After Three Years in Prison, I Married the Ruthless Billionaire

Chloe Sinclair's consciousness returned with a violent headache, a feeling like being dragged from the deep sea onto dry land. Her eyelids were heavy. The air was thick with the smell of stale alcohol and an unfamiliar cologne.

She forced her eyes open. The dim light of the hotel room stabbed at them.

She was on the cold floor, dressed only in a man's oversized white shirt. It wasn't hers. The collar was open, revealing the pale skin of her collarbone.

Panic seized her heart. Her limbs felt weak as she pushed herself into a sitting position. This was a strange room, luxurious but chaotic, as if a storm had passed through.

Her evening gown was torn and tossed on the sofa next to an overturned champagne bucket. Her memory of last night was fractured. She only remembered celebrating her design award with her fiancé, Brandan Holder, and her cousin, Jessica Sinclair.

Chloe used the wall to pull herself to her feet, searching for her phone. Her foot hit a soft, heavy obstacle.

She looked down.

Her heart stopped.

A man lay sprawled on the floor, his eyes open and unseeing. His suit jacket hung loose around him, while the front of his dress shirt had been torn apart, exposing his bare chest. His belt was unfastened, hanging crookedly from his trousers. Blood matted the hair at his temple and spread across the carpet beneath his head. A shattered crystal vase lay nearby, its jagged pieces streaked red.

A scream caught in her throat. She trembled, stumbling backward until her spine hit the cold wall.

Just then, the suite door burst open with a deafening bang.

Flashes exploded in her face, blinding her. The roar of reporters' questions filled the air.

"Ms. Sinclair, who is the dead man?"

"Did you kill him?"

"Were the two of you having an affair?"

"Was this a lover's quarrel?"

For several seconds, Chloe could only stare at the wall of strangers crowding the doorway. Confusion froze her in place before raw panic tore through her.

Brandan Holder and Jessica Sinclair were at the front of the pack. Brandan's face was a perfect mask of shock and pain.

"Chloe!" Brandan's voice was a raw cry of betrayal. "We were supposed to announce our engagement tomorrow! How could you betray me with another man—and then kill him?"

Her mind was a blank slate. She instinctively reached a hand out to him, desperate for help, for an explanation. "Brandan, no, I don't know what happened..."

Jessica Sinclair stepped in front of Brandan, shielding him. Her eyes, filled with a mixture of pity and contempt, landed on Chloe. "Cousin," she said, her voice dripping with disappointment. "Ever since I became the Design Director at Sinclair Group, you've been drinking, lashing out, and accusing everyone of betraying you. But cheating on Brandan and killing your lover when he tried to leave? How could you go this far?"

Chloe finally understood. This was a trap, perfectly designed for her. Her gaze shifted between Brandan and Jessica, and in the depths of their eyes, she saw a flicker of shared, cold understanding.

"It was you... both of you..." Chloe's voice trembled with disbelief and despair.

Brandan avoided her gaze, turning to the reporters. "I, Brandan Holder, officially announce the end of my engagement to Chloe Sinclair! I will never marry a woman who betrayed me and is now suspected of murdering her lover!"

The police arrived quickly. Cold metal cuffs snapped around Chloe's wrists. She didn't struggle. Her eyes were locked on Jessica.

As the police led her away, Jessica leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper only Chloe could hear. "Chloe, from now on, everything you have—your designs, your reputation, and Brandan—it's all mine."

As if to stop Chloe from saying anything more, Jessica pretended to steady her, then shoved her off balance. Chloe fell to one knee, her cuffed hands striking the floor. Jessica's high heel came down hard across her fingers.

"Ah!" A sharp, cracking sound echoed in Chloe's ears as pain shot up her arm. Her hands. Her most precious asset as a designer.

A flash of triumph lit up Jessica's eyes before she quickly replaced it with a look of alarm. "Oh, cousin, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to."

Flames of hatred ignited in Chloe's eyes. As she struggled on the floor, a tiny glint beside her injured hand caught her attention.

It was a delicate cufflink that must have rolled away in the chaos. A canary with spread wings, encrusted with tiny diamonds, sparkled under the lights.

It wasn't Brandan's style. It didn't belong to the dead man on the floor. There had been a third person in the room.

Before anyone noticed where she was looking, Chloe curled her throbbing fingers around the cufflink. The edge bit into her palm as she concealed it inside her clenched fist.

An officer hauled her upright. She kept her hand closed despite the pain, guarding the tiny piece of evidence as if it were the last fragment of her life that still belonged to her.

Her brain seared the image into her memory. The cufflink was the last bit of light before she was plunged into hell.

In the hallway, she heard Jessica's tearful voice addressing the media. "I can't believe my cousin would do something like this. She has completely disgraced the Sinclair family name..."

The trial was a farce, over almost before it began. All the evidence pointed to Chloe. The disheveled clothes, the fabricated messages found on her phone, her presence at the scene, and the bloodstained vase bearing only her fingerprints.

Brandan and Jessica testified as "victims," their voices choked with tears as they described their "heartbreak" and Chloe's "fall from grace."

The prosecution claimed Chloe had killed the man in the heat of passion after their secret encounter turned violent. The jury convicted her of voluntary manslaughter, and she was sentenced to three years in state prison.

She stood emotionless in the courtroom. Only when her eyes met Jessica's did the burning hatred in them make her cousin flinch.

She was officially incarcerated, trading her life for a prison uniform. Everything that was Chloe Sinclair was stripped away, leaving only hatred and the memory of a cufflink.

The cufflink itself remained with her. She hid it inside the stitched hem of her prison uniform, transferring it from one garment to the next whenever necessary. For three years, she kept it close to her body, the tiny diamond canary a silent promise that one day, she would uncover the truth.

The darkness of despair swallowed her whole. She had lost everything: her reputation, her career, her love, her family, and her freedom.