1 The sixth time I ended up at the precinct after a physical altercation with my husband’s ex-wife, Grant finally broke. He grabbed a pair of scissors from the desk and, right in front of the officers and me, plunged them into his own shoulder. “Are you satisfied now, Riley?” he choked out, his voice trembling with a terrifying mix of rage and despair. I stood frozen, the air in the room suddenly too thin to breathe. Before I could even process the sight of the blood blooming through his dress shirt, he snatched a box cutter from the evidence table and dragged it across his wrist. “Is this enough? Will you finally leave Sloane alone?” He collapsed against the wall, gasping. “She was my wife once. That’s her only crime. Why can’t you just let her live?” Watching the sheer finality in his eyes, I felt a sudden, hollow click in my chest. Something had finally snapped, but it wasn’t my mind—it was my heart. The previous five times I’d caught them together, I was the one spiraling. I was the one who had slashed my wrists, threatened to jump from our balcony, and ended up in the hospital for a week after a hair-pulling, nail-clawing brawl with Sloane. I had fought for him like a woman possessed. But this time, looking at the dark, rhythmic pulsing of blood from his wounds, I just felt… tired. All that hysteria, all that disregard for his own life—none of it was for me. It was for her. He was willing to bleed out just to protect the woman who had spent the last year dismantling our marriage. If this was the price of our life together—this mutual, bloody destruction—I didn’t want to pay it anymore. While I stood there in a daze, a group of officers rushed forward to tackle him, prying the blade from his hand and shouting for a medic. They tried to hold him down to stanch the bleeding, but Grant fought them off with a feral strength. He crawled toward me, leaving a smeared trail of crimson on the linoleum floor, and collapsed at my feet. He sank to his knees, clutching the hem of my jeans. “Riley, please,” he sobbed, his forehead resting against my shins. “Show some mercy. Let Sloane go. She’s not alone anymore. She’s… she’s two months pregnant.” My breath hitched. My hand instinctively moved toward my own stomach, hovering over the secret I hadn’t yet told him. I couldn’t make a sound. “I’m the one who messed up,” Grant whispered, his voice thick with tears. “That night… I was drunk. I thought she was you. I’ll give you my life, I’ll give you anything, just stop hounding them. Stop bullying her.” He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot and pleading. “Riley, you’re a doctor. You know exactly how to hit someone so it hurts like hell but doesn’t leave a mark the police can track. But Sloane isn’t like you. She’s fragile. She doesn’t have your… your calculated edge. I’m begging you. Just sign the non-prosecution affidavit. Let this go.” A single, hot tear finally escaped and rolled down my cheek. Six fights. Every single time, I was the one with the real injuries—the concussions, the bruised ribs, the bite marks. Every time the medical examiner looked at us, I was the victim. But Grant refused to see it. To him, I was the villain—the cold, calculating surgeon who knew how to manipulate the system and inflict “invisible” pain on his “innocent” ex-wife. He didn’t see my blackened eye. He didn’t see the patch of hair Sloane had ripped from my scalp or the deep scratches covering my arms. He only saw her tears. “And if I don’t sign?” I asked, my voice raspy. I let out a jagged, mocking laugh. “Riley!” Grant stood up, wiping the blood from his brow with a cold, detached motion. The vulnerability was gone, replaced by a chilling threat. “Do I really have to say it? If you keep pressing charges against Sloane, I’ll go public. I’ll tell everyone about the private investigators you hired to stalk me, the hidden cameras you put in my office… and I’ll remind the world that I’m the one who took a knife for you three years ago. Don’t make me ruin you.” The color drained from my face. My knees felt weak, and the laughter died in my throat, leaving only a bitter, ashen taste. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll sign.” It was drizzling when I stepped out of the precinct. Habit took over, and I turned to call for Grant, but I stopped when I saw him through the glass partition. He was on his phone, his face lit up with a relief so profound it hurt to watch. “Sloane? It’s done. She signed.” I couldn’t hear the rest, but I could imagine his tone. Don’t worry, baby. As long as I’m here, she can’t touch you. Even if you broke her ribs, I’d make sure you never saw the inside of a cell. I looked down at my shoes, watching the raindrops splash against the leather. There was a time when Grant would run through a downpour just to hold an umbrella over my head. When he made sure every lobster was peeled for me, every anniversary