Rise from Ashes

My sister and I were stranded on a deserted road, eight months pregnant and with a flat tire, when a truck' s headlights pinned us in their glare.

It wasn't swerving to avoid us. It was aiming for us.

The crash was a symphony of destruction. As a monstrous pain ripped through my pregnant belly, I called my husband, Kade, my voice choked with blood and fear.

"Kade… accident… the baby… something' s wrong with the baby."

But I didn't hear panic. I heard his stepsister, Florence, whining in the background about a headache.

Then came Kade' s voice, cold as ice.

"Stop being so dramatic. You probably just bumped a curb. Florence needs me."

He hung up. He chose her over me, over his sister-in-law, over his own unborn child.

I woke up in the hospital to two truths. My sister, a world-renowned pianist, would never play again. And our son, the baby I had carried for eight months, was gone.

They thought we were just collateral damage in their perfect lives.

They were about to find out we were the reckoning.

Chapter 1

Gloria Carpenter POV:

The first call to my husband went to voicemail. The second, too. On the third, as the headlights grew into blinding suns pinning us to the side of the deserted road, I finally understood.

My marriage was a lie.

Just hours ago, Charlene and I were the shimmering centerpiece of Gotham' s high society pages. The Carpenter sisters, the envy of every woman who dreamed of a fairy-tale ending. We had married the Conrad twins, Kade and Carlisle, heirs to a corporate empire that could buy and sell small countries. Our lives were supposed to be set, gilded cages of comfort and adoration.

Tonight, the gold had peeled back to reveal cheap, rusted iron.

"They' re not stopping, Glo," Charlene whispered, her voice tight with a fear that mirrored my own. Her hands, those gifted, insured-for-millions hands that could make a piano weep, gripped the steering wheel of our stalled car.

I clutched my phone, my thumb hovering over Kade' s name. A wave of nausea, sharp and acidic, rose in my throat, completely unrelated to the eight months of pregnancy that made my movements clumsy. The baby inside me, a tiny, insistent flutter of life, kicked against my ribs as if sensing my panic.

Pick up, Kade. Please, just pick up.

The mental link between us, once a vibrant current of shared thoughts and emotions, was silent. It hadn't always been this way. In the beginning, his mind was an open book to me, full of reassurances and a fierce, possessive love I mistook for devotion. But lately, especially since his stepsister Florence returned, the connection had grown frayed, then muted, and now… nothing. It was like screaming into an empty room.

The truck accelerated. It wasn't swerving to avoid us. It was aiming for us.

My breath hitched. "Try Carlisle again," I urged Charlene, my voice barely a tremor.

She shook her head, her knuckles white. "I did. He said the same thing as Kade. That they' re busy."

Busy. The word was a slap. Busy consoling Florence because she' d had a minor argument with her ex-boyfriend. Kade' s voice from his last brief, irritated call echoed in my ears. "For God' s sake, Gloria, can' t you handle a flat tire? Florence is having a panic attack. Her needs come first right now."

Her needs. A broken nail was a tragedy for Florence. A cancelled shopping trip was a crisis. And my husband, and my sister' s husband, treated her trivial dramas as matters of state security, while their pregnant wives were stranded on a dark, forgotten highway.