The freezing night air hit me the second I stepped off the porch, biting into my bruised, bare feet. I took five steps into the dark before reality slammed into me like a brick wall.
I had no money. I had no ID. I didn't even have a coat.
If I walked away now, I would freeze to death on the streets, and Liam and Chloe would get away with everything. I wasn't going to make it that easy for them.
Swallowing the bile rising in my throat, I spun around and marched right back through the front door. Liam and Chloe were still standing in the living room, staring at the trash can where I had dropped my ring. They jumped as I stormed past them without a word, heading straight for the hall closet.
I yanked out my old suitcase, threw it onto the floor, and started frantically shoving whatever clothes I could find inside. Sweaters, a pair of jeans, my winter coat—anything to keep me warm.
"Daisy, what do you think you're doing?"
Liam’s heavy hand suddenly slammed down on the lid of the suitcase, forcing it shut. I flinched, my heart hammering against my bruised ribs.
"You're not going to leave me," he said, his voice dropping its fake, apologetic tone. His grip on the luggage was iron-clad. "You will stay right here."
"Take your hands off my things," I spat, my voice shaking with a mixture of exhaustion and pure rage. "I don't want to be here anymore, Liam. I don't want to look at you. Let's get a divorce."
"A divorce?" Liam scoffed, a cruel, mocking smile twisting his lips. He crossed his arms, looking down at me. "You've been acting strange for months, Daisy. You disappear for three days without a single word, and now you just waltz back in and say you're leaving? Where would you even go? To your paramour? That guy from the art gallery?"
"I am not cheating on you!" I screamed, the raw pain in my throat tearing. "I was hurt! I was kidnapped, Liam! I was tied up and thrown in the back of a freight truck! Look at me!"
I held up my trembling, bloodied hands and gestured wildly to my scraped, filthy feet. "Look at what they did to me!"
Liam just rolled his eyes, completely unfazed. "Stop making things up, Daisy. It's pathetic. Kidnapped? Really? Is that the dramatic story you're going to tell everyone to cover up your little affair?"
"You sold me!" I cried, shoving his chest, though he barely moved. "I heard you talking to Chloe!"
Suddenly, Liam's demeanor shifted again. He reached out, gripping my shoulders tightly, his eyes wide with a sickening, manufactured desperation. "Daisy, please. Just stop this. Stop lying. I'm willing to forgive you for running away. I love you. Please, just stay. Don't throw our marriage away."
Before I could scream at him to let me go, the front door clicked open, and the sharp clack of heels echoed in the entryway.
"What on earth is all this screaming about at this hour?"
My blood ran cold. It was Eleanor. Liam's mother.
She stood in the doorway, draped in an expensive cashmere coat, her sharp eyes sweeping over my disheveled, dirt-streaked state with absolute disgust.
"Mom," Liam sighed, playing the exhausted, wounded husband perfectly. "Daisy just got back. And now she's demanding a divorce."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed into terrifying slits. She stepped into the room, her presence suffocating. "Absolutely not. You are ruining this family's reputation, Daisy. Running off for days, coming back looking like a filthy vagrant, and now screaming in the middle of the night? Divorce is not condoned in this family. We do not break our vows, even if you have made a disgraceful mistake."
"Mistake?!" I choked out, tears of sheer frustration and heartbreak finally spilling over my lashes. "Eleanor, listen to me! They sold me to traffickers! They threw away my mother's ashes!"
I looked at her, begging for a shred of humanity, a shred of belief. But Eleanor just stared at me with cold, dead eyes. She didn't care. To her, I was just a nuisance tarnishing her son's perfect image.
Chloe peeked out from behind Liam, clutching her silk robe tightly around her waist. She looked at Eleanor with wide, innocent eyes.
"Oh, Eleanor, it's so sad," Chloe whispered, her voice dripping with fake, poisonous sympathy. "She's been acting so erratic lately. I think wherever she went... it broke her mind. She's completely delusional. She must be crazy."
"I am not crazy!" I sobbed, lunging for my suitcase again. "Let me leave!"
"No," Eleanor commanded, her voice like a whip. She nodded at Liam. "Take her luggage. She is not leaving this house."
Liam snatched the suitcase from my hands, tossing it effortlessly down the hallway. I lunged for the front door, but Eleanor stepped in my path, her hand gripping the brass doorknob.
She pulled the heavy oak door shut, and the sound of the deadbolt sliding into place echoed through the room like a gunshot.
"If she's unwell, Liam," Eleanor said coldly, her eyes fixed on me like a predator cornering its prey, "then we need to keep her safe. Right here. Where no one can hear her."
