Chapter 1

The air in the warehouse was sharp with cold, each breath a cloud of white mist.

It was the night before my engagement party.

A few hours ago, I was Noah Miller, a tech prodigy, about to marry Emily Stone.

Now, I was just a broken body on a frozen concrete floor.

Men sent by my own fiancée did this.

They didn' t just beat me. They were systematic. My limbs were shattered, twisted into unnatural angles. A final, precise blow to my head, and the world dissolved into a smear of red and black.

They left me for dead.

The cold seeped into my bones, a slow, creeping numbness that promised to end the pain.

I was barely alive when they found me, suffering from severe hypothermia and trauma.

I remember the frantic sounds of the medics, the rush of cold air as they moved me.

Then, the sterile brightness of a hospital.

My mother, Susan Miller, the powerful CEO of Miller Corp, was there. Her face was a mask of fury.

"Find out who did this," she ordered her assistant, her voice like ice. "He needs the best medical team. Now."

She vowed revenge. She swore to call off the engagement.

For a moment, lying paralyzed in the chaos, a flicker of hope warmed me. My mother was on my side.

Then, outside the operating room, I heard their voices.

I was supposed to be unconscious, but I could hear everything.

"Susan, I' m so sorry," Emily' s voice trembled. "I just wanted them to rough him up a little, to scare him. I never meant for it to go this far."

A cold silence.

Then my mother' s voice, devoid of any warmth.

"It doesn' t matter. He and his father were getting too ambitious."

My blood ran cold, colder than the warehouse floor.

"They were a threat to Alex' s position," she continued. "Alex is the future of this family."

Alex. My adopted brother. The son she truly cherished.

"After Alex marries you and takes over the company, I' ll send Noah abroad. I' ll make sure he' s compensated, of course. A small price for him to stay out of the way."

The world tilted. My family wasn' t a family. It was a pit of snakes.

My mother was still talking, justifying herself to Emily.

"Noah had the gall to ask me for money for your engagement ring. His father, David, even offered him company shares. Can you believe the nerve? A clear power grab. I had to put a stop to it."

The operating room doors swung open. A doctor' s voice cut through the haze.

"Mrs. Miller, we need to operate immediately. The damage to his lower body is critical. Any delay, and he' ll lose everything from the waist down. He' ll be permanently disabled."

Susan' s voice was chillingly calm.

"And what about his ability to have children?"

"That would be gone, too," the doctor said, his tone urgent.

My mother paused.

"Well, it' s not like he' s going to inherit the company anyway. His ability to produce an heir is irrelevant."

A strangled sound came from Emily, but she didn' t object.

"Just… just do what you have to do," Susan said, her voice dismissive. "But there' s no rush."

They were delaying my surgery. They were choosing to let me be crippled.

Devastation washed over me, a black tide that drowned out the physical pain. My mother. My own mother had orchestrated this.

And I knew why.

It was all for Alex, the son she' d raised in luxury. But it was also for his biological father, Robert Davis.

Robert was a former employee, a man my mother had an affair with years ago. He was the one who switched me, her true biological son, with his own child at birth. He condemned me to a life of hardship while his son, Alex, lived the life that should have been mine.

My mother had found out the truth years ago. But instead of correcting the wrong, she merely banished Robert and kept Alex, showering him with the love and privilege she denied me.

I remembered overhearing her once, talking to her reflection, a whisper in the dark. "I owe Robert so much. I wronged him."

She didn't feel wronged by him. She still loved him.

A tremor of pure rage shot through my broken body.

"Oh, look, he' s in pain," Susan cooed, rushing to my side, her voice dripping with fake affection. She stroked my hair. "My poor baby. Don' t worry, Mommy' s here. It' s all Emily' s fault, that vicious girl. We will make her pay."

The hypocrisy was suffocating.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not that I could see anything but darkness anyway.

My life was a lie. My future was gone.

What was the point of even surviving?