2: 2

The next morning I woke early.

Hugh was still asleep in the study.

I made his breakfast and left it on the table.

Then I dragged my suitcase out and left the home I'd lived in for five years, without looking back.

My friend Lucille Fox came to pick me up.

She saw my swollen, red eyes and started cursing: "Hugh, that piece of trash!"

"I always said he was no good!"

"You were just too soft, that's why you gave him so much!"

I leaned against the window and watched the streets rush past.

"Lucille, I'm not soft anymore."

Lucille said she'd set me up at her place.

"Stay with me for now. Take your time finding a job, no rush."

"If money runs short, just tell me. Don't be shy about it."

I nodded. "Thank you, Lucille."

That afternoon, Hugh called.

His voice was hoarse and irritable, thick with a hangover.

"Libby, are you done throwing your fit?"

"Get back here now!"

"I didn't eat this morning, and now my stomach's acting up!"

Listening to him bark orders like he had every right to, I just found it laughable.

"Hugh, we already broke up."

"Your stomach, your breakfast, none of it has anything to do with me."

There was silence for a few seconds on his end, then a bigger burst of rage.

"Libby!"

"Who do you think you are?"

"You think you can survive without me?"

"I'm telling you, in three days you'll be crawling back to me in tears!"

I hung up on him.

I blocked every one of his numbers.

The world went quiet.

I took a job as an assistant at a newly opened design firm.

The pay wasn't much, but it was enough to support myself.

The first day was busy, exhausting.

But my heart felt steadier than it ever had.

That night, Lucille dragged me out to celebrate.

We ordered grilled skewers and beer at an outdoor food stall.

"To our new life!" Lucille raised her glass.

I laughed, clinked mine against hers, and drank it down in one go.

The sharp liquor burned down my throat, made me cough a little.

But it felt wonderful.

Just then, a black Maybach pulled up at the curb.

The door opened and Hugh got out.

He walked straight toward me, his face dark.

He snatched the glass out of my hand and smashed it on the ground.

"Libby, big and brave now, are you?"

"Learned how to drink, have you?"

Everyone around us turned to look, pointing and whispering.

I just wanted to disappear.

"Hugh, what the hell is wrong with you!" Lucille stood up and put herself between us.

Hugh didn't even glance at her. He kept his eyes locked on me.

"Come home with me."

"No." I looked back at him coldly and said it.

His eyes turned dangerous in an instant.

"I'll say it one more time. Come home with me."

He reached out and yanked me, his grip brutal.

I struggled, but I was no match for him.

"Hugh, let go of me!"

"You're hurting me!"

Lucille came up to help too, but he shoved her away.

"Get lost!"

He hauled me toward the car, forcing me along.

My nails raked a few bloody scratches down his arm as I fought with everything I had.

He winced, but didn't loosen his grip at all.

He only gripped me tighter.

"Libby, move one more time and see what happens!"

His voice was full of threat.

He shoved me into the car and slammed the door locked.

He came around to the driver's seat and started the engine.

"Hugh, where are you taking me?" I asked, terrified.

No answer. He stamped on the gas and the car shot forward.

3: 3

The car tore through the streets and stopped outside the house that used to be ours.

Hugh hauled me out and dragged me up the stairs.

He shoved the door open, pushed me inside, and locked it behind him.

"Libby, you really have to push me, don't you?"

He pinned me against the door, both hands braced on either side of me, trapping me in the small space of his body.

The mix of liquor and cigarette smoke rolled off him and turned my stomach.

"Hugh, calm down."

"I am calm." He gave a cold laugh. "I'd like to see how you survive without me."

He took out my phone, unlocked it right in front of me, and opened my messages.

"Lucille?"

"So she's the one who took you out running wild?"

He found Lucille's contact and deleted it, just like that.

Then my payment app, my banking app.

"What's the password?"

I said nothing.

He gripped my chin, hard.

"I asked you, what's the password!"

"Or did you forget? Every bank card you have is a supplementary card I set up for you."

"I can cut them off anytime."

My heart sank, inch by inch.

Right. How could I have forgotten.

For five years, I'd lived under his control, with no freedom.

No income of my own. No savings of my own.

Everything I had came from what he gave me.

"Hugh, what exactly do you want?" I looked at him, hopeless, and asked.

"Nothing much."

He let go of me, a smug little smile spreading across his face.

"I just want you to know who your master is."

He walked into the living room and poured himself a glass of water.

"From today on, you stay home. You don't go anywhere."

"And forget about the job. I already had a word with your company."

It hit me like a lightning strike.

"What did you say?"

"I said you've been fired." He said it lightly, offhand.

"Hugh, what gives you the right!"

