I quickly ended the call and set the phone down. My face froze into something cold so he wouldn’t see the panic I felt.
He walked in, trying to soften his tone. “Your body still needs time to recover. Don’t move around until you’re healed. I’ll only worry about you if you do.” He stepped closer, reaching out as if to brush my hair back. “Luckily, Nivianne’s hand wasn’t badly hurt. No bones broken. Just a bandage and she’ll be fine. If it had been worse, Anika, you wouldn’t have been forgiven.”
My chest tightened, but not from pain. So that was it. For a scraped hand, he had forced me to the edge of death, left me bleeding and forgotten while the only doctor was chained to her bedside. And now he stood here pretending to worry about me? Pretending that this was love?
It was almost funny if it wasn’t so cruel.
I stepped back out of his reach, my eyes cold, my voice sharp. “Get out.”
He blinked like he hadn’t heard me right. “What did you say?”
I clenched my teeth, forcing the words out again, steady and clear. “I said get out. I don’t want to see you.”
Wilbert’s face twisted so fast I thought he was about to explode.
“You’re really gonna yell at me first? Anika, you should be on your knees thanking me that Nivianne is fine. If something happened to her, do you even realize how serious that would be? You almost killed someone! You think you’re the victim here? Reflect on yourself! I’m not coming back again.”
He slammed the door so hard the walls shook. I let out a bitter laugh and closed my eyes. I was too tired to waste more breath on him.
.....
The day I got discharged, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want him to know where I went. Instead of heading home, I walked down the quiet corridor to check on my brother and my father. My brother’s bones were shattered, and my father hadn’t opened his eyes in months. The brain aneurysm had left him trapped in silence, barely clinging to life. They shared a small ward, and every time I pushed that door open, I prayed for a miracle.
But this time something felt wrong. I froze at the doorway. A figure was standing at the bed, back to me, shoulders stiff. The more I stared, the more my stomach sank. I knew that body.
“Nivianne! What the hell are you doing!”
I ran to my father’s bedside and shoved her aside. A syringe hit the floor with a sharp clink, and when I looked up, I saw my father’s oxygen mask pulled halfway off his face. My whole body shook with rage.
“What did you inject him with? Answer me!” My fists clenched until my nails dug into my palms. “Wasn’t it enough that you ruined his life and left him like this? What else do you want from him?”
Nivianne jumped at first, then when she saw it was me, her mouth curved into a cold little smile.
“Enough? No. Not enough. As long as he’s still alive, people can drag up my mistake forever. If he dies, it all dies with him. And in a year or two, I’ll be the brilliant doctor everyone admires. No one will remember some surgery that went wrong. And even if you caught me here, what can you do? Wilbert believes me. He always will.”
Her words made my blood boil. I slapped her before I could even think. The sound cracked in the room, and she stumbled to the floor, eyes wide like she couldn’t believe I’d touched her.
“You… you hit me? Anika, are you insane?”
My vision blurred with anger and I lifted my hand again, ready to strike, but a grip like iron closed around my wrist. I turned and saw him. Wilbert. His face was stormy, eyes burning with disappointment, not at her… but at me.
“Anika! Enough!”
Nivianne scrambled up like a wounded kitten and ran into his arms, clinging to him and crying so hard her shoulders shook. “Wilbert, she attacked me. Please, don’t let her hurt me.”
He wrapped a steady arm around her and looked straight at me. His voice was cold, sharp.
“You’ve gone too far, Anika.”
I laughed, bitter and raw. “Too far? Why don’t you ask your precious Nivianne what she was doing just now? She was trying to kill my father. She wants to cover her mistake with my father’s life.”
For the first time, I saw him hesitate. His head turned slowly toward her, and there was doubt in his eyes.
And Nivianne, clever snake that she was, lowered her gaze, lips trembling, and whispered, “I… I would never. How could you believe her lies about me?”
Her voice shook like she was the victim, and I felt my chest tighten until I couldn’t breathe.
They tied me up and sent me to that so-called psychiatrist. I thought maybe it was real, but the second I saw the man’s eyes, I knew. He wasn’t a doctor. He was just some sick man Nivianne paid to break me.
That week felt like hell. He drugged me, he shocked me, and he used every twisted trick in his book. He knew how to hurt without leaving marks, how to make pain crawl under my skin until I wished I was dead. Every time I woke, it was to more pain. I begged God to just let me die in my sleep, but my body kept dragging me back.
When Wilbert finally came, I was so weak I couldn’t even stand straight. I looked like a ghost.
He frowned at me like I was some puzzle he couldn’t figure out. “Why do you look so pale?” he asked. His tone wasn’t worry. It was annoyance, like I had embarrassed him.
I stayed quiet. What was the point of talking?
Nivianne got out of the car, smiling like a cat that had just eaten the bird. “What else could it be? She’s pretending. She just wants to make you worry.”
He looked like he was about to say something, but then his phone buzzed. He checked it, and I saw his face change. He didn’t even hesitate. “Tonight is Nivianne’s birthday. Get ready. You’re coming with me.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the car before I could say a word.
I didn’t fight. My father and my brother were already safe, thanks to Wilbert’s grandfather. All that was left was my last step.
That night, we went to her yacht party. Music and laughter filled the air, but all I felt was hollow. I hadn’t even stepped far when Nivianne blocked me at the stairs.
She leaned close and whispered with a smirk. “Strange. Why aren’t you cured yet? I told the doctor to shock you harder. Or maybe the drugs he used on you expired? Tell me, how did it feel? Like ants crawling inside your veins? Like bee stings tearing your skin? Was it fun?”
I didn’t even look at her. I just kept texting Wilbert’s father about the plan. Tonight was the night.
She slapped my phone out of my hand, and it cracked against the floor. Her eyes glittered with triumph.
I laughed. “You’re very proud, aren’t you?” I leaned against the railing and looked her dead in the eye. “Do you really think you’ve won? You risked everything, schemed day and night, and still—Wilbert hasn’t divorced me. You know what he told me? He said he only keeps you around out of gratitude for helping him when he was younger. But his heart has always been mine. Once your usefulness is over, he’ll let you go.”
Her face turned white, then red.
I laughed harder. “Wilbert will never love you, Nivianne. Not now, not ever. He has never once looked at you the way a man looks at a woman. Childhood sweethearts? You’re nothing but his shadow. He’ll never love you.”
“Shut up!” she screamed, her mask cracking. She lunged at me, yanking my hair and slamming my neck against the railing. My back bent painfully, and I felt her grip tighten. My vision darkened, but I still managed to choke out, “I am Wilbert’s wife. You can’t change that. As long as I live, you’ll never take my place.”
That broke her. Her eyes went wild. “Why wouldn’t I dare? Your father, your brother—they’re ruined because of me already. One more won’t matter. Wilbert has always been mine. Always protecting me, always choosing me. How could I lose to you, a stranger who walked into his life?”
Then she shoved me.
I fell hard, my body twisting, the sound swallowed by the party music. The cold sea wrapped around me, and I let it. I pressed the tiny signal in my palm, the one I had kept hidden. My lungs burned, but I didn’t fight it.
This was it. My escape. From him. From her. From all the darkness.
And as the water dragged me down, I thought—finally, I am free.
