Till Death Do Us Part, Indeed

My husband, Augustine, was a serial cheater, and I was a terminally ill artist.

His mistress didn't just steal my marriage; she publicly flaunted it, taunting me at every turn.

The final blow came when they desecrated the sculpture I made for my dead mother, laughing as they defiled my most sacred memory.

He used my childhood trauma to break me, freezing my assets, destroying my career, and trapping me in our home like a prisoner.

He had promised to be my safe harbor, but instead, he became the monster who weaponized my deepest pain.

But my cancer gave me a deadline and a dark purpose.

I lured him back, manipulating him into destroying his mistress and bankrupting himself for a forgiveness I would never grant.

As he knelt before me, a broken man offering his shattered empire, I gave him my final command.

"Now," I whispered, my voice cold as the grave, "it's time to pay with your life."

Chapter 1

Annice Turner POV:

The scent of a stranger's sweat still clung to my skin when Augustine's fist slammed into the bedroom door, shaking the entire frame. He was back, and he knew.

The wood splintered with a sickening crack that echoed the breaking glass of the wine bottle he' d just sent flying against the wall. Red liquid bloomed like a violent flower on the pristine white paint. He didn't even yell yet, but the silence that followed the crash was louder than any scream. His rage was a storm gathering, and I was pinned right in its eye.

"Who was he?" Augustine's voice was a low growl, barely audible over the frantic beat of my own heart. He stood silhouetted against the hallway light, a towering, menacing figure. His question hung heavy in the air, thick with unspoken accusation and simmering violence.

I just stared back at him, my expression carefully blank. Inside, though, a strange calm had settled. A chilling, almost victorious calm. My breath hitched, but not from fear. It was something else-a silent, internal quake.

"He was just a man," I answered, my voice soft, almost a whisper, but it carried across the shattered quiet of the room. "The kind of man who pays attention." My words were laced with a venom I hadn't known I possessed, a slow-acting poison designed to seep into his very core.

Augustine took a step closer, his eyes burning holes through me. "Attention? You think this is about attention? You think I care about 'attention' when you bring a stranger into our bed, into my house?" He spat out the words, each one a sharp shard of glass. "After everything? After we reconciled?" The accusation in his tone was meant to crush me, to invoke guilt. But there was only a hollow space where guilt used to be.

I didn't flinch. "Reconciled? Is that what we did, Augustine? Or did I just stop fighting?" My chest felt tight, a familiar ache starting deep behind my ribs. It wasn't just the betrayal, it was the chronic, gnawing pain that had become my constant companion. My body was a traitor, echoing the wounds of my soul.

His face contorted, a mask of disbelief and pain. "You hated me for it, didn't you? All this time. You hated me." He sounded bewildered, as if the depth of my resentment was a revelation, not a natural consequence.

I closed my eyes for a moment, a wave of nausea washing over me. The room spun. The nausea was a constant companion now, a cruel reminder of the disease eating me from the inside. My body was failing, but my mind, oh, my mind was sharper than ever. It was a cold, hard diamond. "Hate?" I echoed, opening my eyes to meet his gaze. "You told me once, Augustine, that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. I guess I just decided to flip mine."

The ruined bedroom was a battleground, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood-his, from where he' d punched the door, or perhaps mine, from the phantom pains that clawed at my stomach. The lingering scent of cheap cologne, not his expensive one, was a silent taunt.

Augustine stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders slumped, his shadow stretching long and distorted behind him. His knuckles were bleeding freely, dripping onto the pristine white carpet, staining it a rusty red. He looked menacing, yet strangely pathetic, like a broken titan.

"Annice? What happened?" The voice was young, unfamiliar, tinged with fear. It was the man from the bar, the one I'd brought home. He stood frozen in the hallway, clutching his shirt, his eyes wide and panicked.

Augustine didn't even turn. He just lifted a hand, a single, dismissive gesture. "Get out," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "Now." The young man didn't need a second invitation. He stumbled backward, fumbling with the door, and then he was gone, leaving only the reverberating slam of the front door in his wake.

Augustine turned fully to me then, his eyes dark, unreadable. He moved slowly, deliberately, like a predator stalking its prey. Every muscle in my body tensed, anticipating the strike. He closed the distance between us, his shadow engulfing me.

I tried to pull away, to dart past him, but his hand shot out, grabbing my wrist with brutal force. His grip was iron, inescapable. He dragged me across the shattered glass, ignoring the crunch beneath our feet, the sharp fragments digging into my bare soles. My protest was a choked gasp, swallowed by the sheer force of his will.

He pulled me into the master bathroom, a blindingly white, sterile space that suddenly felt like a torture chamber. With a violent shove, he threw me into the oversized marble bathtub. The impact rattled my teeth, and before I could even register the pain, the faucet roared to life. Ice-cold water blasted down on me, soaking my hair, my clothes, chilling me to the bone.

"We need to cleanse you," Augustine whispered, his voice a chilling juxtaposition to the icy flood. His eyes, still burning with fury, held a terrifying flicker of something else-a twisted possessiveness, a deranged tenderness. "Cleanse you of him. Cleanse you of your filth."

A raw, guttural cry tore from my throat, not from the cold, but from the searing humiliation. I thrashed, water splashing wildly, a desperate, futile attempt to escape the deluge. This wasn't anger; this was something far worse. This was a violation of my very soul.

My hand found a solid object – a heavy glass lotion bottle. Without thinking, I swung it, a wild, desperate arc aimed at his head. He didn't even blink. The bottle connected with his temple with a dull thud.

He staggered back, a thin line of blood appearing at his hairline, but his eyes never left mine. They were deep, fathomless pools of pain and accusation. He looked at me as if I had just ripped out his heart with my bare hands.

Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through my manufactured calm. I shrank back against the porcelain, trying to make myself invisible. But he was on me in an instant, his hands on my neck, not squeezing, not yet, but his thumbs pressed hard against my carotid arteries. His mouth descended, a brutal, punishing kiss that tasted of blood and rage.

He tore his lips from mine, his breath ragged, hot against my cheek. "You ruined us, Annice! You ruined everything!" he hissed, his voice thick with a mixture of heartbreak and fury.

My stomach lurched. The cold water, the physical shock, the sudden, violent assault-it was too much. I retched, a dry, painful heave, nothing but bile coming up.

Augustine recoiled as if struck. His eyes widened, a flicker of something akin to horror replacing the rage. "You disgust me," he choked out, his voice hoarse, disbelieving. "You actually disgust me."

I couldn't answer. My body was shaking uncontrollably, not just from the cold, but from a deeper, more insidious tremor. My stomach burned, a fiery acid pit that had become a permanent part of my existence. I just hunched over, clutching my midsection, the pain a silent scream.

"You destroyed everything we had," he said again, his voice echoing in the tiled room, filled with self-pity and accusation. "And for what? A moment's pathetic revenge? You always do this, Annice. You always find a way to make me the villain."

He turned, his back to me, the water still cascading into the tub. "I'm done," he snarled, though his shoulders still shook with suppressed emotion. "You want to erase me? Fine. Be careful what you wish for." The bathroom door slammed shut with a force that rattled the entire house, leaving me alone, shivering, in the ice-cold deluge.