Chapter 3

I drifted back to consciousness in pieces. The first thing I registered was a voice. Ethan's. He was talking to his mother on the phone, his tone dripping with false sorrow.

"Yes, Mother. The surgery was a success, but... there were complications. The fall did more damage than we thought. They had to perform a hysterectomy to save her life. She'll never be able to have children."

A profound, hollow ache bloomed in my core. It was gone. The place where my children had lived and died was now just an empty space. A void.

"And... her legs," Ethan continued, his voice breaking with a performance worthy of an Oscar. "There was spinal damage. The doctors say she may never walk again."

My eyes flew open. My legs.

I tried to move them. I sent the command from my brain, a desperate, frantic signal. Wiggle your toes. Bend your knee. Move.

Nothing.

They were just dead weight under the thin hospital blanket. Lifeless. Foreign.

A scream built in my throat, a raw, animal sound of pure horror. I was trapped inside my own body.

Ethan ended his call and rushed to my side, his face a perfect picture of alarm and grief. "Ava! You're awake! Oh, my love, my poor, poor Ava."

He buried his face in my shoulder, his body shaking with sobs. They were dry, empty sounds. All for show.

"Don't worry," he whispered, pulling back to look at me, his eyes shining with fake tears. "I'll take care of you. I'll always be here for you. We'll get through this together."

The hypocrisy was so thick it made me want to gag. He was the architect of my ruin, and now he was promising to be my savior.

In the days that followed, he played the part of the doting caregiver. He fed me spoonfuls of lukewarm soup, his hand gentle. He wiped my face with a damp cloth when I sweated from the pain. He read to me from my favorite books, his voice a calm, steady presence in the suffocating quiet of the room.

He was my jailer, and this hospital room was my cell.

I let him. I ate the food. I listened to the stories. But my eyes were cold. I watched his every move, every gesture, every feigned expression of love. I was no longer the trusting wife. I was a strategist, gathering intelligence on the enemy.

He thought he had broken me. He thought he had turned me into a helpless invalid he could control forever.

One evening, he smoothed the hair back from my forehead. "Once you're home, we'll make a new life, Ava. A different life, but a good one. I promise."

I just looked at him, my expression blank.

Inside, the fire of my hatred was being forged into a cold, hard weapon.

You will pay, Ethan. You and Scarlett. I will burn your world to the ground. And I will do it from this wheelchair you have put me in.