“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.”

I stared at my reflection, not recognizing the woman in the mirror anymore.

Tonight was the family dinner. An extravagant display of wealth and power held at their ancestral house, where every chandelier glittered with secrets and every guest had blood-stained intentions hiding beneath velvet gowns and tailored suits.

They called it a celebration, but we all knew better. It was a battlefield dressed in finery. The only goal? Inheritance. Control. Favor from the matriarch seated on her throne of gold and manipulation.

And me?

I was just a placeholder. A living doll Jarren kept around to maintain the illusion of a perfect marriage. Especially for those relatives who still didn’t know—or pretended not to know—that Elisa, his mistress, was carrying his child.

As I pulled the delicate chain of my father’s heirloom necklace around my throat, the bedroom door flew open without warning.

Jarren stormed in like a gust of cold wind, eyes sharp, jaw tight.

"Take that off," he said.

I blinked. "What?"

He didn’t explain. He just reached forward, and before I could stop him, his hand yanked the necklace from my neck. The clasp snapped. I gasped, my fingers automatically flying to my now bare skin.

“That was my father’s,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s mine. You can’t just—”

“Elisa wants it,” he interrupted flatly, already turning toward the door. “It matches her dress.”

I laughed bitterly. “You’re giving my heirloom to your mistress?”

He looked over his shoulder, annoyed. “Don’t stress her. It’s not good for the baby. Just wear another necklace.”

“The baby?” I choked. “You’re more worried about the baby she’s carrying than the wife you humiliate every day?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink.

“I’m going ahead with her,” he said, as if this conversation wasn’t even happening. “You’ll follow with the driver.”

“And tonight?” I asked, my voice low. “What am I supposed to be? The smiling wife, pretending we’re in love?”

His gaze met mine, hollow and cruel. “Exactly. Smile. Behave. Pretend. But don’t get too close, and don’t lift your chin too high.”

His words hit like stones.

“I don’t love you anymore, Hayley,” he said. “You’re nothing to me now.”

And then, he walked out. Just like that.

I stood there, stunned, staring at the door long after it shut behind him. My hands trembled as I touched the spot where the necklace had been. My father’s last gift. A reminder of home, of a time before this mess. Gone. Just like my dignity.

I turned slowly back to the mirror, meeting the hollow-eyed woman again. And I waited. Waited until I heard the sound of his car leaving the estate, until I was sure they were both gone.

Then, I moved. I grabbed my small black bag from the corner drawer. I stepped outside and walked briskly toward the awaiting limousine. The driver opened the door with a bow. We pulled away from the mansion gates, the grand estate growing smaller behind us. I stared out the window as the trees blurred past, my heart strangely still.

Then, without hesitation, I pulled my phone out. Removed the SIM card. Rolled down the tinted window. And tossed it out.

I inhaled deeply, letting the cold air rush into my lungs like a cleansing wave.

A private plane waited for me at a discreet airstrip just outside the city.

A new country. A new identity. A second chance.

I leaned back in the seat, letting the silence settle around me.

This was it.

I was finally leaving.

Leaving Jarren. Leaving the pain. Leaving the woman in the mirror who had forgotten how to dream.

And I didn’t look back.

Third person’s POV

The ancestral hall gleamed with chandeliers. Jarren walked in, arm-in-arm with Elisa. Her dress clung to her like a second skin, crimson and calculated. Eyes followed them—some curious, some judgmental—but no one dared speak. They all knew who Elisa was. They just pretended not to.

At the head of the hall, Grandmother Aurora sat like a queen surveying her court, eyes sharp despite her age. As soon as she spotted them, she raised her hand.

“Jarren,” she called. “Where is Hayley?”

“She’s on her way,” he replied with a forced smile, masking irritation. “Grandma, this is Elisa—”

“I don’t care who she is,” Aurora cut him off coldly. “If you fail to take care of Hayley—if I even sense betrayal—you’ll get nothing. No inheritance. No title.”

Jarren’s jaw tensed. He stepped away, pulling out his phone. Call after call—voicemail. Her phone was off.

“Elisa,” he barked at a nearby servant, “tell the butler to find Hayley now.”

Beside him, Elisa crossed her arms. “Why are you acting like this? I’m the one carrying your child. Just let her be. We don't need her.”

“I have to play by her rules,” he muttered. “You heard my grandmother.”

Just then, the butler approached, his face pale and drawn. “Sir… we’ve received a report.”

Jarren’s heart skipped a beat. “What is it?”

“Miss Hayley’s car was struck by a 12-wheeler. The vehicle is completely destroyed.”

Jarren’s voice caught. “Where is she? Is she—”

The butler hesitated, lowering his gaze. “For the eleventh time of almost dying… Miss Hayley didn’t survive. She’s dead.”

Jarren’s fingers trembled, the wine slipping and staining his hand, but he remained frozen in place, unable to move as the weight of the words crushed him.

His vision blurred as another butler added, “Sir… here are the divorce papers. They’ve been finalized, as her dying wish.”