Chapter 2

Novia didn’t just want to hurt me.

She wanted to reshape me—into a woman who begged.

Every day, she fed the pressure like a fire. A new video clipped from a hidden angle. A photo taken too close. A voice note where Wayne laughed and said something that was never meant to reach my ears.

“Don’t pretend you’re surprised,” Novia texted one morning. “You were always the one chosen for appearance. I’m the one he wants for fun.”

I didn’t reply.

I saved everything.

I made folders. Dates. Times. Backups in encrypted drives, a second copy mailed to a dead-drop address I’d set up under a false name. I didn’t collect evidence to shame them.

I collected evidence to survive them.

Wayne played his role in public with maddening precision.

He brought me gifts—diamonds that caught the light like frozen guilt, roses so expensive they looked unreal, a handwritten note with my name written in a careful script.

I’m sorry. I’m trying. I want to remember.

He said it while the cameras were close. While the family elders watched. While the city whispered.

In private, he kept his distance. He touched me with his eyes, not his hands—measuring, evaluating, making sure I stayed where he put me.

“You’re doing great,” he told me one evening, voice low and almost gentle. “I know this is hard.”

I looked up from the tea I hadn’t tasted. “Is it?”

A flicker crossed his face—surprise, then irritation masked as concern. “Of course. But you’re strong. That’s why my grandparents respect you.”

His grandparents. His legacy. His “respect.”

Not once did he say he missed me. Not once did he say he loved me. Not once did he say the words that would have cost him anything real.

He didn’t want me happy.

He wanted me manageable.

And he wanted Novia, too, because she was the kind of chaos men like Wayne enjoyed when they believed they’d never pay for it.

The fixer called me the next day.

“Your death needs three things,” he said. “A spectacle. A reason no one questions. And a trail that leads nowhere.”

My hands were steady as I held the phone. “What kind of spectacle?”

“A wedding works,” he replied. “Everyone’s watching. Everyone’s filming. Everyone will swear they saw what they saw.”

My throat tightened. “And the trail?”

“Your identity will be cut off like it never existed,” he said. “But you’ll have to obey rules. New name. New patterns. No nostalgia.”

I stared at the mirror across the room. The woman looking back at me wore a designer dress and an engagement ring the size of a small sin. She looked like she belonged here.

I didn’t.

“What do you need from me?” I asked.

“Access,” he said. “And silence. And the ability to act like you’re still in love.”

A bitter laugh pushed against my ribs. “That last part will be the hardest.”

He didn’t laugh back. “Feelings are expensive. You can’t afford them right now.”

After I hung up, I walked through the Matthews estate like I was drifting underwater. Guards nodded. Staff smiled. No one saw the truth behind my eyes.

That night, Wayne came into the sitting room as I reviewed wedding seating charts.

He leaned over my shoulder, close enough that his cologne hit me like a memory I didn’t want. “You’ve always been good at this,” he murmured. “Making things smooth.”

I didn’t move. “Someone has to.”

His hand brushed my hair—light, performative. “After the wedding, everything will calm down.”

After the wedding.

After he finished enjoying his “last thrill.”

After Novia got her fun.

After I became his official property.

I looked up at him, meeting his gaze. “Do you promise?”

He hesitated for half a second too long.

Then he smiled. “Of course.”

A lie, polished like a coin.

I smiled back.

Because if he thought I was still the obedient fiancée, I could get close enough to end this properly.

Later, in my bedroom, I locked the door and sat on the edge of the bed. I opened my phone and scrolled through Novia’s messages again—her gloating, her cruelty, her obsession with my ruin.

Then I opened the folder labeled EXIT.

Flight details. Cash routes. Contacts. Timelines.

And one last thing: the message thread with the fixer.

I stared at it until my vision blurred.

My phone buzzed.

A single text from an unknown number.

Everything is ready.

I read it once. Twice.

The room didn’t spin. My hands didn’t shake.

The fear had burned itself out, leaving something cleaner behind.

Resolve.

I looked at my reflection again—at the ring, at the carefully controlled face.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Then we do it.”

And for the first time since the docks, I slept without dreaming of Wayne’s touch.

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