No Regrets, No Return, Ex-Husband

Four years ago, I was sold off to the highest bidder at an auction like I was nothing more than merchandise.

I was twenty-two then, standing barefoot on a raised platform in a velvet dress that clung to me as I trembled under the harsh glare of the lights. My parents had already made the decision for me before they died—selling me off as payment for a debt owed to a mafia lord I had never even seen.

Then Dominic Ashford stood up.

He didn’t place a bid like the others. Instead, he crossed the room, climbed onto the stage, shot the auctioneer in the leg without hesitation, and took my hand as if it had always belonged there.

“You’re leaving with me,” he said. His voice was low and steady, almost gentle, like a promise you were supposed to trust without question.

And I did.

He brought me into a different life and gave me his name. I became Mrs. Ashford.

For four years, I truly believed I had been saved by the only man who could. Everyone around me believed it too. The media painted us as untouchable, the golden couple everyone envied. In the underworld, his name inspired fear, but with me he was soft in ways no one else ever saw. He would brush my hair when I couldn’t sleep, press kisses to the scars I tried to hide, and tell me over and over that I was all he ever needed.

I believed every word.

God, I was so blind.

Three weeks ago, everything shattered.

I was on a private jet headed to Italy to meet him when the plane was taken over mid-air. The pilot’s scream was the first warning, then came the gunfire. Masked men stormed the cabin, shouting demands for ransom, demanding Dominic himself.

But Dominic never answered.

For three days, I sat there under a gun barrel, starving, dehydrated, listening to a silence that hurt more than the threats. My husband never came.

When the rescue finally arrived, it wasn’t him. It was his men. The cabin exploded into chaos—gunfire, smoke, shouting—and then a heavy blow struck my head, pulling me straight into darkness.

When I woke again, everything was too bright, too white, like the world had been washed clean without me.

The sharp smell of antiseptic burned my nose. My skull throbbed violently, like it had been split open and poorly stitched back together. I tried to lift my hand, but my body felt like it belonged to someone else, heavy and restrained by drugs still lingering in my system.

Voices reached me through the haze.

Low. Tight with anger.

“…she’s stable, sir. The head trauma was severe, but she should regain consciousness soon.”

“Why?”

That single word cut through the room like ice. I knew that voice instantly.

Dominic.

My heart lurched. He was here. He actually came. Relief and desperation crashed into me all at once. I tried to open my eyes, to call his name, but my throat felt like sandpaper.

“Sir?” the doctor asked, confused.

“I asked why she’s awake,” Dominic replied flatly, stripped of any warmth. “You should have left her on that plane.”

My breath caught so sharply it hurt. The monitor beside me reacted immediately, beeping faster.

“Boss,” another voice interjected—Enzo, his closest man. “We couldn’t leave her there. The press would’ve torn us apart. The ransom situation—”

“I don’t care about the ransom,” Dominic snapped. “I paid them to delay everything. I needed time.”

Time.

“For what?” Enzo pressed carefully.

Dominic’s voice softened, almost disturbingly calm. “Liliana is with me now.”

The name hit me like a physical impact.

Liliana.

My twin sister. The one who walked away five years ago and never looked back. The one who left me behind to deal with everything—our parents’ debts, their crimes, the fallout that eventually led to my “sale.” The one I had been compared to my entire life.

“She was the one I wanted from the beginning,” Dominic continued, as if discussing something trivial. “Sofia was only ever a substitute. She looked like her, so I accepted it. I bought Sofia because I knew Liliana would eventually return.”

Tears slid silently from the corners of my closed eyes, slipping into my hair.

A substitute.

Four years of marriage. Four years of waking up beside him. Four years of hearing “I love you” whispered like it meant something real.

All of it because I had her face.

“It’s complicated now,” Dominic muttered. “Liliana is fragile. If she sees Sofia… if she sees that cheap imitation still alive, it’ll upset her.”

“What do you want us to do with her?” Enzo asked quietly.

“Preferably,” Dominic said without hesitation, “she should be paralyzed. Or better yet, never wake up at all. A coma would be ideal. A grieving widow is manageable. A conscious ex-wife is a liability.”

Something inside me shattered completely.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear myself out of the bed and drag him down with me. But my body refused to obey. I was trapped, forced to lie there while the man I loved casually discussed erasing me like I was nothing more than a problem to be solved.

Then the door opened again.

“Mr. Ashford,” another voice interrupted, urgent this time. “The test results are in.”

“I don’t care,” Dominic replied immediately. “I’m leaving. Liliana is waiting in the car.”

“Sir, you need to hear this,” the doctor insisted. “Mrs. Ashford is pregnant. Seven weeks.”

The room fell into a suffocating silence.

My heart stopped for a fraction of a second before slamming against my ribs.

Pregnant.

We had tried for so long—two years of hope, disappointment, and prayers whispered in the dark. I had imagined that moment so many times: telling him, watching his face change, seeing joy break through whatever walls he had built. I had believed he would hold me and finally be happy.

“Pregnant?” Dominic repeated.

“Yes,” the doctor confirmed, a note of relief in his voice. “But given the trauma and the medication, there are risks. We need to begin treatment immediately to protect the fetus. With your approval, we can—”

“No.”

The single word froze everything.

“Sir?” the doctor asked.

“There will be no treatment,” Dominic said evenly, as if deciding the weather. “There is no child.”

“Mr. Ashford, the baby is viable. If we act now—”

“You’re not listening,” Dominic cut in sharply.

Footsteps approached my bed. I could smell him before I saw him—his cologne, the same scent I used to cling to when I thought I was safe.

He leaned in close enough that his breath brushed my ear.

“Get rid of it,” he whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, cold enough to destroy me. “I finally have the original. I don’t need a spare heir from a counterfeit.”

He straightened, already turning away as if I no longer existed.

“Fix this, doctor,” he added over his shoulder. “If that thing is still inside her when I return, you’ll lose your license. And your hands.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

And everything went dark.

When I woke again, there was only silence.

My hands flew immediately to my stomach.

Flat. Empty. Gone.

The absence hit harder than any pain I had ever known. He really did it. He erased it without hesitation.

I curled in on myself, pressing my face into the thin hospital pillow, screaming until my throat tore and burned.

Hours later, they discharged me. No explanation. No waiting car. No Dominic. Just me standing outside in borrowed silence, my clothes hanging off a body that no longer felt like mine.

The man I had built my entire world around had become the one who destroyed it.

For a moment, I thought about ending everything.

But then his voice returned to me—calm, detached, saying I should be left in a coma.

Something inside me hardened.

No. I wouldn’t disappear for him. I wouldn’t become convenient.

I would survive. And I would make him regret ever thinking I could be replaced.

I still remembered the number.

Madame Verena, the woman who had run the auction four years ago.

My fingers shook as I found a payphone and dialed.

“Hello?” her voice answered, smooth and cautious.

“It’s Sofia,” I said quietly. “Lot 77.”

A pause. Then recognition sharpened her tone. “Sofia… what do you want? After your husband ruined everything four years ago?”

“You remember the man who tried to buy me?” I asked. “The one who said he’d pay anything?”

“Yes,” she replied. “He was furious when he lost you.”

I looked at my reflection in the glass—pale, broken, but still breathing.

“Call him,” I said. “Ask him if he still wants to buy me.”