Chapter 1

Celeste Wilde secretly sent Damien Ashford's mistress out of the country without telling him. That very evening, he kidnapped her parents and used their lives as leverage to find out where his mistress was. Damien pushed his phone toward her. The screen showed her parents tied to chairs with time bombs strapped to their chests. The countdown displayed the numbers ticking down second by second. He sat across from her in his immaculate suit, his slender fingers tapping lightly on the table, unbothered. "Celeste, you have 59 minutes left." His voice was calm, even carrying a hint of tenderness. "Tell me, where did you send Lia off to?" Celeste felt cold all over, her throat constricted as if being choked, unable to utter a single word. This was already his third time asking her. She remained silent the first time he asked where Ophelia Hart had gone. The second time it happened, he gripped her chin as his fingertips caressed her lips, asking in a low voice, "Celeste, stop throwing a tantrum." Now, this was the third time, and he was using her parents' lives to force her hand. "Damien..." she said with a trembling voice. "Those are my parents. They're the most important people to me..." He let out a soft laugh, but his eyes were terrifyingly cold. "Is that so? Then, when you sent Lia away, why didn't you think about how important she is to me?" Celeste stared at him intently, suddenly finding it all absurd. So, Lia was important? He once said that women on the side were just for fun, to be discarded when he grew tired of them. He said that she was the one he loved most. But now, he was willing to kill her parents for Ophelia. "Damien, if I don't tell you, will you really let them die?" Celeste's voice was hoarse beyond recognition. He leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes reflecting her pale face. "You can try and find out." Celeste trembled all over, tears falling onto the table. She couldn't understand how things had become like this. Damien had loved her so genuinely and so deeply. Back then, she was just a young woman from an ordinary family, while Damien was the heir to one of the most prestigious families in the city. He was born privileged, proud, and arrogant, never bowing his head to anyone. Yet he fell in love with her at first sight. Damien pursued Celeste with such intensity that the whole city knew about it. He had confessed his love dozens of times, each declaration causing a sensation throughout the city. Giant roses dropped from helicopters, the entire Financial District's LED screens lit up with his declarations of love, and he made all the fireworks in the city bloom just for her on her birthday. She was moved by his gesture, but her parents were firmly opposed. They knew too well what wealthy families were like. They liked keeping up appearances at home while playing around behind closed doors. The love of these privileged sons was never that of a fairy tale. They wanted to marry her off to someone of equal social standing, but Damien knelt at their doorstep for an entire day and night, abandoning all his pride just to ask for a chance to marry her. Thus, her parents eventually softened. After their marriage, he showered her with love and indulged her every whim. When she had menstrual cramps, he would fly back from abroad overnight just to care for her. When she casually mentioned wanting to eat a specific cake from the west side of the city, he drove halfway across town to buy it for her. She thought she had married the right man. That was until she first heard the name "Ophelia Hart." Damien's assistant, Taylor Cross, mentioned it during a casual conversation. He said some college student had deliberately fallen in front of Damien during his lecture, trying to get his attention with old-fashioned tactics. She laughed it off, not paying it much attention. After all, too many women wanted to attach themselves to him, but he had always maintained his integrity. Yet the second time she heard the name, it was in bed. He was on top of her, and he whispered "Lia" in a low voice in the heat of passion. In that moment, she felt as if she had fallen into an icy abyss. When she confronted him, he held her and explained that he had indeed thought about taking Ophelia as a mistress, but she was just someone he kept on the side for fun. He told her, "Everyone in our circle does this, Celeste. You're still the one I love most—that will never change." But later, he became increasingly brazen. He bought Ophelia jewelry, gifted her luxury penthouses, and even brought her to private parties. The rumors spread like wildfire throughout the city. Celeste cried and threw tantrums about it. Yet Damien no longer coaxed her like before, only saying coldly, "Stop being so unreasonable." Finally, she couldn't bear it anymore and sent Ophelia out of the country. But she never expected his reaction to be so extreme. He abducted her parents and strapped bombs to them, all to force her to reveal Ophelia's whereabouts. "She's in Helvetia," she said with a trembling voice. "At that villa under my name in Gevena." Damien stared at her for several seconds, as if judging whether she was telling the truth, then picked up his phone and made a call. After confirming her location, he grabbed his suit jacket, his steps urgent as he prepared to fetch Ophelia. "What about my parents?" She grabbed his sleeve desperately. "You promised that if I told you, you'd release them!" He turned back to look at her with an indifferent expression. "They're at the abandoned factory in Southridge District. Go find them yourself." Celeste stumbled out the door and drove straight to Southridge. By the time she found them, the bomb only had ten minutes left on the timer. Her parents were tied to chairs with their mouths gagged. They shook their heads frantically when they saw her, gesturing for her to leave quickly. She rushed over, her trembling hands trying to untie the ropes, but the bomb's countdown ticked like a death knell. There were only about three minutes left. She couldn't untie them, and tears began streaming down her face in desperation. Her father suddenly rammed into her with force, causing her to stagger backward. The next second, he threw his body toward the bomb— "Dad!" The explosion was deafening, and the blast wave knocked Celeste down. She hit the ground hard, and everything before her eyes turned crimson. ... When Celeste woke up again, she was in the hospital. Both her parents were severely injured, but thankfully, they were still alive. She knelt beside the hospital bed, crying as she apologized, "I'm so sorry... I chose the wrong person..." Celeste's mother, Eleanor Stone, weakly lifted her hand and touched her hair. "Silly, you can always start over." Celeste shook her head. "He won't let me go." When she first learned about Ophelia's existence, she couldn't accept it and had thought about divorce. But every time she drafted the divorce papers, Damien would tear them up. He said he was only playing around with Ophelia and would dump her once he got tired of her. He proclaimed that true love was Celeste, and he would never let her go. Her father, Thomas Wilde, gripped her hand. "No, Celeste, there's something you don't know, and he probably forgot too. The night we agreed to let you marry him, your mother and I made him sign a divorce agreement." Celeste froze. "If he ever betrayed you, the agreement would take effect. You could immediately divorce him, and our family could simply disappear forever," Thomas said softly. Celeste was stunned to hear this, and tears flowed uncontrollably. It turned out her parents had already prepared her an escape route. … The next day, Celeste did two things. First, she brought the signed divorce agreement to the law firm with her parents. After reviewing it, the lawyer nodded. "The agreement is valid. The divorce is effective immediately." The second thing she did was to handle identity erasure procedures with her family. Once the process was complete, it would be as if Celeste Wilde had never existed. And Damien would never be able to find her!