Chapter 2

The funeral for Douglas Strong was a quiet, somber affair held under a gray, drizzling sky.

The small church in my old neighborhood was filled with the scent of rain and lilies. Friends and family from my past life, people with hardworking hands and honest faces, came to pay their respects. They offered me hugs that felt real and condolences that were sincere.

Blake was not there.

Instead, a black car, sleek and silent as a predator, had pulled up to the curb earlier that morning. A man in a tailored suit, Blake's personal assistant, stepped out. He didn' t offer a word of sympathy. He simply handed me a thick envelope.

Inside was a check with enough zeros to make my head spin.

A note was clipped to it, written in Blake' s sharp, decisive handwriting. "This should cover all expenses and provide for your future comfort. Let me know if you require more."

He had bought my father' s life. Or at least, he thought he had.

Now, standing at the graveside, I held the check in my pocket. The paper felt slick and dirty against my fingers. I listened to the pastor say his final words, the rain mingling with the tears on my cheeks. After everyone had left, I stayed, staring at the freshly turned earth.

I pulled out the check and a lighter I' d bought at a convenience store.

The flame sputtered in the damp air before catching. I watched the corner of the check blacken, curl, and turn to ash. The fire consumed Blake' s name, then the obscene number of zeros. A bitter, bone-deep laugh escaped my lips. It sounded harsh and ugly in the quiet cemetery.

"You think this fixes it?" I whispered to the empty air, to the ghost of my husband. "You think you can just pay for it?"

The ash floated away on the wet breeze, disappearing into the gray sky.

My decision was as clear as the hatred in my heart. I went to see a lawyer the next day. The office was stark and professional, a world away from the emotional chaos of my life.

I sat across from a calm, middle-aged woman named Ms. Davies.

"I want a divorce," I said. My voice was steady. All the tears had been burned out of me.

Ms. Davies looked at me with practiced neutrality. "Have you discussed this with your husband, Mrs. Wallace?"

"His name is Blake Wallace," I corrected her. "And no. There's nothing to discuss."

I told her everything. I left out no detail of the humiliation, the cruelty, the emotional torture. I told her about my father, about his simple goodness and his brutal end on our marble floor. I told her about Blake' s coldness, his obsession, his complete abdication of his role as my husband.

As I spoke, Ms. Davies' professional mask slipped. I saw pity in her eyes, then anger. By the time I finished, she was looking at me with a quiet, fierce solidarity.

"I see," she said, her voice soft but firm. "We will file immediately."

She drew up the papers. They were cold, legal documents, but to me, they were a declaration of independence. I signed my name-Ellen Strong-with a hand that did not tremble.

"Mr. Wallace will need to sign as well," Ms. Davies said gently. "Or we will have to serve him."

"He won't see me," I said. "He won't take my calls. He's with her."

"We can have the papers delivered to his office."

I shook my head. A formal serving would cause a scandal, and somehow, I knew Blake would find a way to twist it, to delay it. Celesta would convince him it was a spiritual test.

"Is it possible," I asked, my voice low, "for me to sign for him? If I have his verbal consent?"

Ms. Davies hesitated. "That's highly irregular, Ellen. It could be contested."

"He'll agree," I said, a bitter certainty in my gut. "He'll give me anything I want, as long as it's money or property. He just doesn't want to be bothered."

I left her office and stepped back out into the city. The noise and the crowds felt alien. I went back to the mansion, the place I once called home, which now felt like a beautifully decorated prison.

I found my phone and dialed his number.

It rang for a long time. I could hear the faint sound of music and laughter in the background before he picked up. Celesta' s high-pitched giggle was unmistakable.

"Ellen," Blake's voice was impatient, distracted. "Is the money not enough? I told my assistant to give you whatever you needed."

He didn't ask how I was. He didn't mention my father.

"It's not about the money, Blake," I said, my voice tight.

"Then what is it? Celesta and I are in the middle of a very important energy alignment session. She' s channeling a particularly powerful cosmic frequency today." I could hear Celesta whisper something to him, followed by another tinkling laugh.

The sheer absurdity of it, the callousness, was breathtaking. My father was dead. Our marriage was over. And he was talking about cosmic frequencies.

I took a deep breath, forcing the rage down. "I've filed for divorce, Blake."

There was a pause on the other end. Not of shock, or sadness, but of annoyance.

"A divorce? Ellen, that's so... dramatic. We can talk about this later. I'll have my lawyers draw up a settlement. Just name your price. A house in the Hamptons? A few apartment buildings downtown? Whatever you want. Just don't interrupt me right now."

He was trying to buy my silence, to buy his freedom without an ounce of emotional effort.

"I don't want your money," I said, my voice cracking despite myself. "I just want out."

"Fine, fine, you're out," he said dismissively. "Consider it done. I'll take care of it. Now, I really have to go."

He hung up.

The dial tone buzzed in my ear, a final, definitive sound of severance.

I stood there, phone in hand, and a single, desolate laugh escaped me. He had agreed. Just like that. Our vows, our history, the man who said he couldn't lose me-all of it dismissed in a brief, irritated phone call.

I called Ms. Davies back.

"He agreed," I told her, my voice hollow. "He said, 'Consider it done.'"

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

"Alright, Ellen," Ms. Davies said finally, her voice full of a sympathy that Blake would never offer. "Come in tomorrow. We'll get it signed. There's a mandatory cooling-off period, but the process has begun."

