Aleida POV

The next morning, the sun rose with mocking indifference, shining as if the world hadn’t shattered the night before.

I slid out of bed before Derek stirred.

I went to the kitchen and started the coffee maker. The routine was pure muscle memory. Grind the beans. Pour the water. Retrieve the blue mug he preferred.

But inside my head, I was building a war room.

I pulled out my phone and opened the notes app. I typed three words.

Lawyer. Evidence. Escape.

I heard his footsteps on the stairs and shoved the phone into my pocket.

"Morning," he mumbled, walking into the kitchen.

He reached for the mug I offered. His fingers brushed mine. I didn't flinch. I didn't pull away.

I watched him drink the coffee I made. I watched the throat that had spoken those words last night. *She goes to the highest bidder.*

"You're quiet today," he said, glancing at me over the rim of the cup.

"Just tired," I said. "The baby kept me up."

He nodded, uninterested. He checked his watch. "I have to go. Big meeting."

He kissed my cheek. It felt like the cold trail of a slug crawling across my skin.

"Love you," he said automatically.

"Drive safe," I replied.

The moment the front door clicked shut, I moved.

I didn't cry. I didn't collapse. I didn't have time for that.

I went to the closet.

I pulled out every dress he had ever bought me. Every pair of shoes he said made my legs look long. Every handbag he used to mark his territory.

I grabbed a roll of black trash bags from the pantry.

I stuffed the Chanel into the plastic. I threw the Louboutins on top of the Gucci.

It wasn't cleaning. It was an exorcism.

I dragged the bags to the garage. I didn't care about the money. I didn't care about the status. Those things were shackles, and I was cutting them off.

I went to the smart home panel in the hallway.

I changed the master code. I deleted his admin access to the security cameras.

It was a small act of rebellion, but it felt like taking a breath of air after being underwater for years.

I was just finishing in the living room when I heard a car in the driveway.

It wasn't Derek's car.

I looked out the window. A red convertible.

Derek stepped out. And then, he walked around to the passenger side and opened the door.

A woman stepped out.

She was blonde. Tall. Wearing a white dress that cost more than my college tuition.

Else.

She linked her arm through Derek's. She looked at the house—my house—like she was measuring it for drapes.

My stomach twisted, but I forced my feet to stay planted.

The front door opened.

Derek walked in, Else clinging to him like a poisonous vine.

"Oh," Else said, feigning shock when she saw me standing there in my sweatpants. "I didn't think you'd still be here."

Her voice was high and sweet, like saccharine laced with arsenic.

I looked at Derek. He didn't look ashamed. He looked bored.

"Aleida," he said. "Else is going to stay with us for a few days. Her apartment is being renovated."

He didn't ask. He told.

"Is that so?" I asked. My voice was steady.

Else smirked. She let go of Derek and walked toward me. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my stomach with undisguised disgust.

"You've gotten... big," she said.

"I'm pregnant, Else. That's how it works."

She laughed. A tinkling, empty sound. "Right. The baby."

Derek walked past me to the kitchen. He poured water for her. He knew exactly how she liked it. Room temperature. No ice.

He handed her the glass. She smiled at him, a secret, intimate smile that excluded me entirely.

I remembered the surprise trip he planned for us last month. He cancelled it last minute. He said it was work.

Now I knew. He was with her.

"Did you forget to tell her, Derek?" I asked, my voice loud enough to cut through their silent communion. "Did you forget to tell your sister that I'm your wife?"

Else's smile faltered.

Suddenly, the front door opened again.

Edison walked in.

He didn't knock. He walked in like he owned the place.

He saw the tension in the room and grinned. It was a wolf's grin.

He walked straight up to me. He invaded my personal space, standing too close. I could smell his expensive cologne mixed with the stale scent of cigarettes.

"Derek says you're going to be on the market soon," he whispered. His voice was low, meant only for me.

I froze.

"Maybe you should get used to it," he continued, his eyes raking over my body. "Practice makes perfect."

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing my ear.

"The auction terms are strict, Aleida. No crying. No fighting. Just submission."

I felt my skin crawl.

"Without Derek, you're nothing," he hissed. "Just a stray we picked up."

I looked over at Derek. He was watching us. He saw Edison whispering to me. He saw the fear in my eyes.

He did nothing.

He took a sip of his water and looked away.

That was the moment. The final crack in the foundation.

I looked back at Edison. I didn't step back.

I clenched my hands into fists so tight my nails cut into my palms. The pain grounded me.

I looked him dead in the eye.

"Get out of my face," I said.

Edison blinked, surprised. He stepped back, laughing nervously. "Feisty. I like that."

Derek looked up, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. He expected tears. He expected begging.

He didn't expect ice.

