---- Chapter 13 Julian laughed, a cold, mirthless sound that chilled the room. "Love?" he sneered, yanking her head back by her hair. "You don't know the meaning of the word." He let her go, and she collapsed onto the floor. "You have one chance, Estelle. Tell me everything. Everything you did to Ember." When she only sobbed, he turned to his sister, who was slowly getting to her feet. "Jeanette. Get it out of her. Every text, every lie, every little thing she did to torture Ember. If you fail, I'll send you to the most remote, godforsaken corner of the earth, and you will never see New York again." Fear, stark and absolute, flashed in Jeanette's eyes. She nodded, grabbed a sobbing Estelle, and dragged her back into the hospital room, slamming the door shut. The sounds from within the room were horrific. Screams, pleas, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. An hour later, Jeanette emerged, her face pale but resolute. She handed Julian a phone. Estelle's phone. He scrolled through the messages, a detailed, chronological account of Estelle's sadistic campaign against Ember. Every taunting photo, every vicious lie, every carefully crafted humiliation. He saw the picture of Estelle in Ember's wedding ---- dress. He read the text about him being creeped out by her scars. With each message, another nail was driven into his heart. He remembered Ember's face after the gala, her quiet withdrawal, her hollow eyes. She had been enduring this, all of this, alone. And he had been the one holding the knife, twisting it deeper and deeper. He had pushed her away. He had handed her to her tormentor. He had destroyed her. A terrible, cold resolve settled over him. Estelle wanted to ruin Ember. He would ruin her instead. He made a few calls. The next day, compromising photos and videos of Estelle, from her own phone, were leaked to the tabloids. Her family's business, already on shaky ground, was hit with a series of devastating financial attacks, orchestrated by Julian. They were bankrupt within a week. He had Estelle locked away in a private "sanitarium." Her only entertainment was a television that played a constant loop of the photos and videos of her own humiliation, along with news reports of her family's downfall. She was driven mad, a fate far worse than a quick death. Jeanette was sent to a remote sheep station in Australia, as promised. Carlo Copeland, seeing the monster his son had become, quietly lifted the restrictions. Julian was free to look for ---- Ember. But it was too late. Ember had vanished without a trace. It was as if she had never existed. Six months passed. Six months of a frantic, globe-spanning search that was draining the Copeland fortune. Meanwhile, in a war-torn region of Africa, Ember was learning to be a doctor. The work was brutal, the conditions horrific. On her first day in a field camp, she saw a child die from a simple infection, and she threw up behind a tent, her body shaking. A hand offered her a piece of hard candy. "It helps," a kind voice said. She looked up into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He was another doctor, his face tired but his smile warm. His name was Gael King. She took the candy and got back to work. Later that day, she was helping search for survivors in a bombed-out village when she saw him. Aman, pale and emaciated, lying half-dead in the rubble. It was Julian.