When Beth woke, the back of her skull throbbed like it was splitting apart.

She was lying on the ground, hands bound behind her, the restraints biting into her wrists. A few yards away, Jeanette was tied up too, duct tape over her mouth, eyes rimmed red, muffled whimpers spilling out nonstop.

A bald man with a knife scar across his face stood in the center of the room. Melvin was at the door, chest heaving, eyes bloodshot.

The man held a knife, staring at Melvin with something unhinged in his gaze:

"Melvin Henson! You put me away for five years. My wife left. My mother died, and I never got to see her one last time! Today, I'm going to show you what it feels like to wish you were dead!"

Melvin raised his hands, voice hoarse and thin: "Whatever you want, take it out on me! Let them go!"

The man laughed, wild and unrestrained:

"Attorney Henson, one of these women is your wife, the other's your little sweetheart. You only get to take one. Don't say I didn't give you a chance! Whoever you pick walks out alive. The other one? I'll make her wish she'd never been born. That's what you owe me!"

Melvin's face went white. His fists clenched at his sides.

Beth watched him. She saw his eyes dart between her and Jeanette, back and forth, back and forth. His lips trembled. His throat worked. Sweat beaded across his forehead.

She waited. She told herself he would choose her.

They were husband and wife. She was the woman he'd married before God and everyone. She'd fought her own family for him, helped him build his firm from nothing, stood beside him through every lean year until they reached this point. He had to remember that.

Beside her, tears streamed down Jeanette's face. She shook her head frantically, choking out garbled sobs through the tape:

"Mr. Henson, I don't want to die! I still want to stand by your side and fight for justice for all those victims!"

Melvin flinched. He turned to Jeanette, and his eyes filled with something that looked like anguish.

He closed his eyes. The words scraped out of his throat: "I choose Jeanette."

Those three words were three knives, each one driving into Beth's chest, one after another, until she couldn't breathe.

Her ears rang. Her mind went blank. She thought she would scream, thought she would cry, but nothing came.

She just looked at him. Like she was looking at a stranger.

No. A stranger wouldn't have been able to hurt her like this.

Melvin's voice grew more urgent, as if he were trying to convince her, or maybe trying to convince himself:

"Beth, I'm sorry. Jeanette is a rising star in the legal world. You can't imagine her talent. The cases she'll take on, the people she'll help, there are so many. If she lives, she can put more monsters like this behind bars! You don't want these criminals walking free either, right?"

"Beth, you're the Cox family heiress. You have money, resources. Even if you get hurt today, you'll be fine. But Jeanette is different. She has nothing. All she has is me. I can't just abandon her!"

Beth listened to every word. A bleak smile spread across her face.

She bit down on her lower lip, hard, until she tasted blood, just to keep herself from falling apart completely.

Jeanette's ropes were cut. She threw herself into Melvin's arms, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

He held Jeanette and walked toward the exit. When he passed Beth, he stopped.

"Beth, I'll come back for you. I promise. Just hold on."

Beth looked into his eyes. There was guilt in them, and reluctance, but not a shred of hesitation.

The heavy iron door of the warehouse slammed shut.

The bald man crouched down in front of Beth, a sickening grin on his face:

"Mrs. Henson, your husband picked her. How does it feel to be thrown away? The lawfully wedded wife, and you still lost to some little assistant. Looks like your husband thinks of you as garbage, tossed out without a second thought!"

Beth closed her eyes. She said nothing.

The man kicked her square in the chest. Her body flew backward, her spine slamming into the wall. The fractures from before tore open like fresh wounds, and the pain turned her vision black.

He walked over, knife in hand, and pried her right pinky finger open:

"Five years in that hellhole, they broke two of my fingers. I'm only taking one of yours. Count yourself lucky, and tell that bastard Henson he got off easy!"

The knife came down.

Beth felt the blade bite into skin, slice through muscle, scrape against bone. The agony ground through her inch by inch. Her body convulsed. Tears and sweat ran together down her face, and a raw, ragged scream tore from her throat.

Before she blacked out, only one thought crossed her mind.

Back in design school, her professor had told her that the right pinky was what steadied your grip on the pen. Without it, your lines would shake. Your stone settings would be crooked.

Did this mean she would never be a designer again?

In the darkness of despair and pain, her consciousness slipped under.

When she woke again, Beth found herself in a VIP suite at a private hospital.

The man sitting at her bedside was the last person she expected: her father, who had been managing the family business in Australia all this time.

The moment he saw her eyes open, Irvin Cox's face crumpled with heartache:

"Beth, why didn't you tell me you'd been suffering like this? Your finger's been reattached. It's going to be okay, sweetheart. Someone dared to do this to my daughter. I will make sure they pay for every last bit of it."

Her father stroked her hair gently. She had so much she wanted to tell him, so many grievances bottled up inside, but the pain and exhaustion pulled her under, and before she knew it, she had drifted off again.