I turned and walked toward the stairs. I didn't run. I walked.

"I'm going to my room," I said. "Don't disturb me."

I walked up the stairs, feeling their eyes on my back.

I closed the bedroom door and leaned against it.

My legs gave out. I slid down to the floor.

But I didn't cry.

I looked at the empty closet where his clothes used to be.

Let them play their games. Let them think they won.

They had no idea what I was capable of.

Aleida POV

The humiliation wasn’t just an event; it was a calculated campaign.

Two days later, Derek hosted a dinner for his extended family. I wasn't asked to attend. I was summoned.

I sat at the far end of the long mahogany table, an exile in my own dining room. Else sat on Derek's right.

She was the center of gravity, pulling every eye and ear toward her. She spun stories about her time in Paris—her art, her suffering, her delicate constitution.

She looked at me across the floral centerpiece, her eyes wide and glistening.

"It was so hard being away," she said, her voice trembling with practiced fragility. "Especially knowing that some people... worked so hard to keep me there."

The table went quiet. Derek's mother glared at me with undisguised disdain.

"Aleida," his aunt said, her tone sharp. "Is it true you told Derek that Else needed to stay in Europe for her health?"

I gripped my fork until my knuckles turned white. "I never said that."

Derek put a protective hand on Else's shoulder. "She's here now. That's what matters. No one is going to hurt her again."

He looked directly at me when he said it.

He was rewriting history in real-time, painting me as the villain who had exiled his beloved sister.

*I'm his wife,* I wanted to scream.

But I stayed silent. I sat there, rigid, letting their judgment wash over me. Silence was my only shield; if I spoke, I would shatter.

Later that night, I woke to a sound.

It was a sharp notification tone. Not from my phone.

I rose and followed the noise down the dark corridor. It was coming from the study.

The door was cracked open, spilling a sliver of yellow light across the floorboards.

I peered inside.

Derek was sitting at his desk. Else was leaning over his shoulder, her hand resting possessively on his chest. Edison was sitting in the guest chair, his posture relaxed.

They were studying a monitor.

"Look at the data," Else said. Her voice was excited, breathless. "The compliance rate is ninety-eight percent."

Edison laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "Obedience Serum. God, that sounds medieval. But effective."

"It induces a state of hyper-suggestibility," Derek said. He sounded fascinated, clinical. "It suppresses the trauma response. They do whatever they're told, and they don't even remember the pain."

My blood ran cold.

"Imagine using that on her," Else giggled. She pointed at the screen. "We could make her sign the divorce papers. We could make her sign over the baby."

Derek smiled. He actually smiled.

"It would save us a lot of legal fees," he said. "And it would make the auction go smoother if she's... cooperative."

The room seemed to tilt on its axis.

They weren't just planning to sell me. They were planning to drug me. To erase my mind.

I backed away from the door, my breath trapped in my throat. I stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom, locking the door behind me with trembling hands.

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face.

It didn't help. The image of Derek's smiling face burned behind my eyelids.

He was a monster.

I grabbed my phone. I dialed Sarah, my best friend.

It rang once. Twice.

Sarah picked up immediately. "Aleida? Is everything okay?"

I opened my mouth to speak. To tell her about the ring, the auction, the serum.

But only a choked sob escaped.

"Aleida?" Sarah's voice pitched up in panic.

I couldn't do it. If I told her, she would come here. She would try to be a hero. And they would hurt her, too. I couldn't have her blood on my hands.

I hung up.

I slid to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest.

I remembered our first date. We sat on a park bench and ate ice cream. He had wiped a smudge of chocolate off my chin and told me I was the most real thing he'd ever found.

Lies. All of it.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked gaunt. Tired.

But my eyes were dry.

He never loved me. The realization hit with the force of a physical blow, yet within the pain lay a strange, cold key.

If he never loved me, I didn't have to mourn him. I just had to survive him.

For the next week, I became a ghost in my own house.

I ate alone. I slept in the guest room. I kept my door locked.

Then came the party.

Derek was celebrating Else's official return to the company. A massive gala at a downtown hotel.

"You're coming," Derek said that morning, adjusting his cufflinks without looking at me. "No excuses."

I put on a black dress. It was simple, severe. Mourning clothes for a marriage that was already dead.

The ballroom was filled with the city's elite. Champagne flowed. Music swelled.

People approached me, oblivious. "Oh, Aleida, you look glowing! How is married life?"

I smiled. My face hurt from the effort. "It's... enlightening," I said.

I saw Sarah across the room. She started to surge toward me, her face furious. She had sensed something was wrong.

I shook my head, a microscopic movement. I gave her a look that pleaded: *Stay away. Not yet.*

She stopped, confused, but she listened.

I walked over to the VIP table.

