Chapter 3

A gate in the side of the ring screeched open. Ryan stepped through it, rolling up the sleeves of his expensive shirt. His friends whistled and stomped their feet. Chloe blew him a kiss.

He walked toward me, his steps unsteady from the alcohol but firm with purpose. The charming man I had fallen in love with was gone. In his place was a monster with a handsome face.

"So," he said, his voice low and menacing as he circled me. "You thought you could be defiant. You thought you could mock me."

I tried to shake my head, to make some sound, but all that came out was a wet, rattling gasp. The drugs had made my limbs feel like lead. I was trapped in my own body.

"Let's see how tough you are now."

His first punch caught me in the stomach. The air exploded from my lungs. I doubled over, a wave of nausea and a sharp, specific pain radiating from my core. The baby. My mind screamed the word over and over.

He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me upright.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you," he spat.

His fist connected with my jaw. A sickening crack echoed in my ears. The world tilted, bright spots dancing in front of my swollen eyes. The roar of the crowd sounded distant, like it was coming from underwater.

He let me go and I crumpled to the canvas floor. The surface was sticky and smelled of old blood and disinfectant.

"That's more like it," he said, breathing heavily. He looked down at me, not with satisfaction, but with a kind of detached cruelty, as if I were a malfunctioning appliance he was trying to fix with violence.

He turned to his friends, who were chanting his name.

"Hey! You guys want a piece of this?" he shouted, a wide, ugly grin on his face.

Two of them, Mark and Steve, men who had eaten dinner at our table and praised my cooking, scrambled onto the stage with eager grins.

"Don't mind if we do, buddy!" Mark said.

They started kicking me. A boot to my ribs, another to my back. The pain was everywhere, a white-hot fire consuming me. I curled into a ball, trying to protect my stomach, my baby. It was the only instinct I had left.

Ryan watched them for a moment, then nudged Steve with his foot.

"Easy, guys. Don't break it too fast," he said, but he was laughing. "Got to get my money's worth."

He knelt beside my head, his face close to mine. His breath smelled of expensive whiskey and Chloe's perfume.

"You know," he said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper against the noise. "I needed this. Getting married is a big deal. Got all this... pressure. pent-up energy. This is good. Healthy, even. Get it all out of my system. So I can be a good husband to my Ava."

He said my name. He said my name while brutalizing me. The irony was so profound, so devastating, it was almost a physical blow. He was justifying this horror as a twisted act of purification for our life together, a life he was actively destroying with every kick and every punch.

The crowd was a single, monstrous entity, feeding on my pain. They were chanting, screaming, throwing money. It was a carnival of cruelty, and my broken body was the main attraction. In the center of it all was the man I was supposed to marry, leading the festivities.