CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
Ethan swung because he believed fear would freeze me.
He had never bothered to learn who I was before he decided to own me.
My left hand caught his wrist before the riding crop came close to my face. I stepped inside his reach, turned my hip, and used the weight of his own body against him.
Fifteen years of karate does not look dramatic when it is real.
It is quiet.
Fast.
Efficient.
One second Ethan was standing over me with a weapon in his hand.
The next, he was face-down on the rug with his arm locked behind him and my knee planted between his shoulder blades.
The riding crop slid across the floor.
He screamed.
Not because I had destroyed him.
Because he had discovered I could stop him.
“What the hell?” he shouted. “Let me go!”
I tightened the hold just enough to keep him still.
“Rule number one, Ethan,” I whispered near his ear. “Never threaten a woman whose past you were too arrogant to investigate.”
His breathing turned sharp.
“You crazy—”
“Choose your next word carefully.”
He swallowed it.
With one hand keeping him pinned, I reached under the bed and pulled out the manila envelope I had hidden there two days earlier.
I dropped it beside his face.
The annulment papers slid halfway out.
His eyes found them.
For the first time that night, he looked truly afraid.
“You planned this?”
“No,” I said. “You did. I just believed you.”
His jaw tightened against the rug.
“You think you can humiliate me?”
I leaned closer.
“You filmed yourself threatening me on our wedding night. I don’t have to humiliate you. I only have to stop protecting your reputation.”
His phone was still recording from the couch.
I looked directly into its camera.
“My name is Emily Parker Carter,” I said clearly. “This is my wedding night. My husband, Ethan Carter, locked me in his penthouse bedroom, threatened me with a riding crop, demanded control of my income, and tried to record my fear so he could use it against me later.”
Ethan bucked under me.
I held him down.
“Stop talking,” he hissed.
“No.”
That single word felt better than any vow I had spoken downstairs.
Then the private elevator chimed.
My stomach tightened.
Only one person in that family entered Ethan’s penthouse without knocking.
Victoria Carter.
His mother.
The woman who had smiled at me during the wedding photos while whispering, “A Carter wife learns quickly.”
Her heels clicked down the hallway.
She was coming to witness my surrender.
Instead, she walked into the room and froze.
Her son was pinned beneath me.
The annulment papers were beside his face.
May you like
The riding crop was on the floor.
And the phone was still recording everything.
