When my family went bankrupt, I was drugged and sent to the bed of my childhood sweetheart, Craig Kennedy.

From that night, he brought women home every evening, tossing a divorce agreement in my face. "Beg me, and I won't leave you."

He stood above me, watching as I humbled myself to dust, pleading to preserve our marriage.

He even ordered me to kneel in his office and massage the feet of his secretary, Lucia Langston.

On the day the Moore Group needed ten million to survive, she blocked all my desperate calls for help.

I waited 24 hours, watching my family's legacy collapse and my parents take their lives.

Craig, with Lucia at his side, entered the house and threw the signed divorce agreement at me again. "You wanted money to save your family, didn't you? Beg me, and as long as I don't divorce you, no one will touch them."

But I signed it with calm despair. "Don't bother. We no longer need your help."

As I signed the divorce agreement, Craig Kennedy's triumphant smirk froze.

He snatched it, his hand gripping my throat with near-mad intensity. "What game are you playing now? Don't forget that you climbed into my bed. Used every trick to force me into marriage. Why act so noble now? You humiliate yourself all for money, don't you?"

Each word was sharper, more vicious than the last. For three years, he'd hurled these accusations, shaming me, as if I'd stooped so low to win him.

I used to cry, insisting it wasn't true.

Every day for three years, I explained, hoping he'd see my sincerity. But now, my heart was a barren wasteland. His belief or disbelief no longer mattered.

Watching him rage, I felt only bone-deep exhaustion. A heaviness seeped into my marrow, whispering that death might be a relief.

"Speak! How dare you look at me like that? You're the one who betrayed me!" Craig's voice cracked with fury, bringing me back to reality.

When his tirade subsided, I slowly lifted my head. "Are you done? Can I go now?"

For the first time in three years, my voice held an eerie calm.

A flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but he scoffed, masking it. "Where can you go? Take a good look at yourself. Every thread on your body comes from me. Leave the way you came, stripped bare."

His towering arrogance reminded me of the boy he once was. He feared losing me, clung to me, and begged declarations of love.

Those days had vanished like dust in the wind.

Standing before him, I recalled the humiliation of being delivered to his bed like an offering.

I looked at his smug face and smirked. "Okay."

I removed the watch from my wrist.

Countless times, he'd threatened me this way, and I'd pleaded for mercy, clinging to our past.

I had held hope for us and the future.

Now, living felt more torturous than death. His humiliations were mere embellishments to my pain. It was agonizing, but inconsequential.

I went to take off my coat. Holding his gaze, I let the wedding ring fall.

It hit the floor with a crisp clink, no different from a cold stone. Once my treasure, now it meant nothing.

Ignoring his shock, I walked barefoot toward the door.

"Are you insane? Stop!" he roared after me.

My thin frame, marked with bruises and scars, was the greatest mockery of his cruelty. I quickened my pace, running toward the sunlight.

Craig shook from rage or grief. He collapsed, gasping heavily.

Lucia Langston's voice cut through. "Michele is just ungrateful. Just because you didn't answer her calls, she throws a tantrum. Does she have someone else?"

Craig shoved her away, his eyes blazing. "Get out!"

Turning to the butler, he ordered, "Take the clothes to her. I didn't allow her to leave."

He muttered to himself, "Michele, you betrayed me first."

The spring air was sharp, and my bare feet trembled on the asphalt.

I'd walked this road countless times. The worst was when the Moore family faltered. They drugged me and delivered me to Craig's bed like a commodity to secure their survival.

Now the Moore Group was gone. Freed from groveling, I felt an odd lightness, a release.

"Madam," Mervin called out, hurrying toward me.

Before I could turn, he draped a coat over my shoulders. "Mr. Kennedy sent this. He cares for you. Why let it..."

"Pass on my thanks to him," I cut him off.

He sighed before heading back.

The coat, familiar and heavy, pulled me into memories. Craig had bought it for me when I was still the cherished Moore heiress. His eyes had brimmed with love, and he had promised to protect me forever.

