Chapter 1 The Ink Was Still Wet

They say when you're about to ruin your life, everything goes quiet.

The lawyer's office was dead silent, save for the low hum of the AC and the sound of my pulse thundering in my ears. My eyes flicked over the framed certificates on his wall - proof of competence, supposedly. All I saw were polite reminders that even smart people get trapped.

"Mrs. Silver," he said gently, sliding the papers closer, "are you absolutely certain?"

I hated that question.

Absolutely certain. As if certainty ever mattered when your ribs were still tender from last week's "accident" and your name was about to be printed next to a man who loved you with his fists.

I glanced at the papers in front of me - clean, clinical, final. The end of everything. "What other choice do I have?" I said, my voice eerily calm. Too calm for a woman about to declare war.

He hesitated, then slid the photos back toward me - the ones I had given him as evidence, the ones that made my stomach clench every time I looked at them. "You understand this will complicate things. He won't take this quietly."

My breath caught. Complicate things. That was lawyer-speak for: You're about to start a war you might not win.

Maybe I already had.

I didn't answer right away. My mind was drifting to dangerous places. To the first time he whispered my name like it was poetry. To that car ride that felt like magic, before I knew magic could turn so dark. To the man who made me feel like the most beautiful woman alive before he made me disappear inside myself, piece by piece.

If I could go back to that moment, would I still get in that car?

The smart answer is no.

But the truth? The truth that terrified me down to my bones?

I'd probably do it again.

That's the part that scares me the most.

The lawyer's chair creaked as he leaned forward, expensive pen poised like a weapon. I watched the tip touch the page, black ink bleeding into white paper like a wound opening.

This wasn't freedom. It wasn't revenge.

It was something far more dangerous.

"Just do it," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "There's no turning back now."

He sighed, and signed his name with a flourish that sealed my fate.

And I watched the ink dry on the papers that would either save my life - or destroy what was left of it.

The war had begun.