Chapter 1

The cold gel spread across my stomach, making me flinch. Liam' s hand was on my shoulder, but it offered no warmth. It was just a weight, a claim. In the dim light of the clinic room, the monitor glowed, showing a tiny, pulsing flicker. A life that was not mine to keep.

Liam stared at the screen, his face unreadable. He was a tech mogul, a man who saw the world in data points and outcomes. This flicker was a successful data point. A positive outcome. For him and his wife, my stepsister, Chloe.

"Everything looks perfect, Ava," the doctor said, her voice professionally cheerful. "The embryo has implanted beautifully. You' re officially pregnant."

I said nothing. I just watched the flicker. Liam squeezed my shoulder once, a gesture that was supposed to be reassuring but felt like a command. Behave. Do your part.

When we got back to the sterile, sprawling mansion that Liam and Chloe called home, she was waiting. Chloe sat in her custom-designed wheelchair, a cashmere blanket draped over her legs. Her face, usually arranged in a mask of sweet fragility, was tight with something ugly.

"Well?" she asked, her voice sharp.

"It was successful," Liam said, moving to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. A perfect picture of a devoted husband.

Chloe' s eyes, a pale, cold blue, fixed on me. They scanned my body, from my feet up to my flat stomach, as if she were inspecting a piece of equipment she had just purchased.

"Good," she finally said. She wheeled herself closer, her movements precise and aggressive. She stopped right in front of me, so close I could smell the expensive perfume clinging to her clothes.

She reached out and poked my stomach with a manicured finger. The pressure was slight, but it felt like a violation.

"You remember the deal, Ava," she whispered, her voice low and venomous. "You are just the vessel. A container. Nothing more. This baby is mine and Liam' s. You are not its mother. You are nothing to it."

Her words were meant to hurt, to strip me of any connection before it could even form. I knew that. I had agreed to this. I had signed the papers. I was Ava Green, a talented architect whose career had been systematically dismantled by Chloe' s father, my stepfather, Richard Sterling. I was broke, cornered, and desperate. This was my only way out of the financial ruin he had engineered.

I looked past her, my gaze finding a point on the far wall. The abuse was not new. Chloe had been tormenting me since the day her father married my mother. She resented my presence, my talent, my very existence. Her wheelchair, the result of a car accident years ago, had only given her a new and more powerful weapon: pity. She wielded her perceived victimhood like a shield and a sword, controlling everyone around her.

"Don' t you dare get attached," Chloe hissed, her face contorting with a jealousy that burned hot and bright. "You' re just the help. An incubator with legs."

I felt a strange sense of calm settle over me, a detachment that had become my shield. I let her words wash over me, refusing to let them find a home inside. My body was here, in this cold house, being used as a tool. But my mind was somewhere else, a place she couldn't touch. I met her furious gaze, my own eyes clear and empty.

I held her stare for a long moment, the silence stretching between us. Liam shifted uncomfortably behind her, but said nothing. He was always a spectator to his wife' s cruelty.

Finally, I gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

"I know," I said, my voice quiet but steady. "I' ll be gone as soon as it' s over."

Chloe' s eyes narrowed. She had expected tears or a fight. My calm unnerved her. She didn' t know that my promise was not just about the nine months ahead. It was about a future she couldn't control, a future where I would finally be free of her, of Liam, and of this entire toxic family. She thought she was in charge, but she was wrong. This was a countdown, and I was the only one who knew when the clock would run out.