Introduction

My wife, Vicky Sterling, delivered the news over breakfast as casually as she' d asked for more coffee: she was pregnant, and the father was Julian Vance, her personal trainer, who was also moving into our penthouse today.

I felt the last thread snap.

She told me I' d be moving into the guest room, as Julian preferred the master suite.

This was just the latest in eight years of humiliation, where I' d gone from architect to trophy husband, then just... Ethan.

My family' s firm had been saved by hers, but it cost me everything.

When I tried to leave, her contempt was a familiar sting, reminding me I was nothing without her.

The final insult came when Julian, a preening narcissist, lunged for my grandfather' s Purple Heart, the only thing of true value I owned, and it shattered.

Then, the real torture began: Vicky, concerned only for Julian' s barely scratched nail, forced me to undergo a horrific skin graft, even as my own head bled from hitting a table.

Later, Julian framed me for kidnapping myself, and Vicky, believing him, then locked me in a burning cellar.

How could the woman I once loved, the one who controlled my entire life, be so utterly cruel, so blind to the monster she embraced?

Lying there, choked by smoke, I realized this life was a charade.

But then, a glimmer of hope: my old housekeeper, Maria, opened the door, and I heard Olivia' s voice, a promise of freedom in Austin.

I was done.