Introduction

I was Ethan Miller, a boy from a trailer park, who married into the impossibly wealthy Vanderbilt family.

My life with Vicky was a gilded cage – opulent, yes, but undeniably a prison.

My stutter, a constant echo of my humble beginnings, always made me feel like an outsider in her world.

But nothing prepared me for the day Vicky believed I'd abducted her 'lover,' Julian Astor.

Her voice, usually just sharp, turned venomous.

She threatened to destroy my only family, my beloved grandparents, if I didn't produce him.

And then, I watched, live on a screen, as a bulldozer tore apart their cherished farm.

My frail grandmother collapsed.

Vicky laughed, blaming me for every single splinter.

From then on, I was a ghost in her mansion, silently enduring her escalating cruelty.

She publicly humiliated me with leaked, shameful photos of my past.

She had me doused with garbage at a lavish party.

She framed me for poisoning Julian, then forced me to drain my own blood to save him.

Finally, she threw me into a decrepit, cockroach-infested basement, filled with the rancid smell of my deepest traumas.

How could love morph into such a grotesque instrument of torture?

Was this her way of molding me, or just pure sadism?

With nothing left to lose, only one desperate thought remained: freedom, at any cost.

As Vicky married Julian, live-streamed directly to my dark prison, I swallowed an experimental drug.

I hoped for a final, peaceful escape.

But my 'death' was just the beginning of her utter ruin.