Chapter 2

My father' s voice, usually booming, was tight with controlled anger. "You finally realized, didn't you, Emmy?"

He didn't need me to explain. He knew. He had always known something was off about Hudson.

"I' m getting you out," he said, his voice low and firm. "And Hudson Patrick will pay."

He outlined the plan. A legal separation, an ironclad exit strategy. He promised to make it look like a quiet, amicable divorce for the sake of his public image. For my sake, he said.

A thick packet of documents arrived the next day, delivered by a solemn-faced courier. My father' s team had been efficient. Terrifyingly so.

I signed each page without a tremor, my hand steady. Every stroke of the pen severed another tie, another layer of his control. This was freedom.

Hudson appeared at my bedside later, his face pale, a shadow of remorse in his eyes. He fussed over me, adjusting my pillows, offering me water.

He played the part of the distraught husband perfectly. It was a performance I had once believed.

"I was so worried, Emmy," he murmured, his touch light on my arm. "You almost... you almost left me."

His voice was laced with a strange mixture of fear and possessiveness. I almost choked on the irony.

He stroked my hair, his gaze tender, then stood. "I need to check on Bethany. She's beside herself."

And just as he left, the door creaked open again. Bethany. Her eyes, usually cold, burned with a manic fury.

She stalked into the room, her presence a cold draft. "You think you' re so clever, don't you, Emmy?"

A shiver traced down my spine. The air crackled with her rage.

I tried to speak, to call for help, but her hand clamped over my mouth, stifling the sound.

"Don't bother," she hissed, her breath hot against my ear. "No one will hear you."

My eyes darted around the room. The door was shut. I was alone with her. Completely vulnerable.

She held up something. A surgical scalpel. Its blade glinted under the dim hospital lights.

"You want to dance again, do you?" she whispered, a chilling smile spreading across her face. "Let's see how well you dance after this."

Her words were a prelude to a nightmare.

Pain. A searing, indescribable pain erupted through me as the blade tore into my skin.

I thrashed against her hold, but she was impossibly strong, fueled by a sadistic glee. My body arched, a silent scream trapped in my throat.

She worked with a surgeon's precision, each cut carefully placed, designed to inflict maximum agony.

My world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of white-hot agony and black spots.

Then, mercifully, darkness.

I woke to a dull throb, a phantom limb of pain. My body felt... different. Bandages covered new wounds, fresh scars on top of old ones.

Hudson was there, sitting by my bed, an expression of weary concern on his face.

"Bethany... she had an episode," he said, his voice flat. "She was distraught after your near-death experience. She cares about you, Emmy."

He offered me a legal document. A non-disclosure agreement. A gag order.

"Sign this," he urged, his eyes imploring. "It's for Bethany's sake. To protect her. You wouldn't want to ruin her career, would you?"

My blood boiled. Protect her? The woman who had just tortured me?

I stared at him, my voice a raspy whisper. "You expect me to protect the woman who mutilated me?"

His face darkened. "She didn't mean to, Emmy. She was under stress. You know what she's been through."

He pushed the pen into my hand. "Sign it."

My hand trembled, not from weakness, but from unspeakable rage. I would not give him the satisfaction.

His jaw tightened. "Fine," he snarled, and nodded to the two guards standing by the door.

They grabbed my arms, forcing my hand onto the paper. The pen scratched across the page, signing away my right to speak.

A nurse entered, her face grim, to administer my new pain medication. I took it, numb.

The silence that followed was suffocating. I lay there, a broken doll, my spirit a fragile thread.

But the thread had not snapped. Not yet.