In order to be free with his mistress, my husband Jarren had tried to kill me—nine times. But each time, just before death could take me, I was saved.

The most recent time he tried to kill me was just this night. It was raining—pouring so hard I couldn’t see past my own breath. He took me out by the lake, said he needed to “talk,” and before I could ask what about, he pushed me.

I hit the freezing water, and panic clawed at my throat. He knew I didn’t know how to swim. My limbs flailed, water filled my lungs, my screams came out in bubbles. My hand found a half-submerged tree branch, and I clung to it, sobbing under the storm. I begged. Pleaded.

That was when he sent the butler—not to rescue me, but to drag me out like wet garbage.

I was left in the mud outside the mansion, shivering, coughing, burning up. No one gave me a blanket. No one even opened the door. I crawled to the entrance like an animal and pulled myself inside.

As I passed the master bedroom, I heard moaning from the other side of the door.

Jarren and Elisa. They didn’t even try to hide it anymore. Ever since she “returned”—his beloved first love—she strutted around the house like it was hers. Everyone knew. The maids. The cooks. The guards. But no one ever said anything. Because I was the wife in name only. The mistress was queen.

I leaned against the wall, dripping and trembling. They laughed between those walls while I rotted just outside them.

It hadn’t always been like this.

Five years ago, Jarren was warm. Kind, even. We met at a charity gala. I spilled wine on his suit and apologized for five minutes straight. He just smiled, handed me a napkin, and said, “You’re going to owe me ten dances for that.”

We fell hard. Fast.

He married me within a year. But three years into our marriage, Elisa came back. At first, he kept his distance. He promised me I had nothing to worry about. But then… then Elisa framed me.

She drugged my drink one night at a party and sent a stranger into my hotel room. I woke up half-dressed next to a man I didn’t know—numb, confused, and terrified.

Photos surfaced the next morning.

I swore it wasn’t what it looked like. I begged him to believe me. But he didn’t.

He looked me in the eye and said, “I never thought you’d be the kind of woman to embarrass me like this.”

Since then, he’s punished me again and again. Not with words. But with pain. He left the brakes cut on my car once—I barely survived that crash. He left rotten food in my meals. Locked me out in the winter. Starved me when Elisa said I gained weight. Each attempt subtle enough to be missed. But clear enough to be intentional.

And the worst part?

I stopped wanting to survive them.

That night, after the lake, after the betrayal, I sat on the bathroom floor, soaked and shivering, and told myself if I couldn't die from his cruelty, maybe I’d find a way on my own.

I walked into the hallway, dragging my sore body toward the medicine cabinet. My reflection looked like a stranger—pale skin, cracked lips, hollow eyes. I opened the drawer, pulled out the bottle of sleeping pills, and held them in my hand.

Just as I was about to swallow the first one, a scream cut through the silence.

“Who tracked wet water into the hall?!”

Elisa. Her voice was high-pitched and shrill—like a child throwing a tantrum. She stormed into the room like a hurricane.

Seconds later, Jarren followed, shirt unbuttoned, brows furrowed. “What the hell is this, Hayley? You ruined the floors she just cleaned. Can’t you do anything right?”

“She needs to clean it. Right now,” Elisa snapped. “And make her apologize while she’s at it.”

I stood still, the bottle still in my hand.

“Let her strip clothes,” Elisa said smugly. “Wipe it clean.”

My lips trembled. I looked at Jarren, hoping—just hoping—for a flicker of mercy.

He said nothing. So I did it. I peeled off my clothes and got on my knees, wiping the water trail with my bare hands, my vision blurring, my fever raging.

They walked away, laughing.

But I didn’t cry.

I just stood up, walked back into the hallway, and picked up the phone.

I dialed the number I’d been too afraid to call for years.

The woman on the other end answered, “Lawton Family Services. How may I help you?”

I steadied my voice.

“This is Hayley Smith,” I said. “I want to file for divorce… and completely erase my existence from this family.”

“This is Hayley Smith,” I said, steadying my breath despite the burning in my throat. “I want to file for divorce… and completely erase my existence from this family.”

There was a pause on the other end. Then a calm but hesitant voice replied, “Mrs. Smith… according to the agreement you signed at marriage, neither party can file for divorce unless one is… deceased. I’m afraid the court may not grant this.”

