“She kissed me first,” my husband claimed when I caught him with his mistress on our fifth anniversary, but I left his penthouse without looking back—and the shocking discovery I made that night would turn his betrayal into a secret neither of us could have imagined.

*Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands, Washington.*

The morning air off the Pacific was crisp and smelled of pine needles and salt spray.

I stood on the wraparound wooden porch of my small cedar cottage, holding a steaming mug of peppermint tea. The sun was just beginning to burn through the coastal fog, illuminating the calm waters of the bay where fishing boats were already heading out for the day.

I looked down at my body.

At seven months pregnant, there was no hiding the truth anymore. My belly was high, round, and massive. Carrying twins was exhausting; my back constantly ached, my ankles were swollen, and the two little lives inside me seemed to spend their evenings practicing kickboxing against my ribs.

"Baby A is kicking your liver again, isn't he?"

A warm voice broke the silence.

I turned to see Julian cross the gravel driveway, carrying a crate of fresh organic produce from the local community farm. Julian was the island’s resident boat mechanic and the only person who had helped me chop firewood when the winter storms hit four months ago. He was thirty-two, quiet, with sun-bleached brown hair and kind hazel eyes that never asked questions I wasn't ready to answer.

"Baby A is definitely taking after his father," I murmured with a wry smile, stepping down to help him. "Stubborn and relentless."

"Sit down, Elena," Julian scolded gently, setting the crate on the porch table and guiding me toward the wooden bench. "You’re carrying forty pounds of babies. Dr. Wallace said you need to stay off your feet until the thirty-sixth week."

"I’m fine, Julian. Just restless."

"Well, you won't be restless after you see this," Julian said, his expression turning slightly cautious. He pulled a folded newspaper from the back pocket of his denim jacket. It was a copy of the *Wall Street Journal*, dated two days ago.

My heart gave an uneasy flutter. "Why do you have that?"

"I was at the ferry terminal picking up engine parts," Julian said softly, handing it to me. "I remembered the name you mentioned once."

On the front page of the business section, a massive headline caught my eye:

**MORETTI ENTERPRISES IN TURMOIL: CEO DANTE MORETTI REJECTS VALE MERGER, ANNOUNCES MASSIVE SEARCH FOR MISSING EX-WIFE**

Beneath the headline was a photograph of Dante.

He looked unrecognizable.

The sharp, immaculate billionaire I had known was gone. The man in the photograph had sunken cheeks, dark hollows under his eyes, and silver streaks in his dark hair. The article reported that Dante had summarily fired Sofia Vale, stripped her father of his executive privileges, and sued Dr. Robert Chen for criminal malpractice—sending the physician to prison for falsifying medical records.

Most shockingly, the article stated that Dante had placed a fifty-million-dollar bounty on any verified information regarding the whereabouts of Elena Vance-Moretti, refusing to finalize the divorce despite the signed papers.

*“I don't care about the shares,”* Dante was quoted in a rare, public press statement. *“The company can burn. I just want my wife back.”*

My breath hitched in my throat. Fifty million dollars.

That kind of money turned ordinary people into bounty hunters. It turned small-town neighbors into informants.

"Elena?" Julian looked at me, his eyes searching mine. "Who is he to you?"