, most powerful man in the city: Damian Blackwood.

Their marriage? A contract.
Her reason? Revenge.
But nothing is ever that simple.

Damian has his own secrets.
Ethan—her ex-fiancé—isn't ready to let go.
And Ava? She's caught in a storm of love, lies, and longing she never expected.

Three hearts. One tangled past.
When love turns into a battlefield, who will she choose—the man who broke her, or the one who never meant to love her?


Ava Harper had everything—beauty, brains, and a fiancé who promised her forever. Until she walked in on him kissing her best friend.

Crushed and humiliated, she disappeared from their lives... only to return a year later as the wife of Damian Blackwood, the city’s most feared billionaire CEO.

But their marriage isn’t what it seems.
It’s a cold transaction.
A deal built on revenge.

Yet the line between pretend and real begins to blur. Damian’s icy heart starts to thaw. Ava’s broken one begins to trust again. And Ethan—her past—won’t stop chasing what he lost.

In a world where love is a weapon and trust is a trap, Ava must choose:
Her past, her present, or herself.

Ava was weightless, tumbling through memories not her own—Lily's laughter morphing into screams, lullabies into laments. Around her, floating shards of memory spiraled like shattered glass. Every jagged piece cut deeper than the last.


She saw Lily's soul—a canvas torn in two.


One half pulsed with golden warmth: innocence, hope, love.The other half bled black fire: resentment, betrayal, Seraphina.


Eyes half-closed. Heart wide open. Hands trembling.


"I don't want to hate you," she whispered."But I don't know who I am anymore."


Ava reached for her daughter, her voice cracking.


"You're mine, Lily. No one can take that away. Not even her."


But Seraphina appeared behind Lily, wrapping her arms around her like a shroud of silk and smoke.


"She was yours, Ava.Until you let her die.Until you gave her up to pain."


The flames curled around Lily's arms like snakes.


Lily winced. Her palms sparked—one gold, one crimson.


"You both love me… and you both hurt me."


Tears shimmered in her eyes, glowing like starlight on the verge of collapse.


A massive gate rose from the soul-storm below, wrought from bone and fire. Two sides. Two paths.


One led to Ava—bathed in scarlet moonlight, reaching out through raw heartbreak.


The other led to Seraphina—wreathed in fire, whispering promises of power and peace.


"You both want to save me…But which of you will let me choose?"


And then—she did something neither expected.


She raised her hands—and drove them into her own chest.


Lily screamed—not in pain, but in release.


Two halves tore free from her body—gold and black—rising into the sky like twin phoenixes.


The fire twisted. The Soulforge cracked.


But as she caught her in her arms, a cold laugh echoed from behind.


And in her place, rising from the black flame—


A teenage version of Lily stood.Hair dark as night. Eyes burning red.


Chapter 30 - The Child Who Burns