“Meet my fiancée, Elora Shane.” Zane’s voice interrupted my thoughts. His voice was cold and emotionless, as though he were introducing a business partner. His arm draped possessively around her waist, then his other arm to deliberately rest in the middle of her stomach.

I blinked too fast to even get a good grasp of her face.

“Fiancée?”The word sliced through my tongue as it escaped. My voice cracked, unsure if it was despair or heartbreak carrying it forward.

My eyes dropped to her belly, the round and the undeniable curve beneath her silky gown. My finger trembled as it pointed towards it. “She’s… sh… she… she is pregnant.

The woman looked at me, her gaze sharp, lips curled into a parasite’s smile.

“Oh–you mean–he didn’t tell you,” she said with a smirk on her face. Her voice was drenched in satisfaction and sugar-coated cruelty.

My lips were numb. I couldn’t utter a word. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even swallow my saliva. The man I had abandoned my family for, walked away from billions for, hidden my identity for, had been banging another woman long enough to get her heavily pregnant.

The air felt dense. My chest aches like someone had cracked open my ribs and poured hot coal inside.

Everything in me wanted to go back to that day. I kept hearing the doctor's voice warning me about all I had to lose. “You’re risking too much. The scars might be irreversible. You could be sabotaging your career as a model.”

But he had been betrayed by his step-siblings, who staged the accident to prevent him from inheriting anything. I felt so bad for him and that strengthened my resolve to be there for him.

But I had been blinded by love. Love for the man that once whispered forever under neon lights and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, my head on his shoulder believing the world paused for us.

And now he stood there, unflinching as he shattered my heart.

“You should be grateful, Zara”. Zane’s words echoed through my thoughts.

“Your skin is forever etched onto my body. Something a lot of girls would die for.”He said mockingly.

“I’m alive, Zara. You gave me a second chance.”

His words clunged deep inside of me like steel against bone.

“A chance you plan to spend with someone else?” My voice trembled in more grief than fury. My lungs ached from holding back a scream.

“You even got engaged without divorcing me first? Was that all I meant to you?”. I asked, my words fighting their way out of my throat to Zane’s stone-cold face.

He looked through me like I was glass.“You knew what this world demanded. You knew it before you married an illegitimate billionaire. Elora, my heiress fiancée, brings alliances, security. Things you could never give me.”

“Now leave! I’m done explaining myself to you!”. He thundered at me and slammed the door once more.

The echo reverberated through my bones

I looked around me. The road was lonely and quiet, night immediately coming. I sat there, on the cold pavement, my knees burning from where I’d hit the floor when he shoved me aside.

I struggled to get up, with the little strength I had left in me, from the floor I was thrown to by my husband as passers by were already stealing glances at me. As I walked slowly from the house, not knowing where I was headed, memories of the choices I had made all flooded through my mind.

My father’s voice echoed in my mind, “You’ll regret this Zara. You’re trading diamonds for a fake”.

The fear of walking away from the life I had come to be at peace with, after leaving my family, made my heart ache. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t imagine a life without Zane in it.

“What if I am giving up too soon? Lovers quarrel all the time, right? What if I can’t survive without him?”

I had no means of sustaining myself. Every dime I made stayed with my modelling agency. According to my contract with them, they get to keep eighty percent of my earnings when any scandal springs up around me. My divorce definitely would serve as one.

I became motionless. I had to turn back. I couldn’t give up like this. I hurriedly returned to my house.

“Zane, Zane. Zane Wesley!. Please don’t do this to me!” I cried out into the night. My voice cracked as the wind howled, matching the storm building in the clouds.

“I’m sorry!” I cried louder, each word a plea, each breath a struggle.

“Please come out and tell me you still love me. Tell me you didn’t mean all that you said”.

“Zaneeeee”. I screamed one last time as I landed on the ground, breaking into uncontrollable tears.

There was no response. Not even a sound to prove they heard me. The house remained dark and indifferent.

Were they in my matrimonial bed? I couldn’t bear the thought of that.

Where could I go?

I dared not call my family. We hadn’t spoken in three years since I married Zane. Not when I packed the last of my clothes into the brown trunk. Not when I removed the necklace my father gave me and threw it across the table because he refused to grant my wish to marry Zane Wesley. Not when I emptied my trust fund worth millions of dollars to invest in Zane’s company.