was a gala, every bad day was met with a bouquet. Now, all that devotion belonged to Sloane. I turned back as he walked out, his clothes still stained with his own blood. I looked at him—really looked at him—and said quietly, “If you love her this much, Grant, why haven’t you asked for a divorce?” He flinched, then let out a sharp, cynical breath. “As if you’d ever agree to that, Riley. You’ve made it clear you’d rather we both die in this house than let me go. I’ve accepted my sentence. I’m tied to you for life. I just ask that you leave Sloane and the baby out of it.” The last flickering ember of hope inside me went out. When I finally made it back to our penthouse, I didn’t even have time to kick off my heels before a burly security guard—a man I’d never seen before—blocked my path. Without a word, he physically steered me away from the hallway leading to the master suite. “Dr. Harrison, Mr. Harrison gave strict orders. You are not to go near Ms. Sloane.” I stared at the closed door of my own bedroom, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Grant… he brought her here?” The guard’s face remained a mask of professional indifference. “Ms. Sloane mentioned the house has ‘good energy’ for the pregnancy. She moved in this morning. Mr. Harrison was very considerate—he set up a room for you. It’s right behind the foyer.” I glanced at the door he was pointing to. It was a storage closet—maybe thirty square feet—usually meant for coats and vacuum cleaners. “Get out of my way,” I hissed, my temper flaring. I pushed past him, determined to see what kind of twisted game Sloane was playing now. But as I hurried toward the bedroom, a small pair of nail scissors slipped out of my pocket—the ones I’d used to cut a loose thread on my coat earlier. “Weapon!” the guard shouted. Before I could blink, my arms were pinned behind my back. I was slammed face-down onto the hardwood floor. He held me down with one hand and pulled out his radio. “Sir, you were right. Dr. Harrison just tried to come at her with a blade. I have her neutralized.” Through the phone on the floor, I heard Grant’s voice—cold, mocking, and utterly devoid of love. “Keep her there. I’m five minutes away.” “Let me go! Get off me!” I screamed, tears of frustration and humiliation spilling onto the floor. The guard didn’t move. He pulled a pair of zip-ties from his belt and bound my wrists behind my back, then dragged me into the storage closet and locked the door. “I’m sorry, Doctor,” he said through the slats. “Mr. Harrison warned us. He said you have an antisocial personality. He said if you can’t hurt others, you’ll hurt yourself. This is for your own safety.” I stopped struggling. The silence of the closet felt heavy, suffocating. “He called me… antisocial?” The guard didn’t answer. Seven years. For seven years, I had been the perfect wife. I’d managed his home, supported his career, cooked his meals, and loved him with everything I had. He used to tell me I was the gentlest soul he’d ever known. But his betrayals had turned me into a ghost, and now, he was using the trauma he caused to brand me a monster. Five minutes later, the front door opened. I heard Grant’s footsteps, then the rustle of shopping bags. I looked through the gap in the closet door. He was carrying bags from an upscale baby boutique—the exact items I had saved in my bookmarks months ago, hoping for a future that would never come. I remembered showing them to him on my laptop, curled up in his lap. “If we ever have a baby, Grant, can we get these?” He had kissed my temple and whispered, “Anything you want, Riley.” Now, he was buying them for her. “How is she? Is Sloane okay?” Grant asked the guard. “She’s fine, sir. The doctor is secured in the annex.” Grant let out a long, theatrical sigh of relief. He held up the bags and spoke loudly, clearly wanting me to hear. “Sloane said your taste in baby gear was the only thing about you she actually liked. So I bought it all. Don’t be petty about it, Riley. It’s not like you’ll be needing this stuff anytime soon.” I didn’t say a word. I just watched him through the slats, my eyes cold. A moment later, he unlocked the closet door. He looked at me with pure disgust as he cut the zip-ties. He threw the shopping bags at my feet. “Go ahead. Shred them, burn them, do whatever ‘crazy’ thing you have planned. Sloane and I are used to your tantrums.” He didn’t even flinch at the sight of my wrists, which were raw and bleeding from the plastic ties. There was no pity left. I looked down and felt a strange sense of peace. The man I had loved for a decade was gone. In his place was something rotting—something that looked like Grant but had the soul of a stranger. “Grant? Is that you?” The master bedroom door opened. Sloane stepped out, wearing one of my white silk nightgowns, her feet bare. The second her eyes landed on me, she began to scream, clutching her