She smiled. And that smile was sick. She walked to the far wall, pressed a small wooden panel. It slid open, revealing a cabinet I’d only ever seen once.
A thick, polished cane rested inside. Next to it, a drawer of incense, ropes, and a cattle prod.
The old tools of control.
The Karsovs didn’t just build an empire. They built a dynasty of obedience. She took out the cane. Ran her hand lovingly along the shaft.
Then the first strike came fast. Across my back, hard enough to knock the breath out of me.
The second split skin.
The third hit bone.
By the fifth, I was on the floor, cheek pressed to the cold stone tiles, trembling from pain so sharp it blurred my hearing and lost consciousness halfway through her rage.
**
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. My mouth tasted like metal and regret. Then I saw him.
Benedict.
"You let my grandmother beat you like that. Why didn’t you call me?"
"Didn’t want to interrupt your date with Maeve."
He blinked.
I turned my face to the window and let the silence pour in like smoke. Thick. Suffocating.
Then he stayed. For days. Sitting there, saying nothing, pretending to be the man I thought I married. I told him he didn’t have to. That I was fine. But he didn’t leave.
Not until a phone call came in.
“Business emergency,” he said, standing. But I already saw the caller, it's Maeve. "You’ll go home by yourself."
I nodded. "Sure."
I dressed slowly. Every move felt like peeling open a wound. The gauze tugged with every breath. My coat smelled faintly of antiseptic and burnt fabric. But I forced one foot in front of the other, walking down the hospital stairs. I didn’t see him coming. A man turned the corner, holding a venti Starbucks cup, and slammed right into me.
The coffee spilled. It splashed across my arm, my chest. Burned right through the thin fabric. I sucked in a breath as pain seared across my skin.
The man looked down at his soaked designer blazer.
"You blind or just broke?!" he snarled, wiping at the mess like I was dirt. "Do you even know how much this jacket costs? Or are you too used to charity hospitals to care?"
"I—I’m sorry." I bent down, grabbing at my soaked coat, trying to breathe through the sting. "It was my fault—"
"You’re damn right it was." He stepped closer. "Pay for it. Now."
But before I could say another word, a voice rang out behind me. Low. Lethal.
"Touch her again and I’ll break your jaw."
The man turned.
Benedict was there.
Before the man could even scream, five men in black appeared behind Benedict like shadows. They moved fast. Too fast.
“Take him,” Benedict said.
No hesitation. They dragged the man away as he kicked and cursed and shouted threats no one cared to hear.
And then silence.
Benedict turned to me. His gaze swept over my clothes. Cheap, wrinkled, still faintly stained with blood and now, coffee.
"You got no money from Linwood or Karsov? Why the hell are you dressed like this?"
The Linwood family never gave me a damn cent but only hospitalizations for my grandmother. And sure, the Karsovs had a black card, but I was never the real Mrs. Karsov. So the card stayed in my wallet like a joke I wasn’t allowed to laugh at.
“The hell are you sulking for now?” he snapped, grabbing my wrist and dragging me into his black SUV. “Come on. You look like hell. We’re getting you new clothes.”
I didn’t argue.
**
At the mall, he picked out designer sets like he was selecting weapons… sharp, cold, expensive.
I stood there, still as marble, while assistants zipped me in and out of clothes like I was one of their mannequins.When we finally stepped out into the sunlit atrium, bags in hand and the sting of luxury clinging to my skin, I thought it was over.
But then—
“Benny?”
I froze.
Maeve.
Wearing heels too high for a casual afternoon, with sunglasses perched on her head and her phone in one hand. A staff trailed behind her, pushing a cart stacked with 20 glossy black-and-gold boxes. Chanel. Cartier. Valentino. All of it bleeding wealth.
From his other black card. The one he didn’t think I knew about.
Her lips parted when she saw me. The smile she had died mid-air. “Oh… I didn’t know you were… out.” Her gaze flicked from my face to the bags in my hand, then back to Benedict. “You said you were in Singapore.”
“Maeve—”
“You told me not to text because you’d be in meetings all day,” she said, “I should’ve known,” she whispered, voice trembling. “God, I should’ve known…”
She looked at me again, like I was a ghost haunting the life she’d tried to steal.
Then she turned and ran.
“Maeve!” he shouted, already chasing her.
I just stood there. Watching him disappear after her. And then… Bang!
The sound was deafening. I whipped my head around just in time to see a sheet of glass falling from the upper floor of the mall. It hit Maeve before she could scream.
Blood spilled. Bright, fast. She collapsed in an instant.