The raindrops that had been trying to catch my attention now gushed heavily. I wrapped my hands around my body, trying to suppress the pain the gushing rain caused to my healing surgical wounds.

Weak and broken, I stumbled away from the place I once called home. The rain mixed with my tears, blurring my vision as I dragged my feet, my heart aching with every step.

He said I no longer have my beauty. I also wasn’t the Zara Smith the world remembered.

And maybe that was a good thing.

Because tomorrow, I’d disappear.

It had barely been three hours since I moved from the freezing floor where my strength gave out. My limbs and my once vibrant spirit now hung by a thread. I managed to find a hidden spot in the neighbourhood where I would usually come to feed the stray cats. Sadly, tonight, I was the stray.

With my arms wrapped tightly around my body, I cuddled myself, praying no one would notice me and make me the talk of the town. I hadn’t eaten in two days. My head ached from exhaustion, my throat was dry from dehydration, and my skin was pale from cold and fatigue. Amidst my thoughts, I slipped into a restless, dreamless sleep.

But the moment of escape was short-lived.

The sound of footsteps jolted me awake, snapping through the silence like a whip. Before I could make out the faces that hurried towards me, I was hit across the face, the blinding pain shooting through me. Stars burst across my vision, and I could feel my body lifted from where I lay, rough hands gripping my wrists like shackles.

But the perfume, I knew this scent, Armani, the one he always wore. Even through the chaos, I could never forget that smell. It was Zane!

“Zane?” I whispered faintly, my voice barely more than a breath, eyes blinking rapidly to adjust to the shining light from a vehicle close by.

“Where are you taking me to?”.I asked loudly as I began to regain my consciousness, but he didn’t answer. None of the men with him said anything. The silence was more terrifying than the grip.

Panic seized my throat.

“Zane, let me go!” I screamed weakly, but it was no use. They forcefully dragged me across asphalt, shoving me into what resembled a white Mercedes-Benz.

“Where are you taking me to at this ungodly hour”? I sought answers, but he remained defiant.

He drove off. I was sandwiched between two men in black suits, each of them strangely calm, their eyes looking forward. I felt caged, like prey among predators.

“You’re scaring me,” I said softly, my voice trembling.

“Why are you doing this?”

No reply. Just a soft hum of the engine.

My words seemed to have landed on deaf ears as Zane kept driving, with the other men seated at the back with me. The man I was once comfortable with now made me shiver in terror. I was scared I could be landed a punch in the face if I questioned him one more time.

Then the car swerved sharply off the main road and into a sandy path surrounded by towering warehouses, long abandoned and covered in fading paint. I stiffened. My heart plummeted.

My eyes widened when the car abruptly stopped. “Why are we at an abandoned warehouse?”. “What are you planning to do to me?” My voice cracked under the weight of fear.

“Stop talking!” Zane growled at me, breaking his silence

Like a cow to the slaughterhouse, I was dragged out of the car by four men in black. My legs buckled beneath me, barely holding up. Then I saw them, people in white. A doctor, waiting outside with two nurses. Their uniforms stood out like ghosts in the dark. Then I noticed the nurses were carrying blood bags. Could this be what I thought it was? I felt my stomach churn.

My eyes widened as I screamed. “Zane… what is this?” I cried, desperate to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t even look at me.

“Wait, are you trying to–” My voice was cut short by two nurses who seized my hands and strapped me to a cold metal table covered in transparent plastic. Like one a butcher would use to cut meat into pieces. I thrashed wildly, but the nurses overpowered me.

“Zane… Zane!”. “What are they trying to do to me?”. “You can’t just stand and watch!” I screamed, struggling to remove myself from the bounds placed over me.

No answer.

I looked around, trying to catch the face of any saviour I could find. There was no one. I was completely helpless. One of the nurses seemed to look at me with pity, but also an expression that said she couldn’t help me out of my situation.

“You, Zara, would save a life once again”. “This time around, my fiancée,” Zane said flatly, finally meeting my gaze.

“She has a pregnancy complication, and she needs a blood transfusion immediately. You were the only match I could think of. Knowing how much of a bitch you are, it had to be this way”. He scoffed after saying the most horrifying thing I had ever heard him say.

It was almost like I started to choke on the air I was breathing. How could this be the man I spent every night with for the past two years?

“I— would do what?”, “Save whose life?” I screeched, trying to make sense of all he had said.

