Introduction

My husband, Victor, always told me I was pathetic.

For four years, I endured his cruelty, his public humiliations, watching him systematically dismantle my life piece by piece, all to punish me for my father' s supposed sins against his family.

He forced me to marry him, then destroyed my company, Nexus, the last shred of my identity.

The final blow came when he made me sign the dissolution papers, then kicked my company' s award across the floor, calling it junk-a toy.

My heart shattered as Celeste, his glamorous business rival and lover, sauntered in, mocking my pain, "Don't be so dramatic, Ava. It was just a startup. They fail all the time."

Victor's cold gaze, fixed on Celeste, twisted the knife deeper.

He had promised my mother' s experimental treatments and my father' s freedom from prison were dependent on my compliance.

I was nothing but a broken wife, a decorative accessory at galas, my efforts sabotaged by smeared articles.

Every escape attempt ended in recapture, a new punishment.

I was trapped in a suffocating web of his influence, with nothing left to fight for.

But then, Celeste, with a cruel smirk, snatched my last remaining prototype-the culmination of my team's dreams for helping others-and threw it against the wall, shattering it.

And just when I thought the pain couldn't get worse, Victor walked in, saw the wreckage, and stomped on the last glittering dust of my creation himself.

"What the hell did you do?" he roared at me, not even glancing at the broken tech.

He dragged me up by my hair, his face a terrifying mask.

"It' s over," I managed, my voice eerily calm, tears streaming down my face.

"I want a divorce, Victor. Let me go."

"It's over when I say it's over," he snarled.

"You don't get to decide anything."

My body went limp.

I was done fighting.

Then, a strange calm washed over me.

If I couldn't escape in this life, I would find freedom in another.

There was only one way to truly be "done."

I would go to the roof.