"At my birthday party, my husband smirked and admitted he hurt me in front of everyone, but when my father walked in with two detectives, his smile disappeared before the candles went out."
CHAPTER 1
At my birthday party, my husband smirked and admitted he hurt me in front of everyone.
The candles on my cake were still burning.
Thirty-two small flames flickered across the marble table in the middle of our mansion living room, throwing gold light over champagne glasses, white roses, and the faces of guests who suddenly forgot how to breathe.
Mark stood across from me in his black suit, smiling like he had just told a joke.
“Yes,” he said coldly. “I hurt her.”
The room went silent.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Under the pale blue sleeve of my birthday dress, my wrist still ached from the night before. Makeup covered the faint bruise near my cheekbone, but nothing could cover the exhaustion in my eyes.
Mark knew that.
He wanted everyone to see me looking weak.
His mother, Eleanor, lifted her champagne glass and smiled.
“A wife learns faster when she stops pretending,” she said.
A few guests looked away.
No one spoke.
That was how it always worked in Mark’s world. People noticed. People understood. People stayed quiet because his family had money, power, and a talent for making cruelty sound like discipline.
I looked down at my phone beside the cake.
The recording screen glowed faintly.
May you like
Then I lifted my eyes to Mark.
“Say that again,” I whispered.