“I don’t consent to this... Let me go!” I yelled once more as I struggled to be free.

The doctor came closer to me with his hands in gloves, lifted, and started tapping the syringe with robotic precision. It was then my fear of syringes kicked in. The glint of the needle sent my mind spiraling.

“Stop-stop-stop, please!”. I shook my head in denial, hoping this was all a dream and I would wake up soon.

My heart started to pound loudly in my chest as the doctor leaned in to inject the syringe into me while the two nurses rallied around him with the blood bags ready to receive my blood.

“Don’t please!”. “Zane– you can’t just stand there and watch!”.

But he stood there, cold and unflinching. He didn’t even blink. Unmoved like a statue of wickedness with flaming eyes, I never once saw.

“Suck her dry!”. He thundered at the doctor and nurses.

The doctor pierced into my veins, my body almost going into a seizure at the entrance of the fear and pain that seeped into me. The prick of the needle penetrating and sharp with every draw of blood. The last thing I saw was the doctor’s face turn blurry, and then everything went black.

Then a loud sound. The sound echoed like thunder.

I managed to open my eyes, weakly scanning through the warehouse.

A bang echoed through the building, this time really loud.

“What the hell is that?” Zane growled, reaching out for his belt like a soldier ready for defence.

Before anyone could adequately prepare for what was coming, the gate to the warehouse burst open, revealing a vehicle- a matte-black off-roader, entering with so much speed that the men scattered, flying sideways, shielding themselves to avoid being hit.

Then, it suddenly stopped.

The door opened, and a towering figure came down from it. Like an avenging shadow, the tall and huge figure walked away from the vehicle towards us.

As he moved closer, I was only able to see the dark blue eyes of this masked figure. They were fierce, wild, and blazing.

“Let her go!”. The mystery man thundered.

A stick shattered against the floor as he disarmed one of them with his feet.

Zane and his men immediately flew into defence, lifting logs of wood littered around the warehouse. They engage in a fight, landing blows here and there.

Still weak, I just lay there strapped to the table, watching all that unfolded before my eyes as though I were in a movie.

Zane and his men moved fast, but this figure moved faster, like he had been training for a moment like this.

“I said let her go!”. He screamed once more. I wondered who it could be. No one from my past could have possibly risked their lives to come save me. The only people who knew me closely were the models and officials who worked with me at the agency, but none of them could be this built and brave. His voice did not sound familiar in any way.

Zane lunged, grabbing the surgical blade from the doctor’s tray near to him and wielding it at the man. But the man caught his wrist mid-way, twisted, threw the weapon out of Zane’s hand, and pinned him to the ground, breathing hard.

At this point, the other men began to run away from the scene, fearing for their lives.

Zane dragged himself up, grabbed the filled blood bags, and skedaddled away.

The man turned to me, panting, eyes softening.

“Are you okay?” He asked calmly, his dark blue eyes darting into mine.

“I—I—don’t think so”. I replied faintly as he unstrapped me from the table. My hands were bruised and numb, but I was free.

“We don’t have time, they might return soon”. He gently helped me down from the table, steadying me on my feet.

I released myself into his arms as I couldn’t stand on my own. The cold, the terror, the pain—they slowly started to fade away.

And for the first time in weeks, I felt comfort.

I woke up in what looked like a hotel room, head spinning like I had just gotten off a rollercoaster. A dull ache pounded behind my eyes. The sterile scent of antiseptic mixed with something warm-coffee maybe-hung in the air. I instinctively reached out for the area where the syringe had been inserted. My skin was sore, tender. It still hurt.

The ordeal of yesterday was definitely one I will not forget soon. I still hoped it was all a dream and I would wake up by the side of my husband, wrapped and comfortable in his arms.

I blinked slowly, taking in my surroundings. Cream walls, dark velvet curtains drawn halfway, and a white bed across mine with sheets smoother than anything I’d seen in weeks.

“But wait, did the mystery man abduct me for himself?” I shouldn’t have trusted the man who promised me forever, not to mention a stranger I met yesterday.

I turned to my side, trying to sit up.

“You’ve been out for two days”, a male voice interrupted, cutting short my inquiries.

There he was - the mystery man. Sitting on the chair by the window, arms crossed.

My heart skipped a bit when our eyes met. He was tall and had a banging model body. Dressed in grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt rolled up to his elbow, revealing his muscular forearms, his hair covering one side of his forehead as his dark blue eyes locked into mine.

