“My husband of five years, a ruthless New York mogul, paraded his affairs while refusing to touch me. My existence was a public humiliation, a constant, quiet ache in a gilded cage. To finally get a reaction, I staged a fake affair of my own. His response wasn't jealousy. It was violence. He stabbed me with a letter opener and threatened to destroy the one thing I had left: my late mother's memorial garden. At his mistress's birthday party-held on the anniversary of my mother's death-he forced me to my knees. I had to publicly apologize to the woman he was cheating on me with, my own half-sister, Aubrey. But the ultimate betrayal came when I discovered a secret video from a decade ago. It proved Aubrey hadn't just been there when my mother fell from a balcony. She had pushed her. And my husband-the man who swore he'd find her killer-had helped cover it all up. As I knelt on that cold floor, broken and defeated, he made his final choice. He pressed a button on a remote, and my mother's garden exploded into dust and ash. In that moment, the woman he thought he knew died, and someone new was born from the wreckage.”