Jenna unzipped the black suitcase. She opened the closet drawers and completely ignored the velvet boxes filled with diamonds and the silk designer gowns.

She grabbed a few pairs of faded jeans and plain cotton shirts she had bought before she married Alonzo. She threw them into the suitcase. She dug into a hidden compartment in her jewelry box and pulled out her passport and birth certificate, tossing them on top of the clothes.

Just as she reached for the zipper to close the bag, the aggressive roar of a sports car engine tore through the quiet estate. The screech of tires braking hard echoed outside her window.

Jenna walked to the window. She pulled back the edge of the heavy velvet curtain. Alonzo's black Aston Martin was parked diagonally across the pristine driveway.

Downstairs, the massive front doors slammed open with a violent crash. Heavy, rapid footsteps pounded up the solid oak staircase. The sheer force of the steps radiated pure rage.

Jenna dropped the curtain. She walked briskly to the bedroom door and pressed the brass lock button on the knob. It clicked into place.

A second later, the brass handle twisted violently from the outside. The metal rattled hard against the frame.

Realizing the door was locked, Alonzo slammed his fist against the heavy wood.

"Open this door right now!" Alonzo roared.

Jenna stood on the inside of the room. She took a slow breath, letting the air fill her lungs. She reached out, twisted the lock, and yanked the door open.

Alonzo stormed into the room, bringing a wave of cold outside air with him. His custom-tailored suit jacket was unbuttoned, and his silk tie was pulled loose. His dark eyes were lethal.

His gaze immediately dropped to the floor. He saw the cheap black suitcase sitting on the expensive Persian rug. A highly mocking, cruel sneer twisted his lips.

He stepped directly into Jenna's personal space. His towering frame cast a dark shadow over her.

"What kind of sick game are you playing?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

Jenna took a half-step back, avoiding the smell of his expensive cologne. She looked him dead in the eye.

"I want a divorce. Immediately," she repeated.

Alonzo looked at her as if she had just told the funniest joke in the world. He reached out his hand, aiming to pinch her chin between his fingers like she was a disobedient pet.

Jenna turned her head in disgust. She brought her arm up and slapped his hand away. The smack of skin against skin was loud and sharp.

Alonzo's hand froze in mid-air. The color drained from his face, replaced by a dark, furious red. His submissive, fragile wife had never physically fought back before.

He slowly lowered his hand. He adjusted his suit cuff, a habitual gesture he used when asserting absolute dominance. He deployed his usual psychological warfare.

"Look at yourself," Alonzo said, his tone dripping with venom. "You have a high school diploma. You have zero work experience. Without the Knight family trust fund, you don't even have enough money to rent a rat-infested room in the slums. You are nothing without me."

Jenna stared at him. In her past life, those exact words used to crush her chest and make her feel utterly worthless. Now, they just made her stomach churn with nausea.

"I would rather sleep under a bridge than spend another second in this sickening house with you," Jenna fired back, her voice laced with pure disgust.

That sentence pierced straight through Alonzo's massive, fragile ego. The veins in his neck bulged. The anger in his eyes ignited into a violent fire.

He lunged forward and grabbed the handle of the black suitcase. He swung it with all his strength and hurled it across the room. The suitcase smashed into the far wall. The zipper busted open, and her cheap clothes scattered across the floor.

Jenna didn't scream. She didn't flinch. She just stood there, watching him lose his mind with the cold, detached eyes of a stranger.

That absolute, uncontrollable indifference sent a spike of unknown panic into Alonzo's chest. He convinced himself she had suffered a complete mental breakdown.

He pointed a long finger right at her face. "Until your brain starts working properly again, you are not taking a single step out of this room."

He turned on his heel and marched out of the bedroom.

Jenna realized what he was doing. She lunged toward the doorway, trying to slip out before he could close it.

Alonzo grabbed the edge of the heavy solid wood door and pulled it shut with brutal force. The edge of the wood barely missed crushing Jenna's fingers.

The heavy metal deadbolt clicked loudly from the outside.

Jenna grabbed the handle and twisted it with both hands. The door didn't budge an inch. She was locked inside her own bedroom.