“What?”. “T–T–Two days??” I asked with a look of confusion.

He nodded, barely interested.

“Where am I? And who are you? Why did you save me?”. I stared deep into the face of the man who had now unmasked himself.

I instinctively scanned my body and found that the clothes I wore when I was thrown out had been removed. In their place was a loose cotton T-shirt and joggers-clean, soft, unfamiliar.

“Did you—?”

He cut me off, rising slowly to his feet. “Easy…slow down. I didn’t touch you. I got someone to change your clothes.” He said, erasing all my suspicions.

I exhaled, in a mix of relief and shame.

“Thank you for saving me, but who are you?” I asked one more time.

“Who I am is not your business. I’d have left you here, but you took so long to wake up. I wanted to make sure you’d be fine at least. You can now leave.” He said coldly, not meeting my eyes, like I wasn’t his burden to bear.

His answer stung. Dismissive and cold.

Bold of me to think I was important to a stranger. I couldn’t help but notice the bandage on his palm. He must have gotten injured from the fight that broke out two days ago.

I moved toward him slowly, “Please let me help–”

Pulling away from me so swiftly, like I could infect him with a disease, “Don’t touch me.” The words were sharp, venom-laced. I don’t need your sympathy. I already booked a ticket out of the city for you. Take it and leave,” his jaw and fist tightening at the end of his statement.

His face was blank with unreadable eyes, not showing any emotion.

I recoiled, more hurt than I wanted to admit.

I guess I overstepped. Or I was already a burden to him.

He reached out for the remote and turned on the TV as he lay back in the chair. I followed his gaze reluctantly.

A newscaster read, “Billionaire Zane Wesley's wedding location is still kept secret from the public, trust us to stream it live for you when we discover–”

“Wedding location?” I turned to look at him, but it seemed he already knew, by the expression on his face.

“Zane is getting married?!” I placed my hands on top of my head as the words of the newscaster continued to slice through my skin like blades.

I wanted to believe I had misheard it. That this was some cruel misunderstanding.

“But then we can’t avoid the question on the nation’s lips. “Where is Zara Smith in the midst of all these?” The newscaster continued.

“I heard they had divorced days ago,” another added.

“Must be sad and–” The mystery man who had refused to tell me his name switched off the TV, cutting the newscaster short.

“It won’t do you any good listening to anything about Zane,” He said, this time with concern in his voice.

“That’s why I already arranged for you to leave the city, lady”. He said with a tone of finality.

The voices of the newscasters were still hovering in my head, so I couldn’t pay full attention to what he was saying. A storm of disbelief and humiliation swelled inside me. I was no longer the muse with shiny hair and a million-dollar smile. I was now someone talked about on national television, dragged into headlines and shows I never consented to. Not for a good thing but for shame and betrayal.

A thousand expectations, a thousand sacrifices, a thousand memories, but I was easily discarded like an expired product.

“Where is the location? Where is Zane getting married?” I asked, facing him.

“Do you really want to go there? Can you handle it?” A man, once cold, now looked caring, leaving me confused.

“Yes, please take me there.”

“I need to see this for myself.”

“Okay, but you will need a disguise. You don’t want the media swarming all over you”. He reached into the wardrobe and brought out a pair of black jeans, a black hoodie, and a black cap.

“Put these on”, he said, handing me the clothes, then pointed to the bathroom.

+++++

Later that day, at the wedding venue.

“Do you take Elora Shane to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, in sickness and–” the voice of the priest greeted me as I arrived on the scene where my ex-husband planned to seal his betrayal. The garden was massive. White roses and gold ribbons hung around the pillars like reminders of wealth and control. Guests murmured in expensive silk and tuxedos, while bouncers stood like statues. From far back, I watched the man who promised me forever betray me for good.

I suddenly started to feel dizzy. Maybe I was still distraught from the terror two days ago. I still needed rest. As I tried to get my footing, a few media people noticed me at the back, where I was. I immediately knew I was in trouble. They rushed towards me with their microphones and cameras. It was total humiliation that I had never experienced before.

“Zara! Zara, is it true you were divorced just days before the wedding?”

“How do you feel seeing Zane marry Elora?”

“What happened to your marriage?”

Their voices around me blurred into a dull roar as I fell to the ground and everything went dark.