I closed my eyes, my voice hollow. “Don’t worry. I’ll be dead in a few days anyway. Just prepare the documents. Send them to my husband after.”

And I hung up.

I hadn’t slept all night. My body still ached from the fever. The scratches on my knees from the lake hadn’t healed. My hands were blistered from scrubbing the marble floors with bare skin. But just as I pulled the sheets over me, trying to steal a moment of rest, the door slammed open.

Elisa. She tossed a crumpled apron onto my face, the force jarring my fragile head.

“Get up,” she snapped. “We have visitors coming today. The maid is off. That makes you the housemaid.”

I blinked at her, body aching too much to sit up. “I’m not okay,” I rasped. “I need rest. I have a fever—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you defying me now?” she hissed. “Jarren said you are to follow everything I say. Or have you forgotten your place?”

I clenched my fists. “No. I didn’t forget. But maybe you did. I’m still his wife. Not you.”

That struck her. Her lips twisted into a sneer, but before she could speak again, I sat up, dizzy and shaking.

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “I’m not your maid. I’m not your victim. Cook your own damn food. You already ruined my life.”

I shouted.

And she crumbled.

Just like always.

Clutching her belly, Elisa collapsed to the floor, wailing like a siren. “Oh no… the baby—! Jarren! Please—!”

He arrived in seconds.

“What’s going on?” he barked, running to her side.

“She… she screamed at me,” Elisa sobbed, pointing at me. “She made me fall. What if I lose the baby?”

Pregnant.

With his child.

I laughed—bitter and broken.

Just a few months ago, I had found out I was pregnant. I had stood in that same room, trembling, holding the test in my hand. And Jarren’s first words were:

“It’s not mine.”

He accused me of sleeping around—based on Elisa’s lies—and forced me to end the pregnancy. I had begged. Screamed. Clutched my stomach like it was already slipping away.

But he didn’t care.

Now, here he was, stroking Elisa’s hair like she was porcelain.

Like she mattered.

And I?

I was just the ghost in the background.

“Go to the kitchen,” he snapped at me. “Prepare something fitting for our guests. Seafood. They’re investors.”

I didn’t argue.

Not anymore.

I dragged myself to the kitchen. The strong scent of shellfish made my stomach churn—I was deathly allergic to it—but no one cared. They never had. I cooked until my hands burned from the steam, plated everything with shaking fingers, and set the table before the guests arrived.

Everything was ready.

And yet, the moment the food was served, the guests grimaced.

“This is terrible,” one muttered. “You let your maid handle this?”

“She’s not even a real cook,” another sneered.

Jarren turned to me with that familiar look of contempt. “What the hell did you do?”

I swallowed hard. “I didn’t taste it. I can’t. I’m allergic—”

“If you’re allergic,” he said coldly, “then why insist on cooking? You could’ve told me instead of ruining everything.”

But he knew. He was the one who rushed me to the hospital years ago, the one who held my hand while I struggled to breathe after accidentally eating seafood. He stayed by my side for days, spoon-feeding me medicine and whispering that he’d never let it happen again.

But that was a different man.

Now, he stood before me—calm, cruel, and deliberate—as he shoved a spoonful of shellfish into my mouth.

His tenth attempt to kill me. My throat began to close instantly. The panic was instant and suffocating. My vision blurred. The walls spun. I dropped to the floor, gasping—fingers clawing for air that wouldn’t come.

And then—darkness.

I woke up hours later in my bed. A glass of water sat on the nightstand.

Next to it, a small bottle of allergy medicine… and a folded note.

Take this.

No name. But the handwriting—it was Jarren’s. He used to leave me notes like this when everything was still in its place between us.

Now, it was just the same cycle.

He hurt me. Then saved me.

Then hurt me again. As if it never happened. As if he was allowed to play god with my life.

I turned away, trying to stand, when my phone buzzed.

It was the lawyer.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “We can’t move forward with the filing. Your husband was notified accidentally… and he’s already blocked the process. He was furious.”

I didn’t even get to respond before the door slammed open again.

Jarren entered, eyes wild. He threw a crumpled folder onto the bed—the papers I’d signed.

“So you were trying to divorce me?” he said, smirking. “Why? So you can run to the man you cheated on me with?”

“That’s not what happened and you know it—” I tried to stand.