Early the next morning, Beth was jolted awake by a door slamming open.

Melvin stormed in, face twisted with rage, and hurled a stack of documents onto her hospital bed:

"Beth Cox, you vicious woman! Is using your family's power to crush people the only thing you know how to do?!"

Beth stared at Melvin. "What did you just say?"

His voice exploded through the hospital room, raw with fury:

"Drop the act! Your father pressured the Bar Association into filing a professional misconduct complaint against Jeanette. They're holding a disciplinary hearing, and she could lose her license! Is that what you wanted? Are you happy now?"

He grabbed Beth by the arm and dragged her out.

The hearing was held in a conference room. Three investigators sat behind a long table, and both sides of the gallery were packed with lawyers and spectators.

Jeanette sat in the respondent's chair, face pale, tears clinging to her lashes, yet a thread of stubborn defiance in her voice:

"I truly had no idea that USB drive contained a video from a psychiatric hospital. Someone set me up! I have no grudge against Mrs. Henson. Why would I ever do something like that?"

One of the investigators pressed a button on the projector. Surveillance footage filled the screen: on the day of the anniversary gala, Jeanette stood at the control console, pulled a USB drive from her own purse, and plugged it into the media player.

Jeanette's mouth fell open. Not a single word came out.

Murmurs rippled through the gallery:

"So she really did it on purpose! That's disgusting!"

"She wanted to destroy Mrs. Henson's reputation. A lawyer who breaks the law on purpose doesn't deserve to practice!"

A middle-aged woman shot to her feet and pointed straight at Jeanette:

"You have the nerve to cry? Mrs. Henson was humiliated in front of hundreds of people because of you, and you're still playing innocent!"

Another voice followed: "Morally unfit to practice! Revoke her license!"

Jeanette hugged herself, trembling head to toe, tears streaming faster than before.

Beth stood in the doorway, watching it all. There was no satisfaction in her chest, no pity either. The whole scene felt like a circus that would never end, and she was bone-tired of it.

A water bottle sailed from the gallery and struck Jeanette's shoulder. She screamed, threw her arms over her head, and crouched down.

A binder followed. Then a notebook, pens, a drinking glass. Security rushed forward but couldn't contain the crowd's fury.

"Enough!"

A firm male voice cut through the chaos. Melvin charged up to the front in full view of everyone.

He pulled Jeanette behind him and spread his arms wide, shielding her. A glass tumbler caught him square on the forehead with a sharp crack. The glass shattered. Blood ran down from his brow, tracing a line past his eye.

He didn't flinch. He didn't wipe it away. He faced the room and spoke, his voice ringing out like a closing argument in court:

"That USB drive was mine! She had no idea what was on it! All responsibility falls on me!"

The room went dead silent.

Behind him, Jeanette clutched the hem of his jacket, shaking her head through her tears. "Attorney Henson, don't... You can't take the blame for me."

Melvin didn't turn around. He simply reached back and kept her shielded, his voice softening: "Jeanette, listen to me. Your talent shouldn't be destroyed by something like this. You're the future of the legal profession, and I have to protect you."

He turned back to the room, and his voice rang like steel:

"Jeanette Pruitt is the most gifted young attorney I have ever seen! Her litigation skills, her legal acumen, her commitment to justice surpass anyone her age! If we let a baseless accusation destroy her career today, it will be a loss for the entire profession!"

Blood still trickled down his forehead, but his back was ramrod straight, his eyes blazing with the conviction of a man defending a sacred cause:

"If someone has to face disciplinary action, discipline me! If someone has to pay the price, revoke my license! I will bear every consequence for Jeanette, because she is worth it!"

Jeanette lifted her head and gently took his hand.

Beth watched the scene before her, her gaze ice-cold.

The two of them stood side by side on that stage like comrades facing a common enemy, like lovers bound by life and death.

Her hands began to tremble. She wanted to laugh at how absurd it was, how utterly, impossibly absurd.

She remembered Melvin's first time in court, visibly nervous, and how she'd sat in the gallery and given him a thumbs-up. He'd taken a deep breath, straightened his spine, and won the case.

She remembered when he wanted to open his own firm but had no connections and no capital. She'd gone on a hunger strike against her own family to secure the Cox Group's backing. On opening day, he'd held her hand and said, "Beth, I will never let you down. Not in this lifetime."

She remembered the night he won the Elite Attorney Award. He'd looked straight at her from the stage and said, "I want to thank my wife, Beth Cox. Without her, I wouldn't be standing here today."

Now he stood on a different stage, bleeding for another woman, swearing oaths for another woman, gambling everything he treasured without a second's hesitation.

He said she was worth it. Then what about Beth Cox?

She had spent years by his side, loving him with everything she had, giving up her own career, helping him climb from a nobody to the youngest elite attorney in Harbor City.

