Ava Miller POV
The sharp sting of antiseptic burned my nose before I even opened my eyes.
I was alive.
Disappointment settled in my chest like a heavy, suffocating stone.
I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights. I was in a hospital room, but not a private suite. It was a general ward. The privacy curtain was half-torn, fluttering weakly from the air conditioning.
Whispers floated from the hallway, cruel and indistinct.
*"He saved the mistress. Left the wife to drown. Cold bastard."*
The door banged open.
Donovan Blackwood filled the frame.
He didn't look relieved. He looked like a storm barely contained in a suit.
He marched to the side of the bed. He didn't ask how I was. He didn't check the monitors.
"Where is she?" he demanded.
My throat was raw from the saltwater, shredded by the sea. I tried to speak, but only a croak came out.
"Don't play dumb, Isabella," he snarled. "You pulled her in. I saw you grab her dress."
I stared at him.
The water had washed away my fear. It left nothing but a hollow, echoing silence.
"I didn't touch her," I whispered.
"Liar!"
He grabbed a glass vase of wilted flowers from the bedside table and hurled it at the wall.
Glass shattered, exploding outward. Water splashed onto the linoleum mixed with the petals of dying roses.
The nurses in the hallway gasped, but no one came in. No one interfered with the Don.
"Chloe is missing," he said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "The current took her. The divers can't find her."
He leaned over me. His blue eyes were black with hate.
"If she is dead, you will wish you had drowned."
He turned to the two guards stationed at the door.
"No doctors. No food. No painkillers. She sits in this bed and thinks about what she did until I say otherwise."
He walked out.
The door clicked shut.
I closed my eyes.
Hunger was an old friend. Pain was a familiar neighbor.
I lay there for two days.
I counted the tiles on the ceiling. One hundred and forty-four.
On the third morning, the door opened.
Donovan looked haggard. Stubble covered his jaw, dark and unkempt. His eyes were bloodshot maps of sleeplessness.
"Get up," he said.
He threw a bag of clothes onto the bed.
"We are leaving."
I dressed with shaking hands. My leg throbbed where the debris had hit me underwater, a dull, rhythmic agony.
I followed him to the car.
We didn't go to the estate.
We drove to the industrial district. To the docks controlled by the Ivanov Bratva.
The car stopped in front of a rusted warehouse.
A man was waiting. Dmitri. He was known as The Abuser. He had a reputation for breaking women like they were dry twigs.
Donovan got out. I followed.
Dmitri smiled. His teeth were capped in gold.
"He has her?" Donovan asked.
Dmitri nodded. "She is safe. For now. But the price has changed."
Donovan didn't hesitate.
"Take her," he said, jerking his head toward me.
I froze.
He was trading me.
His wife for his mistress.
"Wait," I said.
Donovan looked at me. There was no recognition in his eyes. Just a transaction.
"You want her back?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then sign the papers," I said.
Donovan blinked.
"What?"
"The contract," I said. My voice was steady, though my knees were knocking together. "Terminate the marriage. Transfer the trust fund. Do it now, and I will go with him."
He looked at me like I was insane.
"You're bargaining?"
"I'm securing my severance," I said.
He pulled out his phone. He made a call to his lawyer.
"Done," he said after a minute. "The money is in escrow. It releases when you sign."
He shoved me toward Dmitri.
Dmitri's hand clamped onto my shoulder. It felt like a meat hook.
Donovan walked toward the other side of the warehouse, where a sobbing Chloe was being led out.
He didn't look back.
Dmitri dragged me into the darkness.
The next six hours were a blur of agony.
They didn't want information. They just wanted to send a message to the Blackwoods that their property could be damaged.
They tied me to a chair.
Dmitri used a knife. Not to kill. Just to carve.
He asked me about shipping routes I didn't know.
When I didn't answer, he cut deeper.
I didn't scream.
Isabella would have screamed.
I just counted.
*Fifty million. Fifty million. Fifty million.*
At dawn, I heard them talking in the next room.
*"Kill her in the morning. Wrap her in a carpet. Send her back in pieces."*
I looked at the window.
It was high up. Broken.
My hands were tied with zip ties.
There was a piece of rusted rebar sticking out of the concrete wall behind me.
I scooted the chair backward.
I rubbed the plastic tie against the jagged metal.
Friction. Heat. Snap.
My skin tore, but the plastic gave way.
I climbed.
I squeezed through the window. Glass sliced my arm, adding to the map of pain on my body.
I fell onto the asphalt outside.
I ran.
I stole a taxi at a red light, terrifying the driver with my blood-soaked dress.
"Take me to the Blackwood Estate," I ordered.
I walked through the front door as the sun was rising.
Donovan and Chloe were in the living room.
She was wrapped in a cashmere blanket, sipping tea. Not a scratch on her.
Donovan was holding her hand.
I stood in the archway.
Blood dripped from my fingertips onto the white marble floor.
Donovan looked up.
His face went pale.
"Isabella?" he whispered.
I didn't look at him.
I looked at the pen on the coffee table.
"I'm here to sign," I said.