I rushed at him, shaking with fury.

"The right of being Hugh Henson."

"And the right that your crummy little company is still counting on my investment."

He looked at me, his eyes full of mockery and contempt.

"Libby, stop being naive."

"In this world, you can't take a single step without money."

"You can't win against me."

The strength drained out of me, and I sank to the floor.

He was right.

I couldn't win against him.

He had money, power, connections.

And I had nothing.

Over the next few days, I was locked up completely.

He took away every device I could reach and cut the internet.

He only let the meal-delivery housekeeper come with three meals a day.

I was shut inside this cage.

I tried to fight back. I tried a hunger strike.

All it got me was tighter surveillance and crueler mockery.

"Save your energy."

"Even if you starve to death in here, no one will ever know."

In the end I gave up.

Every day I sat by the window, watching the traffic and the people flowing past outside.

I felt like a walking corpse.

Until that day, when I stumbled on a pregnancy report in the study drawer.

It was Christine's.

Eight weeks pregnant.

The date, two months ago.

My mind went blank with a roar.

So it turned out they'd been together all along.

So it turned out I was the fool who'd been kept in the dark the whole time.

A wave of nausea and revulsion surged up in me.

I ran out of the study and found Hugh in the living room, watching the financial news.

I hurled that pregnancy report right in his face.

"Hugh, you make me sick!"

4: 4

When Hugh saw the pregnancy report, something flickered across his face, then smoothed over just as fast.

He picked it up, glanced at it, and tossed it onto the coffee table.

"So you know."

His tone was completely flat.

"So?"

I couldn't believe my ears.

"So?"

"Hugh, you got her pregnant!"

"You cheated on me!"

"We're not married," he corrected me.

I froze.

He was right. We weren't married.

Five years with him, and he had never once brought up marriage.

I'd hinted at it before, and he always brushed it off with the same excuse: his business had just gotten off the ground, we should wait a little longer.

So it turned out he'd never intended to marry me at all.

"Christine's keeping the baby." He looked at me and said it out one word at a time.

"I'm going to give her a name."

The pain made it hard to breathe.

"Then what about me?"

I asked, shaking. "What am I?"

He fell silent.

It was a long moment before he spoke, a trace of fatigue in his voice that was almost too faint to catch.

"Libby, I do have feelings for you."

"These five years, the way you took care of me, I remember it."

"Whatever you want. Compensation, money, a house. Anything I can afford, you can name it."

"As long as you behave and stay away from Christine."

I laughed.

Laughed until the tears came.

"Compensation?"

"Hugh, my five years, my youth, what are you going to pay me back with?"

"I gave you everything, and all I get is a lecture about behaving myself?"

I lunged at him, hitting him, kicking him like a woman gone mad.

"You liar!"

"You bastard!"

He didn't fight back. He let me get it all out.

Until I had no fight left, no tears left, and went limp against him.

He held me gently and sighed.

"Libby, stop this."

"It's already come to this. Dragging it out does no one any good."

"Do as I say, and I won't shortchange you."

I pushed him away, wiped my eyes, and stood up.

"Hugh."

"We're done."

I turned to go back to my room.

He caught my hand.

"Where are you going?"

"Let go of me."

"Libby, don't push me." His voice went cold.

I turned back and looked at him, cold.

"What?"

"You want to lock me up again?"

"Lock me up until Christine has the baby and you hold your wedding with her?"

"Make me your dirty little secret?"

"Hugh, in your dreams!"

I wrenched my hand free, ran back to my room, and locked the door.

Leaning against it, my body slid down before I could stop it.

I hugged my knees, buried my face in my arms, and cried without a sound.

I don't know how long I cried.

Hugh's voice came from outside.

"Libby, open the door."

"Let's talk."

I ignored him.

"Libby, I know you're angry right now."

"But you have to think about your future too."

"Leave me, and you have nothing."

"Stay with me, and at least you'll still live in comfort."

"Think it through."

Then he went quiet.

I lifted my head and looked at the wretched woman in the mirror.

He was right. Leave him, and I had nothing.

But staying with him, would I have any dignity?

No.

I'd only become a joke.

A pet with no soul.

I didn't want that kind of life.

I'd rather have nothing and live on my feet.

I started looking for a chance to run.

This house was covered in cameras.

Every move I made was under his watch.

The one opening was the housekeeper who brought my meals every day.

While she wasn't paying attention, I stole her phone.

Shut in the bathroom, I sent Lucille a message begging for help.

"Lucille, save me."

I deleted the message and slipped the phone back into her pocket.

I didn't know if Lucille would get it.

I didn't know if she would come for me.

All I could do was gamble.

Gamble on whether, in this life, I still had any chance of being free again.