He stepped closer. “I told you once, Hayley. The only way out of this marriage is death. You want out? Then die.”

Tears welled in my eyes, but I met his gaze anyway.

“Then kill me,” I whispered. “Just do it. But this time, don’t save me after.”

He didn’t reply. He just walked out. Left me sobbing in a house that felt more like a grave every day.

And then I remembered the one person who still might care.

Jarren’s grandmother. She had loved me like her own. She was the only one who ever looked me in the eyes and called me family.

With shaking fingers, I grabbed my phone and dialed the number I never thought I’d call again.

It rang once. Twice.

“Hello?”

“Grandmother,” I breathed, my voice breaking. “Please… help me. I want to leave Jarren. I want to divorce him… please.”

The message came early in the morning.

“Just wait five days. Then everything will be fine. I’m sorry for everything Jarren has done to you. I’ll make him pay—him and his mistress.” —Aurora

My fingers trembled slightly as I read the text again. And again.

Aurora. Jarren’s grandmother. The only person in that wretched family who had ever treated me like I mattered. I never expected her to respond, let alone help me. I thought they had poisoned her too—with their lies, their versions of truth. I thought she had turned her back on me like everyone else.

But she didn’t.

After I’d called her, sobbing and desperate, she came to me quietly. Held me while I fell apart. Listened as I poured out everything—the abuse, the betrayal, the ten attempts on my life.

I expected doubt. Judgment. Maybe even silence.

But Aurora only said one thing:

“They’ll regret ever touching you.”

She told me she never believed Elisa’s story about the affair. She had hired her own people to look into everything. The drugged wine. The fake photos. The staged betrayal. She knew the truth now.

And she was ready to help me vanish.

Divorce, she said, wasn’t enough. Not for people like Jarren, who held chains tighter than rings. So we’d fake it.

We’d fake my death.

Let them think they won. Let them dance on my grave. And let that be the beginning of their end.

That same afternoon, I started cleaning my room like I was purging a ghost. I pulled every box from the closet. Every album. Every token of the life I had once called love.

There were photos—smiling, bright. Me and Jarren at the beach. Me in my wedding dress. His arms around me, both of us laughing like we believed in forever.

We were once so full of dreams. I remember lazy Sunday mornings, sunlight spilling through the curtains while he made pancakes in the kitchen, humming off-key. I used to sneak up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, and he’d lean back into me like I was his home.

I remember road trips with no destination, just his hand on mine over the gearshift, our favorite songs echoing through the car speakers. Nights we stayed up talking about everything and nothing. How he’d lift me off my feet in the rain just to keep my shoes dry. The way he looked at me like I was magic.

I remember the first time he kissed me.

The first time he told me I was his world.

Lies.

I tossed the albums into the fireplace one by one.

Letters. Cards. His shirt that still smelled like him.

Burned. The flames danced, eating away at what little innocence I had left. Smoke filled the room. I didn’t flinch.

I was done. But just as I dropped the last photo in, the door creaked open behind me.

Elisa. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, lips twisted in her usual smugness. “What are you still doing here, bitch?” she sneered. “Haven’t you died enough? Ten lives aren’t enough for you?”

I didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

“Elisa,” I said calmly, “Don’t worry. I’m leaving in days…”

I stepped past her.

“You’ll never see me again.”

But she grabbed my wrist, nails digging into my skin.

“You’d better mean that. You don’t deserve him. You never did. He’s mine—you were just the placeholder.”

I stared at her hand until she let go, then walked out without another word.

Five more days. Just five.

Later that evening, I was folding what little I planned to leave behind—just enough to sell the illusion that I was still here—when the bedroom door slammed open.

Jarren. His face was dark with suspicion.

“What did you do to my grandmother?”

I blinked up at him.

“She’s asking for both of us to come to dinner. And now she’s talking about not giving the inheritance yet when she told me I would have it.” He stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “Did you tell her something? Huh? Did you tell her about us?”

I swallowed. “No. I didn’t say anything.”

His jaw tightened. “If I find out that you ruined my chances, Hayley—if I learn you told her lies to sabotage me—you’ll be dead for real this time.”

And then he left, slamming the door behind him.

My breath caught, but I didn’t cry.

I was beyond that now. A soft ding vibrated from my phone. I turned it over.

“Fake death plan has been completed. Plane ticket confirmed. Five days.”