Chapter 4

The public story was that I had suffered a mental breakdown after Mark' s engagement to Emily. It was tragic, they said. The spurned wife, locked away in her ivory tower, losing her mind.

Mark fueled the narrative himself. At a press conference about a new Innovate Global initiative, a reporter asked about me. Mark' s face filled with a carefully crafted sadness.

"Ava is unwell," he said, his voice heavy with false concern. "The recent changes have been very difficult for her. She has said... confusing things. Accusations. It' s been heartbreaking to watch the woman I once cared for become so unstable."

He was a master. He painted me as a hysterical, delusional woman, preemptively discrediting anything I might say against him. He was a loving husband dealing with a mentally ill wife. I was the villain in my own tragedy.

Inside the penthouse, my life was a living nightmare. But with every new horror, with every forced, terrifying encounter that produced another gleaming gold object, a cold, hard resolve settled deeper into my soul. I played the part of the fragile, broken victim. I cried. I begged. I showed them the fear they expected to see. But behind my tear-filled eyes, I was counting. Each new piece of gold was a step closer to my revenge. I endured the public humiliation, the isolation, the violation. I was a prisoner, but I was also a silent predator, waiting for the moment to strike.

Mark knew nothing of this. He saw only my submission. He saw the growing collection of gold, and he saw his plan working.

He would visit occasionally, always ignoring the armed guards stationed outside my door, pretending they were for my protection. He would stand in the living room, surrounded by the glittering evidence of my daily torment, and look at me with that same cold, pragmatic gaze. He never acknowledged my pain. He only saw the bottom line: the wish he was accumulating.

One evening, he came to my room. He had been drinking. He tried to feign a gentle tone, the one he used to use when he wanted something from me.

"Ava, I love you," he whispered, the words a disgusting lie. He sat on the edge of my bed, his proximity making my skin crawl. "I know this is hard. But you have to understand. What you' re doing... it' s a sacrifice for something greater. For an innocent child' s life."

He reached out to touch my hair.

"Even if you' re with others," he continued, his voice dropping lower, "I won' t despise you. I know you' re doing it for us. For the family."

His hypocrisy was so profound it was almost breathtaking. He was the one forcing this on me, yet he was framing it as my choice, my sacrifice. He was trying to absolve himself, to rewrite the narrative of his own monstrous actions.

I just looked at him, my face a mask of weary sorrow. I let a single tear fall.

"Okay, Mark," I whispered.

It was exactly what he wanted to hear. He smiled, satisfied, and left.

The next morning, I woke up feeling dizzy and nauseous. It was a familiar feeling, one I hadn't had in years. I managed to get my hands on a pregnancy test from one of the less vigilant cleaning staff.

I locked myself in the bathroom and waited.

Two pink lines appeared.

I was pregnant.

And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the child was Mark' s. It had to be from our last time together, right before he announced his engagement to Emily. Before he turned my life into this hell.

A new, terrifying layer of complication had just been added to my plan.