Chapter 1

It was our tenth wedding anniversary, and the party was exactly like the nine before it.

The grand ballroom of the Thorne family mansion glittered with crystal and gold, but it all felt cold and sharp to me. The air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and the low hum of polite, meaningless conversation. I stood by the French doors, a glass of champagne in my hand that I hadn't touched.

My wife, Vanessa Thorne, was the center of it all. She moved through the crowd with a practiced grace, her laughter bright and her smile dazzling. To everyone here, she was a goddess, a wealthy socialite with a heart of gold. To me, she was my warden.

This was the ritual. Every year, on this day, she would throw a lavish party. And every year, she would present her newest toy.

Tonight, his name was Liam. He was young, barely twenty, with the kind of sculpted good looks that belonged on a magazine cover. He was a model, of course. They always were. He looked nervous, out of place among the old money and corporate sharks, and he kept glancing at Vanessa for reassurance.

"Ethan, darling," Vanessa' s voice cut through the noise, sharp and sweet. She glided over to me, Liam trailing her like a lost puppy. "Liam is new to this sort of thing. I told him you'd be the perfect person to show him the ropes."

Her eyes held a familiar, cruel amusement. The guests nearby turned their heads, their smiles tight with anticipation. They knew the game.

"You're an expert at navigating our little world, aren't you, dear?" she continued, her voice dripping with false affection.

I just nodded, my throat tight. I didn' t look at Liam. I couldn' t stand to see the mix of pity and ambition in his eyes.

"He needs to understand how to behave, how to please people," Vanessa said, her hand resting on Liam' s arm. "Show him, Ethan. Be a good mentor."

The subtext was clear. Show him how to be my pet, just like you. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders, making it hard to stand straight. For ten years, this was my life. A gilded cage where I was the main attraction in a freak show of my own making.

I looked at Vanessa, at the cold perfection of her face, and something inside me, something I thought had died long ago, finally broke.

"No."

The word was quiet, almost a whisper, but it silenced the conversations around us.

Vanessa' s smile faltered for a second. "What did you say?"

I took a breath and said it again, louder this time. "No. I won't."

Then I did something I had only done in my dreams. I looked her straight in the eye and said, "Vanessa, I want a divorce."

A beat of stunned silence.

Then, laughter. It started with a few chuckles from the men in her circle, then it spread through the room like a virus. They laughed like I had just told the funniest joke in the world. Even Liam, after a moment of confusion, let out a nervous snicker.

Vanessa' s face was a mask of contempt. "A divorce? Ethan, don't be ridiculous. You' ve said that before. What is this, the hundredth time?"

"This time is different," I said, my voice shaking but firm.

"Is it?" she purred, stepping closer. "You say that every time. And every time, you come crawling back. Where would you go? What would you do? You have nothing. You are nothing without me."

Her words were meant to cut, and they did. But tonight, the pain was mixed with a strange sense of clarity. She was right. I had said it before. I had tried to leave, to fight, to reclaim a piece of myself. Ninety-nine times I had tried, and ninety-nine times I had failed, beaten down by her money, her power, and my own crippling sense of worthlessness.

But this time, I knew, deep in my bones, it was the last time. This was the hundredth time, and it would be the final one.

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a folded document. It was a simple divorce agreement I had printed from the internet. It wasn't legally sound, I knew that, but it was a symbol. A declaration.

"I'm serious, Vanessa."

I held it out to her.

She didn't take it. For a long moment, she just stared at my hand, then at my face. The laughter in the room died down, replaced by a tense curiosity.

Then she moved, so fast I didn't have time to react. She snatched the champagne glass from my other hand and, with a flick of her wrist, flung its contents into my face.

The cold liquid shocked me, dripping down my cheeks and onto my suit.

"You want to leave?" she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. "You think you can just walk away?"

She grabbed the front of my shirt, her nails digging into the fabric. "Have you forgotten how you got here, Ethan? Have you forgotten what you are?"

The memory flooded back, sharp and unwanted. Ten years ago. My family' s business had collapsed into bankruptcy. My father had a massive stroke from the stress, leaving him comatose, a mountain of medical bills piling up. My mother, desperate and broken, had made a deal.

She sold me.

That's what it was. She sold her artist son to the wealthy Thorne family to be a husband for their difficult, controlling daughter, Vanessa. It was a transaction, a business deal to save our family from ruin. I was the price. Vanessa never let me forget it. She resented being tied to the son of a failed businessman, and she spent every day of our marriage making me pay for that humiliation.

"You belong to me," she whispered, her face inches from mine. The smell of her perfume was suffocating. "You were bought and paid for."

She released my shirt and turned to the silent, watching crowd. Her voice rose, ringing with theatrical drama.

"My husband wants to leave me!" she announced. "After everything I've done for him. After I saved his pathetic family. He wants to throw it all away."

She looked back at me, her eyes glittering with malice. "You want to prove you're serious? Fine. Prove it. Get on your knees, Ethan. Crawl to me. Bark like the dog you are. Maybe then I'll believe you."

The room was dead silent. A collective gasp rippled through the guests. This was a new level of cruelty, even for her.

I stood there, soaked and shaking, my heart pounding in my chest. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to fight, to do anything but this. But I was trapped. I looked at the faces in the crowd-smirking, pitying, indifferent. There was no help there.

My body felt like it was moving on its own, disconnected from my mind. My knees hit the cold marble floor. The sound echoed in the silent room. I crawled forward, the shame a burning fire in my gut. I stopped at her feet, my head bowed. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't look at anyone.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

"I can't hear you," she taunted.

A dry, hoarse sound escaped my throat. "Woof."

It was the most degrading moment of my life, a new bottom in a ten-year-long fall.

Vanessa let out a triumphant laugh. She looked around the room, a queen surveying her court. "See? He's a good boy. He knows his place."

She let the moment hang in the air, letting the humiliation sink into my bones. Then, with a dismissive wave of her hand, she said, "The party's over. Everyone, please leave."

The guests, their morbid curiosity satisfied, began to disperse, their whispers following them out of the ballroom. Soon, it was just me, Vanessa, and Liam.

She looked down at me, her expression unreadable. "You see, Ethan? You always do what I say. Your little declarations mean nothing."

She nudged my shoulder with the toe of her expensive shoe. "Get up."

I slowly got to my feet, my legs unsteady.

"You know," she said, circling me like a predator, "I have to say, I'm disappointed. I thought you had more fight in you this time. But it' s always the same."

She stopped in front of me. "Talk of divorce is boring. And you know the deal. As long as your father is breathing in that hospital bed, my family pays the bills. You leave me, you're not just leaving me. You're pulling the plug on him. Can you live with that?"

The threat hung in the air, as real and as solid as the walls around us. It was the chain she had kept around my neck for a decade. My comatose father, a silent, unknowing anchor holding me in this hell.

She smiled, a thin, cruel line. "Now, I'm tired. And Liam needs his first real lesson."

She turned to the young model, who was looking at me with wide, horrified eyes. "Liam, darling, come with me. Ethan has one more thing to do tonight."

She glanced back at me, her eyes cold. "Go to the studio. Clean my brushes. All of them. And don't come out until I say you can."

She took Liam's hand and led him towards the grand staircase, leaving me alone in the vast, empty ballroom. The lock on the studio door was new. She had installed it last month. It locked from the outside.

I walked to the studio, my steps heavy. I was a prisoner, and she had just reminded me that there was no escape. Not yet.

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