Introduction

My life with Andrew was a constant dance around the baseball bat, a premonition of my own bloody end that haunted my every waking moment.

Then, I found my father-in-law, Mr. Scott, in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor, a deep gash on his forehead.

Instead of calling 911, I manipulated my lifelong hemophobia and feigned terror, dialing Andrew' s cousin, Ethan, a kind paramedic, dragging him into a manufactured crisis.

At the hospital, Andrew' s true colors bled through: he cursed me, refused to sign for his dying father' s emergency surgery, and screamed divorce, all while giggling with his mistress, Sabrina, in the background.

He even tried to strangle me at his father' s funeral, abandoning the casket to rush to Sabrina' s side, believing her needs superseded everything.

I wasn' t a helpless victim anymore; I recorded his abuse, exposed his heartless acts online, and watched, stone-faced, as the internet tore him apart, leading to his public humiliation and firing.

But Andrew, fueled by rage and paranoia, wasn't done; he came for me, knife in hand, convinced I was conspiring to steal his inheritance with Ethan.

When Ethan arrived and got stabbed trying to save me, something snapped inside him, and he furiously plunged the knife into Andrew, again and again.

Ethan got prison time for manslaughter, but Andrew' s death wasn' t just a simple crime of passion; his wife' s whispered revelation at the funeral, a calculated confession of her own brutal past with Ethan, shattered my understanding of what truly happened that night.

Now, years later, I am finally free, walking away from the ghosts and the blood, ready to build a new life for myself, but the true scope of the sacrifices made for my freedom still lingers.