From the hallway, she heard Alonzo's voice, low and cold, giving orders to Hector. His footsteps faded down the corridor. A moment later, there was a soft scraping sound near the baseboard—the telephone jack panel being opened from the hallway side, followed by a quiet, final snip.

Jenna slammed her open palms against the thick wooden door. The impact sent a painful shockwave up her arms, but the heavy wood absorbed the sound completely. No one answered.

She took two steps back. Her chest heaved. She forced herself to inhale deeply through her nose and exhale through her mouth, pushing down the rising tide of panic in her throat.

Through the thick door, she heard Alonzo's deep, authoritative voice echoing in the hallway. He was calling for Hector Finch, the estate's head butler.

Rapid, precise footsteps approached. Hector's voice murmured a respectful greeting to his employer.

Jenna pressed her ear against the narrow crack between the door and the frame. She held her breath.

"My wife's mental state is extremely unstable," Alonzo ordered, his tone devoid of any emotion. "She is exhibiting violent tendencies."

He paused, then continued. "Confiscate all her car keys. Freeze every supplementary credit card under her name. Instruct the entire staff that no one is allowed to speak to her."

Hector hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Sir, should I call the family physician to examine her?"

"No," Alonzo snapped impatiently. "She is just throwing a hysterical tantrum. Starve her for a few meals. She'll figure out reality soon enough."

A moment later, the sound of little Arthur and Clio running up the stairs echoed in the hall.

Alonzo's voice instantly shifted, becoming sickeningly gentle. "Pack your things, kids. Mommy is sick. She needs absolute quiet to rest."

"Mommy is a crazy witch!" little Arthur complained loudly, his childish voice laced with pure malice. "She hit me so hard!"

"Mommy is just very sick in her head right now. She didn't mean it," Alonzo soothed, his voice dripping with calculated, hypocritical warmth. "We are going to stay at the penthouse in the city for a few days so she can get the help she needs. Remember, we are the normal ones. We are a family."

The footsteps moved down the hall and faded away. Minutes later, the heavy thud of the front doors closing echoed through the house, followed by the low rumble of the Aston Martin driving away.

The massive estate fell into a suffocating, dead silence. Jenna was completely isolated.

She turned away from the door. Her eyes swept the room and found her smartphone still lying on the rumpled bed where she had tossed it earlier. She walked over, picked it up, and pressed it into her pocket. At least she had this.

Then her gaze fell on the scattered clothes near the busted suitcase. She crossed the room, knelt, and pulled a pair of her own faded jeans from the pile. She stepped into them, buttoned the waist, and smoothed the rough denim against her thighs. The old cotton shirt she was already wearing would do. If she was going to fight her way out, she needed proper clothes.

She then walked to the nightstand and picked up the landline phone receiver. She pressed it to her ear. There was no dial tone. Just dead air. She traced the plastic cord down to the wall. The wire had been cleanly snipped right at the jack—just as she'd heard from the hallway.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her smartphone. She tapped the screen. In the top right corner, the signal bars were completely empty. It read: No Service.

Alonzo had activated the estate's internal signal jammers. He had severed her last remaining lifeline to the outside world.

Jenna walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. She grabbed the brass handles and pushed. They were locked tight. She tapped her knuckles against the glass. It was thick, reinforced bulletproof glass.

She looked down. The second-floor balcony was nearly twenty feet above the stone patio below. Jumping straight down would shatter her legs.

She turned around and looked at her clothes scattered across the floor. A heavy, crushing weight pressed down on her chest.

But then, the memory of lying on the hospital bed, gasping for air while the monitor flatlined, flashed violently in her mind.

She ground her teeth together. A fierce, predatory light sparked in her eyes. She refused to sit here and wait to die again.

She walked over to her vanity table and yanked the drawers open. She dug through the makeup brushes and velvet pouches, searching for anything that could be used as a tool.

Her fingers brushed against cold metal. She pulled out a pair of stainless steel eyebrow scissors. They were small, but the blades were razor-sharp.

