I stood in our bedroom, folding my clothes into a suitcase.
At 8:00 AM sharp, the bedroom door opened.
Alex walked in. There was no guilt on his face. No exhaustion from a night of infidelity. He clearly had no idea that I knew everything.
He glanced at the empty nightstand, his brow furrowing in irritation.
"Where is my coffee, Penelope?" he asked. Then, he noticed the suitcase. He let out a heavy, condescending sigh. "Are you packing? Really? I expected you to be a bit sensitive about me staying out to help a student, but this level of jealousy is pathetic, even for you."
"I'm not jealous, Alex," I said, my voice dead flat. "I am divorcing you."
He froze. For a second, the ascetic mask slipped. But then, he let out a cold, dismissive laugh.
"Divorce?" He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. "Don't be dramatic. You could never leave me. But since you want to throw a tantrum, let me give you a real reason to be upset."
He walked over to his dresser, pulling off his watch. "I transferred the deed to your late father’s botanical greenhouse to Lily yesterday."
My hands stopped. The air in my lungs vanished.
"You did what?"
"Lily needs a quiet place to study for her review board," he stated dismissively, not even looking at me. "You just sit at home all day. You don't need it."
That greenhouse was the last piece of my father I had left. It was my sanctuary.
"Give it back," I demanded, my voice shaking with a sudden, violent rage.
"It is already done," he said smoothly. "It’s just a dirty glass building, Penelope. Lily is doing real, important academic work. She needs the space more than you do."
The heartbreak hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled. He had taken my decade, my thesis, and now, he was giving away the only memory of my dead father to his mistress.
"Alex, please," I begged, my voice cracking as desperation clawed at my throat. "Take the penthouse. Take the cars. Take my bank accounts. But please, not the greenhouse. It’s my father's. You know what it means to me. Please."
"When you are ready to apologize and act like a rational, obedient wife, I will consider asking Lily for it back," he said coldly, picking up his briefcase. "Until then, grow up."
Without another word, he turned and walked out the door, heading to the university as if he hadn't just ripped my heart out of my chest.
I stood alone in the quiet bedroom. My tears dried instantly.
I zipped up my suitcase, walked out of the penthouse, and took a car straight to the Verstappen ancestral estate.
"I gave you the night to think over what you want, Penelope. I assumed you would have cooled down by now."
"I am not cooling down," I said, my voice steady. "I want a divorce. And I want the deed to my father's greenhouse back from your son."
"You know this family despises divorce," Eleanor said slowly, standing up. "In the Verstappen household, there is a punishment for wives who wish to break their vows. The Kneeling Punishment. You must kneel in the courtyard on a bed of broken porcelain. If you can endure it, I will grant your divorce and force Alex to return your assets. But if you cry, or if you beg to stop... you leave with nothing."
"Show me the courtyard," I said.
Ten minutes later, I was on my knees.
The gray sky opened up, pouring freezing rain over the stone courtyard. Beneath my bare knees were hundreds of jagged, shattered pieces of porcelain. The pain was immediate and blinding, slicing through my skin and biting into the bone.
One hour passed. The freezing rain soaked me to the core.
Three hours. The porcelain dug deeper, and a pool of crimson blood began to spread across the wet gray stones.
But I didn't cry. I didn't make a single sound. I stared straight ahead, my jaw locked, drawing on the same silent endurance I had used to survive ten years in this suffocating family.
Up in the dry, warm corridor, Eleanor stood watching me.
She had expected me to break within twenty minutes. But as the hours dragged on, and my blood continued to stain the stones, the strict matriarch’s expression began to change.
Eleanor had always secretly liked me. She respected my intellect and my quiet strength. Seeing me now—willing to bleed out in the freezing rain without shedding a single tear—a deep, unsettling pity washed over her.
She turned to her head butler, who was holding an umbrella. "Find out exactly what Alex did to her this morning to make her this desperate."
The butler made a quick phone call. Disgust, profound and absolute, flashed in the matriarch's eyes.
The heavy courtyard doors opened. Eleanor walked out into the freezing rain, the butler holding the umbrella over her head.
She stopped right in front of me, looking down at my mangled, bleeding knees, and my pale, tearless face.
"Oh, poor child," Eleanor whispered, her voice breaking with genuine sorrow. "It seems he really, truly hurt you."
Before I could say a word, Eleanor dropped to her knees right there in the wet courtyard, ruining her expensive silk dress. She reached out and gently, firmly wrapped her arms around me, helping me stand up off the bloody porcelain.
My legs gave out, but she held me up.
Eleanor looked at the ring, her eyes hardening with a terrifying, protective fury directed entirely at her own son.
"Fine," Eleanor said, her voice a fierce, unwavering vow in the freezing rain. "I will help you disappear from my son. And he will never know where you went."
