Chapter 2

Alaina POV

The key to my escape, I realized, was silence. If Gregory so much as suspected I knew the truth, I would be truly lost. He would find a way to keep me, to bind me to him forever. His love wasn't love; it was a possessive, suffocating control.

My mind raced, piecing together the fragments of the past five years. Brianna. She had always been a shadow, a persistent thorn in the side of my relationship with Gregory. I remembered her from high school. A girl with eyes too intense, a smile too fixed when she looked at Gregory.

She had openly crushed on him, a blatant, almost aggressive pursuit. Gregory, back then, had been oblivious, or perhaps just uncaring. He was always gentle with me, his attention solely on me. He would politely, sometimes harshly, rebuff her advances.

"Brianna, stop," he'd say, his jaw tight. "I'm with Alaina."

But Brianna was like a persistent weed, always finding a way to sprout back up. She ignored my presence, ignored our shared history as childhood sweethearts. One day, she cornered me in the hallway, her eyes glinting with a strange, possessive challenge.

"I like Gregory," she'd stated, her voice surprisingly calm. "It's my business. And someday, I'll make him see me. He'll love me."

I hadn't taken her seriously then. How could I? Gregory was my world, and I was his. His eyes only held me, his hands only sought mine. He avoided Brianna like the plague, almost disgusted by her aggressive adoration. I was so naive, so certain that nothing could ever come between us.

At our high school graduation, she made a public spectacle. She declared her love for Gregory in front of everyone, a dramatic, tearful confession.

Gregory had simply shaken his head. "Brianna, no. I only love Alaina. My heart belongs to her, always."

She ran off in tears, a broken mess. I heard she moved abroad for medical school. I thought that was the end of her, the final chapter of a forgotten rivalry. How wrong I was.

Seven years later, the searing pain in my abdomen had me doubled over. Gregory rushed me to the Murphy Medical Group. Lying in the emergency room, disoriented and in agony, I saw her again. Brianna. She was Gregory's Physician's Assistant. Her presence was a jolt, but the pain was too overwhelming to question it.

Gregory, his face etched with worry, held my hand as the doctors explained my diagnosis. Not appendicitis, as I' d initially suspected, but something far worse. A rare, aggressive cancer. My world collapsed. I cried, a hollow, desperate sound. The room blurred. Gregory was there, his arms around me, whispering reassurances.

"We'll fight this together, Alaina. You'll get through this. You have to."

His devotion became my lifeline. His gentle touch, his tireless care, his endless promises that I would get better. He researched every new treatment, every experimental drug. He was my doctor, my husband, my savior. And I, broken and terrified, clung to him.

It was months later, during one of my many "recovery" periods, that a casual question slipped out.

"When did Brianna start working here, Gregory?" I asked, a vague curiosity.

He paused, a slight hesitation. "Oh, hospital reshuffling. They needed a good PA, and she was available." His tone was too light, almost dismissive.

My mind, still fuzzy from pain meds and the constant haze of illness, filed it away. But now, with the chilling clarity of betrayal, that moment resurfaced. Gregory's family owned the hospital. He had absolute control over hiring. He was meticulous, demanding. Brianna, with her history, wouldn't have just "appeared." He had to have allowed it. He had to have brought her in.

Every "minor procedure" he' d performed, every carefully prescribed medication, every gentle touch, every reassuring word... it was all part of the act. A meticulously crafted prison of love and lies. He kept me sick, kept me dependent, all while appeasing the woman who had always wanted him.

The realization hit me with a physical force, a tidal wave of nausea washing over me. Five years. Five agonizing years of my life, trapped in this monstrous deception. He didn't save me; he broke me. And I, so desperate for his love, had let him. I had ignored every red flag, every subtle inconsistency, because I believed in our love. I believed in him.

The tears came, silent and hot, but they were different now. They weren't tears of despair, but of cold, incandescent rage. I had been a pawn, a plaything in their twisted game. But no more. The game was over. And I was going to win. I would break free.

My hand instinctively went to my stomach, tracing the scars that crisscrossed my body. Each one a lie, a betrayal, a permanent mark of his cruelty. My body, once vibrant and healthy, had been systematically violated, carved up and stitched back together for a phantom illness.

The thought of my own appendicitis, the simple, treatable condition, being twisted into this elaborate nightmare, made my blood run cold. And Gregory, the brilliant surgeon, my loving husband, had been the one holding the scalpel, knowingly inflicting this pain. The realization settled in my gut like a block of ice. I needed to move fast. He thought I was still his obedient, sickly wife. That was my advantage.

I was no longer the fragile Alaina he knew. I was Alaina, reborn, forged in the fires of his betrayal. And I would dismantle his world, just as he had dismantled mine.