As a child, he shielded me from every slight. Once, when someone bullied me, he fought them, earning a beating from his family's discipline. Bedridden, he still made faces to make me laugh.

I wept for his pain, and he clumsily wiped my tears. "Don't cry. I won't let anyone hurt you."

In high school, when delinquents cornered me, he charged in alone, battered but unyielding. Even as he struggled to stand, he asked if I was scared, making me laugh through my tears.

Back then, he shunned other girls, proudly telling his friends, "My girlfriend keeps me on a tight leash."

We were childhood sweethearts envied by all as a perfect match, destined for marriage on the day our families set.

But fate turned cruel. The Moore Group faced a crippling crisis, and my family, fearing the Kennedys would break our engagement, drugged me and sent me to Craig's bed. I handed him the drugged wine, unaware of its contents.

I explained countless times, but his eyes always held the same disgust from that morning, appraising me like a tainted object.

He believed I'd schemed to save my family, seducing him with despicable means. From that moment, I was branded with shame, stripped of any right to defend myself.

Yet he honored the engagement, giving me a grand wedding that sparked envy. He saved the Moore Group, and I thought he still loved me.

But on our wedding night, he brought home another woman. Every night after, he paraded new ones, trophies that could fill a nightclub.

He took pleasure in humiliating me in every imaginable way and never seemed to grow tired of it. It was as though my pain was his only joy.

I endured, believing he'd relent and reconcile with me one day.

Three years passed, ending in the Moore Group's collapse and my parents' suicides.

Penniless, I walked barefoot from the hillside down the city. By the time I reached a park, my feet were raw, blood seeping from torn skin.

With the pen I'd used to sign the divorce agreement, I borrowed paper from passersby and sat on the steps, quietly sketching the scenery. The tranquility felt like a return to the days before I married Craig.

I laid my small, delicate drawings on the ground. A young girl crouched before me. "Miss, your feet are bleeding. Doesn't it hurt?"

I glanced down. The long walk had mangled my soles, but I felt nothing. The heart's pain had drowned out that of the body.

Not wanting to frighten her, I tucked my feet away and smiled. "It doesn't hurt."

She tilted her head, pulling a crumpled ten-dollar bill from her pocket. "Miss, this is all I have. Can I buy one of your drawings? They're beautiful, like something my old friend would make."

Her grown-up tone made me smile. A little girl like her couldn't have any old friends.

"If you like them, take them all. Thank you for the ten dollars," I said.

I never imagined my only money would come from a child. With it, I entered a small internet café, buying an hour online. I logged into the social media account that had tormented me for three years.

The pinned posts were glaring.

[A woman must uphold virtue, obey her husband.]

[A wife should be gentle, submissive, and never complain.]

[Chastity is a woman's foundation. It must be untainted and pure.]

Craig had forced me to post these vile words. Early in our marriage, I'd argued when he brought women home. Then he punished me, making me kneel in the garden while his mistresses watched, reciting archaic virtue texts he'd found.

I fought back fiercely, but he forced me to share them online.

"I paid for you," he'd said. "Act like it. Show the world what a 'virtuous' wife you are."

Whenever I angered him, he made me post more, turning my account into a battleground for trolls. They called me brainwashed, feudal trash, and a disgrace to women.

I couldn't respond or fight back. Silence was my only shield.

But his satisfaction with merely humiliating me began to wear thin. He demanded that I attend to the women he brought home.

The women who shared his bed were the ones I had trained. He said that someone like me, shameless and devoid of self-respect, knew best how to please a man.

Each time, he would stand on the sidelines, watching with twisted delight as I endured the crushing weight of humiliation and pain.

Over time, I grew numb. I stopped arguing or protesting.

He grew bored of the spectacle and no longer cared to watch. He shifted tactics, demanding I beg him not to divorce me.

I complied for my family, but now, with nothing left, I was free.

I deleted every post and sighed deeply. As the last one vanished, I felt the chains of those years shatter.

Exhausted, I slumped over the table, my mind going blank. For a moment, I didn't know if I was alive or dead.

A gentle tap on my back startled me. "Michele?"