Chapter 1
"He wed the daughter everyone branded “the absolute ugliest” from one of the most affluent families solely for her fortune… yet on their wedding night, he spotted bl00d seeping beneath her bridal gown. She whispered a single phrase: “My father did this.” He retrieved the concealed key stitched into the lace, contacted an attorney, and realized their union was a smokescreen for a de:adly plot.
“Victor Whitmore literally paid that groom to marry his daughter because no one else could stomach looking at her,” a female guest murmured from the front pew.
The malicious gossip traveled through the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in San Jose like wildfire. Evelyn Whitmore caught those whispers right from the entrance, enveloped by floral arrangements, flashing cameras, and two hundred attendees who hadn't gathered to celebrate her joy, but simply to verify if the nasty rumors were accurate.
At twenty-nine years old, Evelyn was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried herself with a silent dignity. A deep, wine-tinted birthmark stained a portion of her left cheek and trailed down onto her neck. Around her temples, her hair was noticeably thin. Ever since she was a little girl, she had suffered through vicious taunts that her own father never even tried to halt: monster, embarrassment, the daughter nobody would ever willingly pick.
That was the exact reason she marched down the church aisle without wearing a veil.
Waiting for her at the altar was Adrian Bennett, the heir to a corporate empire that had recently been shattered by a massive financial scandal. His father, Thomas Bennett, had d!ed facing heavy embezzlement charges, the Bennett Group's financial accounts had been completely frozen, and his little sister was forced to abandon her university studies.
Victor Whitmore had proposed a deal to salvage it all: clear the mounting debts, reopen the investigation into his father's case, and restore the Bennett family's reputation.
In exchange, Adrian was required to marry Evelyn.
Exactly three weeks prior, during their single face-to-face encounter before the ceremony, she had laid it all out clearly.
“My dad mentions that you are incredibly desperate.”
“And I was informed that you absolutely despise lies.”
“They most likely told you that I am completely hideous, too.”
Adrian held her stare steadily.
“They mentioned a whole lot of things to me. I would much rather get to know you myself before echoing any of it.”
It certainly was not true love. However, nobody had ever addressed Evelyn without offering artificial pity or sheer cruelty masked as a joke. That was precisely why she agreed to the arrangement.
She desperately needed a way out, as well.
Her mother, Margaret, had d!ed roughly twelve years ago after plummeting from the balcony of their family property in Lake Tahoe. The police report officially declared it a tragic accident. Evelyn never bought that story for a second. Ever since that terrible day, Victor had kept her trapped under the strict supervision of private physicians, pumped her full of heavy sedatives, and slapped her with endless diagnoses of “emotional instability.”
The evening before her nuptials, Evelyn stumbled upon a tiny key concealed inside Margaret's old sewing kit. She was entirely convinced that it unlocked an ancient file box her father kept tightly secured.
She carefully stitched it directly into the inner corset of her bridal gown.
A few hours afterward, two thugs dispatched by Victor barged right into her bedroom. They forcefully grabbed her arms, ransacked her furniture drawers, and aggressively demanded to know exactly what she had snatched from his private study. Evelyn confessed to absolutely nothing.
They never bothered to inspect the wedding dress.
As they were officially signing their marriage documents, Victor placed a heavy hand upon his daughter's shoulder to pose for the event photographers.
Evelyn recoiled so vi0lently that the ink pen slipped right out of her grip and h!t the floor.
Adrian caught that subtle reaction.
Later that very night, at the Redwood Crest Estate in Napa Valley, a maid noticed fresh bl00d staining the back of Evelyn's gown. She immediately locked herself inside the master suite and absolutely refused to be examined by the medical professional her father had dispatched.
Adrian knocked gently on the wooden door.
“I will not enter this room unless you explicitly give me permission. But I really need to know if you are seriously hurt.”
Following an extended, heavy silence, the lock finally clicked open.
Evelyn was standing right next to the bed, the back of her elegant dress completely unzipped. The concealed key had poked through the thick fabric and sliced deeply into her flesh.
But that minor wound was not what stole Adrian's breath away.
He noticed faded, ancient scars wrapped all the way around her wrists, deep indentations encircling her ankles, and ghostly white lines tracking across her back, looking exactly as if she had been forcefully restrained for days on end.
“Who on earth did this to you?” he questioned, dropping down to one knee so he would not be towering over her.
Evelyn pressed her lips into a tight, thin line.
“My own father did. Along with the private doctors he handsomely paid off to claim it was all being done for my own well-being.”
In that exact second, Adrian finally understood that he had not wed the woman society had cruelly dubbed a monster.
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He had actually married the sole survivor of a deeply corrupt family that was actively trying to completely destr0y her.
And Victor Whitmore had just realized that Margaret's hidden key was no longer sitting where it was supposed to be kept.
