Chapter 08
Chapter 8
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AMELIA’S POV
Six months.
That’s how long I disappeared off the face of the earth. No phone. No press. No damn noise. Just silence and the scent of lavender fields outside my family’s estate in the South of France. You’d think silence was peaceful.
But it wasn’t. Not at first.
I had night terrors for weeks. Couldn’t even sleep in a bed without seeing red blooming between my legs. My brother Adrian–yes, Dr. Rodrigo, perfect prodigy and private clinic miracle worker–stayed up most nights making sure I didn’t claw my own skin off from panic. He even took my phone on the first day and locked it away, like it was a drug I needed to detox from. He said, “Social media and men. Same poison, different packaging.”
He wasn’t wrong.
My parents just held me like I was still seventeen and sobbing over some boy I couldn’t remember the name of now. Back then, I thought heartbreak was missing a call.
Now? Heartbreak was watching the man who once said he loved me leave me bleeding on a hospital bed like I was a burden.
I broke down once, during breakfast. Halfway through a croissant. Out of nowhere. My mother dropped her knife and wrapped her arms around me while I sobbed into her silk robe. “You don’t have to be okay yet, hija. We’ll wait with you.”
It took six months of therapy. Real therapy. Not that rich–housewife, “I’m sad because my credit card declined” type. I mean real work–shadow work, trauma release, sessions where I had to actually say the baby’s name out loud.
Yes, I named the baby.
No, I’m not telling you.
And then one day, I woke up and I wasn’t numb. I didn’t flinch when I saw the color red. I didn’t dream about Favio’s voice echoing down hospital corridors.
I was still scarred. But I wasn’t broken.
And that’s when my father offered me vengeance like a glass of wine at dinner.
“We could bankrupt the Cunninghams if you give me the word,” he said, folding his napkin like it was a death certificate. “They shouldn’t get away with what they did to our daughter.” But I just shook my head and looked him straight in the eye. “No, Papá. This is my fight
now.”
Because this wasn’t about mourning anymore. This wasn’t about the baby I lost–though that grief still sits under my skin like a dormant flame.
No.
This was about power.
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I am no longer Amelia Winslock, their little obedient billionaire bride. I’m not a name they can scrub clean or a wife they can exile into silence.
My real name is Amelia Rodrigo–and I’m going to hunt them with every tool they handed me. Every signature. Every bank transaction. Every whispered insult they thought I didn’t
hear.
The day Adrian gave me back my phone, he looked at me and said, “You sure you’re ready
for this?”
And I said, “I was born ready. I just forgot for a while.”
First thing I did was dial that old devil in pearls–Mrs. Cunningham herself.
She picked up after two rings, her voice sweet like sugar dipped in venom. “Oh, Amelia, I wondered when you’d call. Let me guess, you need money now? Looking for a little pocket change after your stunt?”
I smiled into the phone. “I just wanted to confirm the wire transfer. One billion, wasn’t it? You know… the amount we agreed on?”
She actually laughed. I could picture her perfectly–perched on one of those overpriced antique chairs, a whiskey in hand, looking smug.
“Oh, darling,” she said, “you really are dumber than I thought. The paper you signed? That wasn’t a financial contract. That was your divorce. And it included a clause that said you’d never ask for a penny from my son. Not now, not ever.”
Then she had the audacity to say, “You really should’ve read the fine print.”
And hung up.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry.
I laughed.
Because poor little Mrs. Cunningham still thinks her empire is safe. Still thinks I’m the woman who begged her son to love her. Still thinks I can’t touch her. She has no idea who I really am.
I don’t want their money. I want everything else.
I want the Winslock name back–my foster family’s legacy, stolen by their greed. I want their board members defecting, their factories shut down, their press in scandal.
And when I’m done? I want Favio to stand in the middle of his glass empire, watching it crack from the inside.
Not because I still love him. But because he killed my child and buried my name–and thought I’d stay dead with it.
Not this time. I’m not here to heal anymore.
I’m here to ruin everything.
***
The email hit my inbox on a Tuesday morning, just after my coffee cooled and my silence. was starting to taste too sweet. It came with a chime, simple, harmless–like it didn’t carry
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A luxury wedding invitation in digital black and gold, so dripping in wealth and arrogance it practically smelled like old money and new sins. The signature at the bottom? Mrs. fucking Cunningham. She was really going through with it. Favio was really marrying Caroline.
One month from now. There was a private note attached–her final little dagger.
“Now you’re free to watch him love someone better. Try not to cry, darling.”
I leaned back in my chair, slowly sipping the rest of my lukewarm espresso like I was tasting war.
Cry?
Oh no, sweetheart.
You should’ve sent a warning instead.
I didn’t cry. I smirked. Let them think I’m soft. Let them believe I’m sitting in some dark room grieving my ex and chain–smoking over the ruins of my life.
I tapped my screen. “Call Sofia,” I told my assistant. “And get Marco. I want the full team. I want to be unrecognizable. I want to break necks when I walk in.”
