The day the diagnosis came down—permanent, irreversible deafness—was the day I finally stopped fighting.
I stopped blowing up Joshua's phone when he didn't come home. I stopped losing my composure in public whenever one of his young models tried to provoke me. I faded into the background, becoming the quietest, most invisible ghost in the Sawyer mansion.
It was all because of the doctor's cold ultimatum.
"Ms. Delgado, unless you have the full support of the Sawyer Foundation to cover your treatment, you won't survive the month."
So, I became obedient.
Even when Joshua brought a newly crowned Hong Kong beauty queen home for the night and ordered me to cook hangover soup for them, I didn't flinch. I brought the tray over with a practiced smile, checked the temperature against my wrist, and offered it to him.
After all, I couldn't hear anymore. Why should I care who his whispered sweet nothings were meant for?
But when I looked him in the eye and signed, *[Drink slowly,]* the bowl in Joshua Sawyer's hand shattered against the floor.
——
"Faith Delgado, don't play dead with me!"
I couldn't hear the words, but the way his lips curled back over his teeth told me he was roaring.
Hangover soup pooled across the marble, swirling around jagged porcelain shards that bit into my ankle. The old me would have screamed. Would have leaped up, tears streaming, begging him to look at my wound.
Now?
I simply crouched down.
Piece by piece, I collected the broken ceramics. Blood from my ankle ribboned through the brown broth, painting a gruesome abstract across the tiles.
"I'm talking to you! Are you deaf?"
Joshua's leather sole crunched down on the back of my hand just as my fingers closed around a shard. He ground his heel, crushing bone against stone.
The pain should have been blinding.
I didn't even flinch.
The doctor had warned me—the damage to my auditory nerve would likely dull my pain receptors too. Heaven's parting gift. A way to endure this hell with a shred of dignity intact.
I looked up and offered him a perfect, hollow smile. With my free hand, I signed:
*[I'm sorry. I'll go cook another bowl.]*
Joshua froze.
The rage in his eyes stalled, curdling into something worse. Deep, visceral disgust.
"Faith, looking at you now... taking everything like a doormat..." His lip curled. "It makes me sick."
He kicked me aside and turned back to the sofa, wrapping his arm around the woman who'd been watching the show. Isabella Pruitt. Young. Stunning. Looking exactly like I did when I first married Joshua.
Isabella giggled, her body shaking with theatrical laughter. Her voice must have been sweet—I watched Joshua's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
"Young Master Sawyer, is Big Sister blaming me? Maybe I should leave?"
She made a show of rising. Joshua pressed her back down with one hand, his gaze still fixed on me like a blade.
"Her? Without me, she's a walking corpse. Give her ten times the courage, and she still wouldn't dare blame you."
He jerked his chin toward the door. "Faith, get back to your room. You're an eyesore."
The command in his eyes was clear. *Get out.*
So I stood.
Blood still trickled from my ankle, warm and wet inside my shoe. I forced myself to walk steadily.
I returned to the master bedroom. Once, it had been filled with laughter.
Now, it was an ice cellar.
I closed the door. The world went completely silent.
Well. Not completely.
Inside my head, a high-pitched ringing persisted—like an electric current frying my nerves. A constant reminder.
*I don't have much time left.*
The doctor was right. Without the expensive imported medication provided by Joshua's "Charity Grace Foundation," my lupus would ravage my internal organs within weeks. Combined with the sudden deafness, I was a porcelain doll teetering on a ledge.
I pulled out my phone. A notification from the hospital flashed across the screen.
**[Ms. Delgado, the payment for your next course of treatment has failed. The Sawyer Foundation has suspended funding.]**
Suspended.
In his eyes, my life wasn't even worth the price of the designer handbags Isabella casually demanded.