The process had begun.

I went to my room-the guest room-and started to pack. I took only the things that were mine before I met him: old books, clothes from my college days, a small photograph of my parents. Everything he had ever given me-the jewelry, the designer clothes, the expensive trinkets-I left behind. I piled them on the bed, a monument to a love that had rotted from the inside out.

For a week, the house was quiet. Blake and Celesta were away on what the staff whispered was a "spiritual retreat" in the Caribbean. I moved through the empty rooms like a ghost, the silence a welcome reprieve from the constant pressure of Celesta' s presence.

The day they returned, I was walking down the grand staircase when the front door opened. Celesta swept in, tanned and glowing, draped in white linen. Blake followed, carrying her bags, his face a picture of adoration.

I tried to slip past them, to disappear back into the shadows of the house.

But Celesta saw me. Her serene smile was a mask for a sharp, cruel intelligence.

"Ellen, there you are," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "I was just thinking about you."

I didn't answer. I just wanted to get away.

"Your father," she continued, her eyes fixed on mine with a look of mock sympathy. "His passing was tragic. His soul was so... cluttered. It must have been a relief for him to be released from his earthly vessel."

My blood ran cold.

"Don't talk about him," I whispered, my voice shaking with fury.

She ignored me. "To honor his memory, and to continue your own purification, I believe it's time for a more intensive ritual. You will wash my feet every evening. It will teach you humility and help you scrub away the grime of your lineage."

Something inside me snapped. The grief, the humiliation, the years of swallowing my anger-it all erupted.

"No," I said, the word clear and loud in the cavernous hall. "I will not."

Celesta' s smile vanished. Her face hardened, the mask of spirituality falling away to reveal the ugly narcissism beneath.

"You dare refuse me?" she hissed.

"I dare," I said, looking her straight in the eye.

"Insolent creature!" she shrieked, her voice losing its melodic quality and becoming shrill. She turned to the two bodyguards standing by the door. "Teach her a lesson. Remind her of her place."

The bodyguards, massive men hired for their muscle, hesitated. They looked from Celesta to me, a flicker of uncertainty in their eyes. They had seen what she was.

"Are you deaf?" Celesta screamed. "Or do you want to lose your jobs?"

That was enough. With reluctant faces, they moved toward me. I braced myself, my heart hammering against my ribs. They grabbed my arms, their grips like iron.

I was helpless.

Celesta walked toward me, a sadistic pleasure dancing in her eyes. She drew back her hand, and the sound of her palm connecting with my cheek echoed in the hall.

The sting was sharp, electric. My head snapped to the side.

She hit me again. And again. The blows were hard, deliberate. My face burned, my lip split, and the salty taste of blood filled my mouth. The world blurred, the opulent hall dissolving into a swirl of light and pain.

Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear her venomous words.

"You are nothing. A common girl Blake picked up out of pity. Your only purpose is to serve."

She stopped, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her.

"Now," she said, her voice a low, menacing growl. "Go and fetch the water."

In that moment, I wanted to die. Or I wanted her to die. A murderous rage, cold and pure, filled me. I imagined lunging forward, my hands around her throat, squeezing until the life left her smug, beautiful face.

Just as that dark thought consumed me, I heard Blake' s voice from the doorway.

"What's going on here?"

He had come back inside to get something he' d forgotten in the car. He stood there, taking in the scene: me, held by his men, my face bruised and bleeding; Celesta, panting with exertion, her hand still raised.

A sliver of hope, a stupid, stubborn flicker, ignited in my chest. He would see. He would finally see what she was.

He walked over, his eyes scanning my face. For a brief second, I saw something in their depths-a flash of pain, of the old Blake who would have killed anyone who laid a hand on me.

"Blake," I choked out, tears of pain and relief streaming down my face. "She hit me."

He looked from me to Celesta.

Celesta' s face immediately crumpled. Tears, perfect and crystalline, welled in her eyes. "Blake, darling," she whimpered, her voice trembling. "She was disrespectful. She refused to perform the purification ritual. She spoke ill of her own father's spirit! I was only trying to guide her, to bring her back to the path of light, and she... she raised her hand to me first!"

It was such an obvious, pathetic lie.

Blake looked at Celesta' s tear-streaked face. He looked at my swollen, bleeding one. He was silent for a long moment, the air thick with tension.

Then he turned to me. The flicker of pain in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, weary disappointment.

"Ellen," he said, his voice flat. "Just do as she says. Is a little dignity really more important than Celesta' s peace of mind?"

The words hit me harder than any of her slaps. A little dignity. He had reduced my humanity, my pain, my grief, to a matter of inconvenience.

"Blake," I whispered, my voice trembling with disbelief. "Do you remember what you said at the hospital? After the crash? You said you couldn't lose me."

His face hardened. The mention of the past was an annoyance to him now.

"I remember," he said, his voice dropping, becoming dangerously quiet. "And you should remember that your father is buried in a cemetery on Wallace property. It would be a shame if his eternal rest were... disturbed. Do you understand?"

The threat was unmistakable. Vile. Unthinkable. He was using my dead father, the man he had helped kill, as leverage to control me. He was threatening to desecrate his grave.

The last, foolish flicker of hope inside me didn't just die. It was violently extinguished, leaving behind nothing but black, empty ash.