3: 3
The car tore through the streets and stopped outside the house that used to be ours.
Hugh hauled me out and dragged me up the stairs.
He shoved the door open, pushed me inside, and locked it behind him.
"Libby, you really have to push me, don't you?"
He pinned me against the door, both hands braced on either side of me, trapping me in the small space of his body.
The mix of liquor and cigarette smoke rolled off him and turned my stomach.
"Hugh, calm down."
"I am calm." He gave a cold laugh. "I'd like to see how you survive without me."
He took out my phone, unlocked it right in front of me, and opened my messages.
"Lucille?"
"So she's the one who took you out running wild?"
He found Lucille's contact and deleted it, just like that.
Then my payment app, my banking app.
"What's the password?"
I said nothing.
He gripped my chin, hard.
"I asked you, what's the password!"
"Or did you forget? Every bank card you have is a supplementary card I set up for you."
"I can cut them off anytime."
My heart sank, inch by inch.
Right. How could I have forgotten.
For five years, I'd lived under his control, with no freedom.
No income of my own. No savings of my own.
Everything I had came from what he gave me.
"Hugh, what exactly do you want?" I looked at him, hopeless, and asked.
"Nothing much."
He let go of me, a smug little smile spreading across his face.
"I just want you to know who your master is."
He walked into the living room and poured himself a glass of water.
"From today on, you stay home. You don't go anywhere."
"And forget about the job. I already had a word with your company."
It hit me like a lightning strike.
"What did you say?"
"I said you've been fired." He said it lightly, offhand.
"Hugh, what gives you the right!"
I rushed at him, shaking with fury.
"The right of being Hugh Henson."
"And the right that your crummy little company is still counting on my investment."
He looked at me, his eyes full of mockery and contempt.
"Libby, stop being naive."
"In this world, you can't take a single step without money."
"You can't win against me."
The strength drained out of me, and I sank to the floor.
He was right.
I couldn't win against him.
He had money, power, connections.
And I had nothing.
Over the next few days, I was locked up completely.
He took away every device I could reach and cut the internet.
He only let the meal-delivery housekeeper come with three meals a day.
I was shut inside this cage.
I tried to fight back. I tried a hunger strike.
All it got me was tighter surveillance and crueler mockery.
"Save your energy."
"Even if you starve to death in here, no one will ever know."
In the end I gave up.
Every day I sat by the window, watching the traffic and the people flowing past outside.
I felt like a walking corpse.
Until that day, when I stumbled on a pregnancy report in the study drawer.
It was Christine's.
Eight weeks pregnant.
The date, two months ago.
My mind went blank with a roar.
So it turned out they'd been together all along.
So it turned out I was the fool who'd been kept in the dark the whole time.
A wave of nausea and revulsion surged up in me.
I ran out of the study and found Hugh in the living room, watching the financial news.
I hurled that pregnancy report right in his face.
"Hugh, you make me sick!"