What was she worth? Nothing. She was worth nothing.

Beth let out a cold laugh, loud enough to turn every head in the room. She walked straight up to Melvin, contempt etched across her face, and spoke one deliberate word at a time:

"Since Attorney Henson feels so strongly, the Cox Group is pulling every cent of its investment from his firm. Effective immediately. Your little firm? Shut. Down."

"Melvin, the building your firm sits in belongs to the Cox Group. The capital belongs to the Cox Group. Even your earliest clients came through Cox family connections. Without the Cox family, you are nothing. Who exactly do you think you are? What do you have left to protect her with?"

She turned to Jeanette. "And you. Get out of the firm. Now. And I promise you, not a single firm in Harbor City will ever take you in."

Melvin's face flushed crimson, his lips trembling. Jeanette went white, her fingers digging into his hand.

The room was silent as a grave.

Then Jeanette pulled out her phone, faced the crowd, and spoke:

"Everyone, I have a piece of evidence. I didn't want to use it, but today, I'm going to show all of you exactly what kind of person Beth Cox really is!"

She tapped play, and a woman's voice spilled from the phone speaker:

"I'll pay you two million dollars. You pretend to kidnap both me and Jeanette, then make Melvin choose between us. I want to see who matters more to him."

It was Beth's voice.

Beth froze. She had never said those words. She had never even met the kidnapper. How was this possible?

The room erupted. A tidal wave of noise crashed over her, voices overlapping, accusations flying from every direction.

Melvin turned to look at her. Shock gave way to fury, and fury hardened into something glacial:

"Beth! Have you lost your mind? You're actually capable of something like this?"

"I didn't do it! That recording is fake! Jeanette set me up!"

Melvin let out a cold laugh. "Fake? You're still lying, even now? You think I can't recognize your own voice?" He turned to the bailiffs. "Escort this suspect to the detention center. She orchestrated a kidnapping."

Before Beth could react, two officers seized her arms from either side.

In the interrogation room, the officer across the table asked, "Mrs. Henson, would you like to have your husband serve as your defense attorney?"

Before she could answer, the door swung open. Melvin walked in with Jeanette trailing behind him. He set a file on the table and slid it toward the officer.

"These are Beth Cox's psychiatric records. Bipolar disorder, with a documented history of manic episodes. She's extremely dangerous. I recommend housing her with the maximum-security inmates."

"And no, I won't be representing her. On the contrary, if the victim, Jeanette Pruitt, requires counsel, I'll serve as her prosecuting attorney."

Beth stared at him, trembling so violently she could barely stay upright. A thousand words jammed in her throat. She wanted to explain, to scream, to curse him until her voice gave out. None of it mattered. The heavy iron door slammed shut in front of her, cutting off the last sliver of daylight.

The forty-eight hours she spent in that detention center would stay with her for the rest of her life.

They put her in a cell full of violent offenders. Several women circled her, grinning. They slapped her across the face, kicked her in the stomach, stomped on her shins. Someone ripped the gauze off her right hand and ground a lit cigarette into the freshly reattached pinky finger.

She blacked out from the pain more than once, only to be jolted awake by cold water thrown in her face. Then the beating resumed.

Forty-eight hours later, the iron door opened.

"Beth Cox. The investigation is complete. The recording was forged. You're free to go."

She stood. Her body was a map of damage: bruises mottled her face, dried blood crusted along her hairline. She braced one hand against the wall and made her way out, one slow step at a time.

Outside the detention center, the sunlight was blinding. Melvin leaned against his car. When he saw her, he frowned.

"What happened to you?"

Beth said nothing. Her gaze drifted past him, flat and empty, fixed on something far away.

He sighed.

"Beth, this whole thing was just a little lesson for you. Stop letting jealousy drive you to pull stunts like that. Behave yourself, and I'll still treat you as the one and only Mrs. Henson."

He was still talking when she turned and walked away. She never once looked at him.

It happened to be the last day of the mandatory cooling-off period. Beth went to the courthouse and picked up her divorce certificate.

She thought of that night a month ago, when Melvin had signed the papers, too drunk to read what was in front of him. He still had no idea what he'd put his name to.

He thought she was just throwing a tantrum. Using every trick to get his attention. He thought she still loved him that much. Thought she could never leave.

He didn't know she had stopped wanting any of it a long time ago.

Beth went home, packed a single bag, and booked the earliest flight to Paris.

At the airport, she pulled out her old SIM card and threw it away. She snapped in a new one and sent a message to Carol: "The divorce is final. I land tomorrow."

The plane lifted off. Beth watched through the window as the city shrank beneath her, block by block, street by street, until it was nothing.

She would never come back. She hadn't even said goodbye to Melvin.

Because she had spent her whole life giving him more words than she gave anyone else. And now, she didn't have a single one left.