Derek and Else were sitting there. Else was practically in his lap.

She was feeding him a grape, wiping a drop of juice from his lip with her thumb.

It was intimate. Grossly, publicly intimate.

I pulled out the chair next to them and sat down.

Derek froze. He looked at me.

For a second, just a fraction of a second, I saw something flicker in his eyes. Guilt? Regret?

Then Else spoke.

"Derek," she said loudly, her voice carrying over the music. "Did you forget Aleida doesn't eat sweets? She's so picky."

It was a lie. I loved sweets. Derek used to buy me cupcakes every Friday, rain or shine.

He looked at her. Then he looked at me.

"She's right," he said, his voice cold. "You shouldn't be here, Aleida. You're ruining the mood."

But he didn't look away from me. His hand twitched on the table.

He remembered. I knew he remembered the cupcakes.

But he chose to forget.

He chose her. Again.

Aleida POV

The air in the ballroom felt suffocating, heavy and stifling.

Else suddenly clutched her stomach. She let out a small, pathetic whimper.

"Derek," she gasped. "I don't feel well."

Derek was on his feet instantly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor, drawing eyes to our table.

"What's wrong?" he asked, panic pitching his voice high.

"I feel... dizzy," she whispered, leaning heavily into him.

He wrapped his arm around her waist protectively. "We're leaving. Now."

He looked at me. He hesitated. His eyes darted from Else's pale face to my stoic one.

He opened his mouth, maybe to tell me to come with them, maybe to apologize.

But then Else leaned up and whispered in his ear.

"Don't worry about her," she hissed. "She's just a tool. Remember the plan."

I heard it.

I was sitting right there, and she didn't even care if I heard.

Derek's face hardened. The hesitation vanished.

He turned his back on me.

"Let's go," he said to Else.

He walked away. He left his pregnant wife alone at a gala to take his mistress home.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the empty space where he had been.

Then, Else came back.

She walked up to the table. She wasn't sick. She was smiling.

"Did you really think he'd stay?" she asked.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a ring box. She opened it.

It was the ring. The one with her name on it.

"He gave it to me last night," she said. "He said it belongs on the finger of the woman he actually respects."

She snapped the box shut.

"Come on," she said, grabbing my wrist.

"What?" I tried to pull away.

"Derek wants you home," she said, her grip like iron. "We can't have you making a scene."

She dragged me out of the ballroom. I tried to resist, but she was surprisingly strong, and I was afraid of hurting the baby if I fought too hard.

She shoved me into the passenger seat of her car.

She drove like a maniac. We were tearing down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic.

"You know," she said, glancing at me, "you really helped me out. Keeping his bed warm while I was gone."

"Stop it," I said, closing my eyes.

"He told me everything," she laughed. "How pathetic you were. How you begged for his attention. He said sleeping with you was a chore."

I stayed silent. My silence was the only weapon I had left.

It made her furious.

"Say something!" she screamed.

She yanked the steering wheel.

The car swerved. We hit the guardrail.

Metal screamed against metal. The world flipped upside down.

Pain exploded in my body.

I felt the seatbelt dig into my chest. I felt my head slam against the window.

And then, the worst pain of all. A sharp, tearing cramp in my lower abdomen.

I felt warmth spreading between my legs.

No. No, no, no.

Darkness started to creep into the edges of my vision.

I heard sirens. I felt hands pulling me out of the wreckage.

The next thing I knew, I was on a gurney. The lights of the hospital hallway were blinding.

Derek was there. He was running alongside the gurney.

But he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the other gurney. At Else.

"Doctor!" someone yelled. "We're losing the fetal heartbeat!"

Derek stopped. He looked at me then.

"Aleida?" he whispered.

"Save the baby!" I screamed. It took every ounce of strength I had. "Derek, save the baby!"

The doctor looked at Derek. "Sir, we have a complication. We can focus on saving the pregnancy, or we can stabilize your wife. And your sister... she needs immediate surgery too. We don't have enough hands for both traumas right now. Who is the priority?"

It was a chaotic, impossible moment. But the question hung in the air.

Derek looked at me. I was bleeding. I was begging him with my eyes.

Then he looked at Else. She was moaning, a small cut on her forehead.

He didn't hesitate.

"Help Else," he said. "Make sure she's okay."

"But the baby..." the doctor started.

"I don't care about the baby!" Derek shouted. "Just save Else!"

The words hit me harder than the car crash.

He chose her. He chose her over his own child.

He let go of my hand.

He turned and followed Else's gurney into the operating room.

I watched his back retreat.

The darkness rushed in then. It swallowed me whole.

But before I went under, I made a promise to the empty air.

If I survive this, I thought, as the anesthesia took hold.

You will wish you had died in that crash, Derek.