head. “No! No, please! Riley, I’m sorry! I’m not a homewrecker, I swear! Don’t hit me again! Please don’t hurt the baby!” Grant lunged toward her, catching her in his arms and pulling her against his chest. He whispered soothing words into her ear while glaring at me with a look of such concentrated venom it should have burned. Watching them—the “devoted” father and the “terrified” mother—I finally got it. Our marriage wasn’t a partnership; it was the backdrop for their grand, tragic romance. I was the obstacle they had to overcome to prove how “true” their love was. I reached into my pocket and felt the small white pill I’d taken from the hospital pharmacy earlier that morning. It was a termination pill. I had been holding onto it, paralyzed by indecision, still hoping for a miracle. But the miracle was dead. Without a second of hesitation, I put the pill in my mouth and swallowed it dry. Grant stood up and threw a dishcloth at my face. “This is your fault, Riley. Look at what you’ve done to her. Your constant harassment has given her severe PTSD. She can’t even see your face without shaking.” Harassment. I clutched the edge of the closet door as the memory of a year ago flooded back. The first time I found out he was cheating was the day after my first miscarriage. He told me he was going out to get me soup, but I found him in the hospital stairwell, his hands all over Sloane. He had knelt at my feet back then, sobbing, claiming she had forced herself on him. He begged for a second chance. And then a third. And a fourth. He’d even set up a shared GPS on our phones to “prove” his loyalty, not realizing he was just using it to track my movements so he could see her whenever I was at the hospital. And when I finally broke—when I screamed, when I tore down her studio banners, when I couldn’t stop the rage—he labeled me “insane.” Fine. I would give them exactly what they wanted. I stood up, my legs shaking, and reached into the drawer of the foyer table. I pulled out the divorce papers I’d had drawn up weeks ago. Grant’s face twisted the moment he saw the legal documents. He snatched them from my hand, but instead of reading them, he tore them into confetti. He lunged forward, grabbing me by the throat and pinning me against the floor-to-ceiling window. “I told you!” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “Stay away from Sloane’s business!” I struggled to breathe, clawing at his hands. Through the blurred edges of my vision, I looked down at the shredded paper on the floor. Those weren’t my divorce papers. Sloane had swapped them. On the floor lay high-resolution photos of Sloane’s bedroom window, taken from a distance—stalker photos. I looked at Sloane. She was standing behind Grant, her face a mask of faux-terror, but her eyes were gleaming with triumph. She gave me a tiny, mocking wink. “Grant… you… you’re wrong,” I managed to choke out. “I didn’t… take those…” The pain in my abdomen started then—a sharp, dragging cramp. With a burst of adrenaline I didn’t know I had, I grabbed a heavy ceramic vase from the side table and smashed it against the side of Grant’s head. He let go of my throat, stumbling back as blood began to trickle down his temple. He didn’t look angry. He looked… satisfied. “There she is,” he whispered, wiping the blood and staring at it. “There’s the real Riley. Just kill me, Riley. Kill me and leave Sloane alone. Would that make you happy?” I looked at him, my heart aching with a grief so profound it felt like a physical weight. “Grant, the papers in that drawer were divorce papers. I was letting you go. I was letting us both go.” The moment the words left my lips, the crushing weight on my chest lifted. But Grant’s expression shifted. For a split second, a flash of genuine panic crossed his face. “What kind of game is this, Riley? Another trap? Another way to make me feel guilty?” He shook his head, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “You won’t leave. You love the drama too much. You’d never let me go.” I wiped my nose and looked up at him, my gaze flat. “What is there left to love, Grant? Look at you.” Seven years ago, I had defied my parents to marry a man six years my senior. Back then, he was the brilliant, rising star of the tech world, and I was just a wide-eyed med student. He promised to be my rock. He promised his ex-wife was a closed chapter. “Riley, it was a merger of two families, nothing more. We were married for three months and it was miserable. You’re the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. There is no ‘out’ for us. It’s you and me until the end.” I was the only one who remembered those vows. He had buried them under a mountain of lies. I reached into my bag, pulled out my phone, and hit speed-dial for my attorney. Ten minutes later, a courier—who had been waiting nearby just in case—delivered a fresh set of papers. “I’m not joking, Grant. Sign them.” Grant’s