I never told my in-laws that I am the daughter of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. When I was seven months pregnant, they forced me to cook the entire Christmas dinner alone. My mother-in-law even made me eat standing up in the kitchen, claiming it was ‘good for the baby.’ When I tried to sit down, she pushed me so hard I began to miscarry. I reached for my phone to call the police, but my husband snatched it away and mocked me: ‘I’m a lawyer. You won’t win.’ I looked him straight in the eyes and said calmly: ‘Then call my father.’ He laughed as he dialed, unaware that his legal career was about to end.”

“Give me that!”

He snatched the phone from my hand. He didn’t just take it—he threw it.

He hurled it across the kitchen. It hit the far wall with a sickening crack and shattered into plastic shards.

“You’re not calling anyone,” David whispered, looming over me. “You’re going to shut up. You’re going to stop bleeding. And you’re going to apologize to my mother for ruining my Christmas.”

Chapter 3: The Lawyer’s Arrogance

I lay in a pool of my own blood and the remains of my unborn child. The pain should have paralyzed me. The physical impact should have knocked me unconscious.

But something else was happening.

The Thorne lineage was waking up.

But David had just killed my child.

The fire could no longer be smothered. It was an inferno.

I stopped crying. I wiped the tears from my face with a bloodstained hand.