Harlow POV
They dragged me back to the courtyard, forcing me onto the same merciless stones where I had knelt for hours.
But this time, I wasn't kneeling.
Brittaney sat perched on a bench, sipping water, her "injury" miraculously forgotten. She watched me with a gleaming, predatory hunger.
Kaden paced in front of me.
He didn't look like a man anymore; he moved with the lethal, contained energy of a caged tiger.
"You tried to hurt what is mine," he said.
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
"I didn't touch her, Kaden," I said, my voice trembling. "She threw herself off. Ask the stable master."
"I don't need to ask anyone!" he roared, spinning around.
"I saw you! I saw you on that horse!"
He stalked closer, his eyes burning. "You are jealous. You are vindictive. And you need to learn your place."
He snapped his fingers.
A black SUV rolled into the courtyard.
A tow hitch protruded from the back, glinting in the sun.
My blood ran cold.
"No," I whispered. "Kaden, please."
He ignored me.
"Tie her," he commanded.
Four guards grabbed me.
They tied ropes to my wrists and my left ankle, securing them tightly to the stone pillars of the courtyard gate.
I was spread-eagled, suspended in the air, helpless.
Then they took a fifth rope.
They tied it to my right ankle.
And they tied the other end to the SUV.
Kaden walked over to me. He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him.
"This is what happens to traitors, Harlow."
"I'm your wife," I sobbed.
"You are nothing," he spat.
He walked to the car and got in the driver's seat.
The engine revved.
The rope went taut.
My leg was pulled straight, the tension building until it was unbearable.
The joint in my hip popped.
I screamed.
"Did you try to kill her?" Kaden yelled from the window.
"No!" I screamed.
The car inched forward.
The pain was blinding. It felt like my body was being torn in half.
My knee twisted.
Something snapped-a sound sickeningly like a dry branch breaking.
My scream died in my throat because there was no air left to fuel it.
Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision.
Kaden revved the engine again.
My shoulder dislocated with a wet thud.
I hung there, a broken doll, my body on fire.
Through the haze, I saw Brittaney smiling.
I saw Kaden's eyes in the rearview mirror. Cold. Satisfied.
And then, I let go.
I let the darkness take me.
I woke up to the smell of rain and iodine.
I was in a hospital bed again, but the room was different. Private. Quiet.
Someone was sitting in the chair next to me.
Not Kaden.
Mrs. Barnes.
She looked older. The lines around her mouth were deep canyons of stress, and her fingers were white-knuckled around a set of rosary beads.
"You're awake," she said.
Her voice was devoid of its usual imperious tone. It sounded tired, hollow.
"Where is he?" I whispered.
My voice was a broken rasp.
"Gone," she said. "He took her to the Amalfi Coast. To recover from the 'trauma'."
She looked at my leg, encased in a heavy cast. She looked at my arm, strapped to my chest.
"He went too far," she murmured, almost to herself. "This is not discipline. This is madness."
She stood up and walked to the bed.
She placed a thick envelope on the table.
"There is a plane waiting at the private airfield," she said. "It leaves in two hours. It goes to London."
I stared at her, tears welling in my eyes.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you were right," she said, looking out the window, refusing to meet my gaze. "He has no honor left. And if you stay, he will kill you."
Inside the envelope were papers.
A passport with a new name.
Bank account numbers.
And the divorce decree, signed by her, forging Kaden's signature.
"Go, Harlow," she said.
"Disappear. Never come back."
I didn't say goodbye.
I didn't look back at the city that had been my prison.
I dragged my broken body onto that plane, every movement a fresh agony.
But as the wheels left the tarmac, as the lights of Chicago faded into the black void below, I felt something I hadn't felt in five years.
I took a breath.
And it didn't hurt.