hands were shaking as he gripped the pages. “You’re asking for nothing? You just want out?” His eyes scanned the final page. When he saw the “Zero Assets” clause, he seemed to lose his mind. “Get the notary in here,” he barked at the guard. A new set of documents was produced by his own legal team. He signed them without reading and threw them in my face. “Fine. Half the estate. I’m not having you go on the news claiming I left you penniless. Take the money and get out. I never want to see your face—” He stopped. I felt a warm, terrifying rush of fluid down my legs. My hand flew to Grant’s forearm, clutching him for support. His eyes widened. He looked down at the floor, at the bright red pool forming on the white rug beneath my skirt. “Riley? What… what is that?” He reached out to scoop me up, his face pale with sudden horror. But before he could touch me, Sloane dropped to the floor, clutching her stomach. “Grant! It hurts… the baby… I think it’s coming…” Sloane’s performance was amateur at best, but Grant didn’t care. He ignored the genuine agony in my eyes, shoved my hand away, and gathered Sloane into his arms. As he ran toward the door, he looked back at me, his lip curling in a sneer. “Nice try, Riley. You knew Sloane’s reputation was everything, so you staged a ‘miscarriage’ in front of a witness just to brand her a homewrecker. You really are a piece of work.” The room began to spin. The loss of blood was making everything dim and distant. I couldn’t even hear his insults anymore. I just curled into a ball on the floor, clutching those signed divorce papers to my chest like a lifeline. “I’m going,” I whispered to the empty room. “I’m finally going.” The smell of antiseptic was the first thing I noticed when I woke up. I jolted awake, my hand flying to my stomach. It was flat. Empty. A nurse noticed me moving and came over to adjust my IV. “Easy, honey. You’re lucky. If your neighbor hadn’t found you and called the paramedics, you wouldn’t have made it. You lost a lot of blood.” I stared at the ceiling, my mind a blank slate. “Your husband’s phone went straight to voicemail,” the nurse continued softly. “The neighbor who brought you in covered your intake fee. Do you want me to try calling him again?” I didn’t answer. The local anesthesia was wearing off, leaving a dull, hollow ache in its wake. From the room next door, I heard the sound of muffled laughter and a man’s low, murmuring voice. The nurse blushed slightly, giving me a sympathetic look. “Look at that couple next door. So sweet. The wife isn’t even pregnant—just a bit of low blood sugar—but her husband took the day off just to sit by her bed. He’s been hovering over her like she’s made of glass. Honestly, you should give your husband a piece of your mind. You actually lost a baby, and he’s nowhere to be found.” I didn’t feel anything—no anger, no sadness. I just reached up and pulled the IV out of my arm. “Wait! Where are you going? The bathroom is to the left!” I ignored her. I walked out of the room, my legs feeling like lead. As I passed the door to the next suite, I couldn’t help but look through the small observation window. There was Grant. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully blowing on a spoonful of soup before feeding it to Sloane. I looked at his hand—the one holding the spoon. I could see the jagged white scar across his knuckles. Three years ago, a disgruntled patient had come at me with a scalpel in the ER. Grant had stepped in front of me and taken the blade. Sixteen stitches. He hadn’t complained once. He had told me then that he’d take a thousand cuts to keep me safe. Now, that hand was tending to another woman. Inside the room, I heard Grant’s voice. “Don’t worry, Sloane. I’ve put the hospital on alert. I have sixteen guards on rotation. Riley won’t get within a mile of this floor.” He was right. I wasn’t going to cause a scene. I wasn’t going to scream. I took one last look at the man I used to know, then turned around and walked out of the hospital. That night, when Grant finally returned home with Sloane, he realized I was gone. He tried calling. No answer. He tried texting. A red exclamation point—I had blocked him. A flare of irritation rose in his chest. “Is she serious right now? All this drama over a period? She’s a doctor, for God’s sake. She knows it’s not a big deal.” He assumed I was just playing the martyr. He called the guard who had stayed behind. “Sir,” the guard said, sounding relieved. “I spent $2,600 taking Ms. Harrison to the clinic. Should I send you the invoice via Venmo or wire?” Grant frowned. “$2,600? For what? A box of tampons and an ego boost?” The guard didn’t argue. He just sent a photo of the discharge papers. Grant looked at the screen, expecting to see a bill for some minor outpatient procedure. Instead, the color drained from his face.
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