Chapter 001

OPHELIA LAURENT'S POV

“I hate you and that's final.” I began stepping backward. I wanted nothing more than to get away from this beautiful monster, but things never worked my way.

I stumbled back into a tray of hot coffee which sat carelessly on his desk, and before the cup of coffee could leave a burn on my skin, the monster had caught me by my wrist, changing our position and letting the hot liquid fall on his legs instead.

My eyes widened as he hovered over me, pinning me to the wall, his gaze on me cold and angry, but I still tried to play unconcerned and savage. “Getting splashed by the coffee would have been better than standing close to yo—” His hand gripped my throat tightly, and I gasped, swallowing the rest of my words.

“Let's see if you'd be able to talk with that mouth of yours when I go balls deep in your throat.”

FIVE YEARS AGO

Tonight, I wouldn't hold back. I had been studying him for days since I first saw him on our dimly lit patio. I had yet to see his face, but I saw his broad shoulders, fine narrow waist in a crisp black shirt that hugged his body not too tightly but was enough to show the fine bulge of his muscles, and I knew it was him immediately, my husband. The man who had kept himself hidden from me from the beginning of our two fucked-up years of marriage.

A hysterical laugh graced my lips, remembering how the clouds had teared up on my behalf as I dressed in a white dress standing on the altar, shivering and lonely with everybody watching as I wore a ring on a dummy's hand, a lifeless replacement for the husband I did not know.

My father felt it was nothing. All my father wanted at that time was money and fame, knowing his daughter was getting married to a nameless yet super-rich being who had paid ten million dollars, given him fleets of cars, and three estates in Texas in replacement for keeping his daughter hostage in a luxurious old mansion.

When I call him "Anonymous," "The wealthy unknown," and "nameless," I mean it. On our marriage certificate, "Hus" was his first name, and "Band" was his last. "Hus Band." I could remember more tears blinding my eyes that day, knowing I had just gotten married to a narcissist, a sadist, and a bully who derived pleasure in mocking others.

He married me just to mock me. I had always thought about that, but my father, with his sweet tongue, had said my husband was a busy man, but the asshole of a father didn't know him. This shadow of a husband proved us wrong; the first time I saw his back on the patio, I felt a shudder run down my spine as I watched him wash his hands with the shower head the maids used to water the flowers.

That day, I watched him pause washing his hands for a while, and I quickly pulled the curtain closed to prevent him from turning back to catch me staring, even though I had the urge to see his face and ask him if he was really the one I married, keeping me hostage here for the past two years with guards blocking the large gate.

I came back to that window again, only to find out he had left, and my breathing stopped like my nostrils had been stuck with embalming nasal tubes. Even in the moon's subtle glow, I could see what was written on the wall with dark red paint: “Hey, Little One.” My chest had risen like crazy because I had never seen that there before. My gut told me it was for me.

And that was not all. The next day after I saw him, I woke up with a scream, tears streaming down my eyes, as I watched fresh blood run down my collarbone right into my cleavage. I didn't get myself until dusk that day. "It wasn't my blood, I had no cut, then who the fuck owns it?"

I got my answers the night I found out my husband was a murderer, or maybe a body part broker or a cadaver trader. The blood on my cleavage that day—was he the one? Had he tried to kill me? My eyes went wide as I remembered covering my mouth to stop any word from coming out, even though I knew I couldn't make one sentence correctly without stuttering after two years of not talking to anyone.

I watched him carefully even with the way he backed me, his back filling the room, and I laid flat on the marble floor of the balcony of my room, watching him in the large living room this time. He opened a white box, and my stomach twisted as he held out a fucking severed head of a man still dripping with blood.

My heartbeat quickened remembering that day, and now I was lying on that particular spot of my balcony as I watched him sip from a glass of vodka I had poured for him, which he had no idea of because I had used a maid, my ally.

Just tonight, I would escape. I had everything planned out, and I would never share a life with a man like him, not even when his back could tell how sexy his face and front view would look, or his fine jet-black hair which was visible tonight because of the soft glow of the lanterns.

Anytime he was home the lights from the chandeliers and fancy bulbs would go off, leaving these spooky lanterns used for Halloween, maybe to not see him. But now, I wasn't interested in seeing him; I was interested in running away from him and getting the happiness I deserved.

I would be that free girl again, the girl these cruel people made me abandon in college—Ophelia Laurent, the brain and beauty every man would kill to be with.

After he was done, he left the living room, and I knew where he was headed, to the opposite wing where he stayed. The maid, my ally, had informed me about that. I brought out the divorce papers I hid in my chest part, and I gulped every damn second as I took the stairs.

Thank God I was in my ally's uniform with her cap on, which covered my red hair; it would be hard for his dogs to know what was happening.

In four minutes the sedative would start working, and I would get him to sign the divorce papers. I know it's illegal without his consent, but for a person who had paid the huge amount of money to keep me here, he wouldn't accept if I had asked him to. I was sure of that. The additional signatures and processing would be done by my friend who is an attorney.