Adam Carter: Rebuilding a Life

My fiancé, the ruthless Mafia Underboss, tore my dead mother's necklace from my throat and fastened it around another woman's neck. "Diana needs it," Arthur said, his eyes cold. "My blood remembers loving her. It calms her anxiety." He was referring to the bone marrow transplant that saved his life. Diana was connected to the donor, and Arthur believed his new blood made him belong to her. I became a ghost in my own home, forced to watch him crown a usurper. When Diana faked a fall at a gala, accusing me of pushing her, Arthur didn't hesitate. He decided to "discipline" me publicly to teach me respect. He raised the whip. "Arthur, please, I'm pregnant!" I screamed, shielding my stomach. "Don't lie to me," he spat, and the lash came down. I lost our baby on that cold marble floor in a pool of blood. He didn't believe me. He stepped over my body to take Diana to dinner. He didn't stop there. He let my grandmother die in the ER to tend to Diana's bruised nose. He even dug up my grandmother's grave because Diana wanted the view for a garden. I finally fled, vanishing into the night. It wasn't until months later, when he found the autopsy report of our unborn child and the toxicology results proving Diana had been drugging him, that the fog lifted. He tracked me down to a small town, where I was finally healing with a good man. The feared Underboss fell to his knees in the pouring rain, holding the whip he had used on me, shaking violently. "Beat me, Ella," he begged, tears mixing with the mud. "Hurt me. Make us even." I looked at the monster I used to love and dropped his ring into the dirt. "You can't bring back the dead, Arthur," I whispered. "And you are dead to me."

My husband's secret life walked into my office on my first day as Chief Resident: a four-year-old boy with his father's eyes and a rare hereditary allergy that I knew all too well. Emilio, the man I married, the brilliant rival who swore he couldn't live without me, had another family. At his company's anniversary gala, his son publicly called me a bad woman trying to steal his daddy. When I took a step toward the child, Emilio shoved me to the ground to protect him. I hit my head, and as the life of our unborn child bled out of me, he walked away without a second glance. He never visited me in the hospital. He left me to deal with the loss of our baby alone. That's when I knew the man I loved was truly gone, and our five years of marriage had been a lie. His mistress tried to finish the job, pushing me off a cliff into the sea. But I survived. And as the world mourned the death of Elana Thomas, I boarded a plane to Zurich, ready to begin my new life.

I spent five years in a rehabilitation center for a crime I didn't commit. When I was finally released, my husband, Courtland, was the one waiting for me. He was the one who put me there. He brought me back to our mansion not as his wife, but as a prisoner. I was to serve as a living penance for the death of his true love-my stepsister, Kinsley. I scrubbed floors on my hands and knees while his mother and the staff watched with contempt. I was a ghost in my own home, a constant, breathing sacrifice to his grief. Then one day, the woman I had supposedly killed walked into the living room. Kinsley was alive. She shrank back in fake terror, and Courtland rushed to her side, shielding her from me. "You're frightening her," he snarled. That night, Kinsley brought me a cup of tea, her eyes glittering with triumphant hatred. It was the same poison that had made me barren in my first life. I knew their perfect, diabolical plan. They would break me completely, then get rid of me. But they didn't know that this time, I remembered everything. In my first life, their cruel games led to the death of my innocent little brother, Aspen. I took the cup from her hands and drank every last drop. I would endure their torture. I would play their game. And when they least expected it, I would escape and save the only person who ever mattered.

The picture arrived on my phone, a screenshot of a hotel booking for a presidential suite under my husband, Liam Thorne' s, name. My world didn' t shatter; it just went quiet. That night, Liam came home to a shattered house and a shattered wife. He didn' t ask what was wrong. Instead, when I desperately tried to connect, he grabbed my wrists and asked with tired disgust, "What's wrong with you? You're acting insane." His phone lit up with a call from "Chloe" -his assistant, his mistress. He pushed me away, stumbled over broken glass, and answered, soothing her with, "No, I'm home. Just... a small issue." He defended her from me, calling me hysterical. I blurted, "Let's get a divorce." To my horror, he instantly agreed, producing already-signed papers from his jacket. Tears streaming, I begged him to stay, grabbing his pants, but he looked down with impassive disgust. "It's too late for this," he said, dropping the divorce papers at my feet, dated three weeks prior. He chose her pride over our seven years, offering a settlement for my silence. You're nothing without me, Elara. You'll be crawling back within a month, begging me to take care of you. His words echoed as he walked out, leaving me amidst the ruins of our life. But a cold fury began to simmer. He wanted this easy? Not a chance.

My film career was soaring, my dreams finally within reach. Then, the word "Plagiarist!" echoed through the festival hall, a death knell for everything I' d built. Industry contacts vanished, my name became a hashtag for fraud, and my working-class parents, who' d sacrificed everything, disowned me. Just as I contemplated tearing up my life, producer Ethan Scott appeared, a charismatic savior who saw through the lies, stood by me, and whisked me away to a secluded Austin home. He built me a private editing suite, framed my old scripts, and became my biggest fan, my only audience, convincing me the outside world was too dangerous. For five years, I was safe, loved, and completely isolated-until tonight. Scrolling Instagram, I saw a Sundance hit, "Dust Devil Heart," hailed as a masterpiece by Sabrina Lawrence. Its story was identical to the script I' d just finished, the one I' d read aloud to Ethan. And there, in the background of Sabrina's celebratory photo, was my husband, his arm possessively around her, a look of adoration I hadn't seen in years etched on his face. My "savior" was at Sundance, not in L.A., and everything I believed about my perfect, safe life shattered into a million pieces. I had married the man who orchestrated my downfall and stole my art, turning my life into his "content farm." But he underestimated me. He broke my spirit once, but this time, he just ignited a fire.

I used to play my saxophone for joy, but for three years, it was a soundtrack to my gilded cage. My brother, Leo, was gravely ill, and I lived in Ethan Vanderbilt' s high-rise, his secret, his "charity case." He paid for Leo's life, and in return, I endured his cold disdain, his casual cruelty. But then, I heard him call me "old news," "desperate," "nothing special" to his friends, mocking the woman who sacrificed everything. His new lover, Chloe, became the focus of his manufactured kindness, and I was just a "practice" run, a "charity case" to be displayed, then dismissed. The final blow: he deliberately canceled Leo's life-sustaining payment, handing the weapon to Chloe, who gleefully blocked me. Leo died that night, and the world I' d built for him turned into ash around me. They gave me flowers I was allergic to, tweeted about new diamond bracelets, and celebrated birthday parties while my brother slipped away. How could the man I gave my life to so carelessly destroy the only thing I lived for? My chains snapped. I walked out of his gilded cage forever, taking only my saxophone and Leo' s ashes, ready to reclaim the rhythm of my own life.