She slipped the scissors into the tight front pocket of her jeans. It was a pathetic weapon, but it was all she had.

Time dragged on. The natural light outside the window slowly faded into a deep, bruising purple, and then finally into pitch black.

Jenna didn't turn on the lamps. She sat on the edge of the mattress in the dark, her posture rigid, waiting like a cornered animal.

Suddenly, the faint sound of leather shoes stepping softly on the carpeted hallway approached. The footsteps stopped right outside her door.

The footsteps outside the door halted. The faint, metallic scrape of a key sliding into the lock echoed in the quiet room.

The door didn't open. Instead, Hector the butler cleared his throat on the other side of the heavy wood.

"Mrs. Knight," Hector said. His voice was flat, carrying the practiced, robotic tone of a professional servant. "There will be no dinner service for you tonight."

Jenna walked silently to the door. She pressed her hands against the wood. "On whose authority, Hector?" she asked, her voice cold.

"Mr. Knight gave specific instructions before his departure," Hector replied. "Until you calm down from this hysterical episode and are ready to communicate reasonably, all services to your suite, including food and water, have been suspended."

Jenna's breath hitched. She was sickened that a grown man, the head of the household staff, was strictly enforcing such a cruel order. It crystallized her reality. In this house, even the staff saw her as nothing but livestock.

Jenna didn't beg. She didn't scream curses at the door. She simply turned her back and walked away.

She went straight to the master bathroom. Her throat was parched from the adrenaline and stress. She reached for the gold-plated faucet over the sink and twisted the handle.

A hollow, hissing sound echoed from deep within the pipes. Not a single drop of water came out.

She moved to the massive walk-in shower and twisted the heavy dials. Nothing. She checked the bathtub. Dry.

Alonzo hadn't just locked her in. He had ordered the maintenance staff to shut off the main water valve to the master suite.

A wave of dizziness washed over her. The lack of food and water was already beginning to drain her physical strength.

Jenna leaned her back against the cold bathroom tiles. The memory of her lungs burning for oxygen on her deathbed assaulted her mind again.

The fear instantly mutated into a violent, burning rage. She pushed herself off the wall. Her eyes were hard and focused.

She marched back into the bedroom and walked straight to the massive King-size bed.

She grabbed the edge of the thousand-dollar Egyptian cotton flat sheet and yanked it off the mattress. She bunched the fabric in her hands and pulled.

The high-thread-count cotton was incredibly durable. She pulled the stainless steel eyebrow scissors from her tight jeans pocket. She dug the sharp, tiny blades into the thick hem of the sheet, sawing frantically until she managed to snip a small, jagged slit into the tough fabric. Using that tiny tear as a starting point, she gripped both sides and ripped her hands apart.

Riiiip. The loud sound of tearing fabric filled the room. She tore the sheet into a long, thick strip.

She repeated the process over and over. The rough friction of the heavy cotton burned her fingers. Red welts formed on her skin, and tiny drops of blood seeped from her cuticles, but she didn't feel the pain.

She took the long strips of fabric and tied them together using tight, double-knotted square knots. She wrapped the fabric around her hands and pulled with her entire body weight to test the strength.

She had a makeshift rope.

She walked to the balcony's glass door. She ran her fingers along the bottom edge of the frame, feeling for the secondary mechanical latch.

The electronic lock was dead, but she pulled the eyebrow scissors from her pocket. She jammed the sharp tip of the scissors into the tiny gap of the mechanical latch and twisted hard. The metal scraped and groaned.

With a sharp click, the heavy deadbolt slid back.

She grabbed the handle and shoved the heavy bulletproof glass door open.

The cold night wind instantly rushed into the room, whipping her hair across her face.

She dragged her cotton rope out onto the balcony. She wrapped one end tightly around the thick, marble Roman pillar that supported the railing. She tied three consecutive dead knots, pulling them as tight as her bleeding fingers allowed.

She threw the rest of the rope over the edge. It unspooled and vanished into the darkness below.

Jenna took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the freezing air. She climbed over the stone railing, gripped the fabric tight, and lowered her body until she was hanging suspended in the night wind.