Till Death Do Us Part, Indeed

My husband, Augustine, was a serial cheater, and I was a terminally ill artist.

His mistress didn't just steal my marriage; she publicly flaunted it, taunting me at every turn.

The final blow came when they desecrated the sculpture I made for my dead mother, laughing as they defiled my most sacred memory.

He used my childhood trauma to break me, freezing my assets, destroying my career, and trapping me in our home like a prisoner.

He had promised to be my safe harbor, but instead, he became the monster who weaponized my deepest pain.

But my cancer gave me a deadline and a dark purpose.

I lured him back, manipulating him into destroying his mistress and bankrupting himself for a forgiveness I would never grant.

As he knelt before me, a broken man offering his shattered empire, I gave him my final command.

"Now," I whispered, my voice cold as the grave, "it's time to pay with your life."

Chapter 1

Annice Turner POV:

The scent of a stranger's sweat still clung to my skin when Augustine's fist slammed into the bedroom door, shaking the entire frame. He was back, and he knew.

The wood splintered with a sickening crack that echoed the breaking glass of the wine bottle he' d just sent flying against the wall. Red liquid bloomed like a violent flower on the pristine white paint. He didn't even yell yet, but the silence that followed the crash was louder than any scream. His rage was a storm gathering, and I was pinned right in its eye.

"Who was he?" Augustine's voice was a low growl, barely audible over the frantic beat of my own heart. He stood silhouetted against the hallway light, a towering, menacing figure. His question hung heavy in the air, thick with unspoken accusation and simmering violence.

I just stared back at him, my expression carefully blank. Inside, though, a strange calm had settled. A chilling, almost victorious calm. My breath hitched, but not from fear. It was something else-a silent, internal quake.

"He was just a man," I answered, my voice soft, almost a whisper, but it carried across the shattered quiet of the room. "The kind of man who pays attention." My words were laced with a venom I hadn't known I possessed, a slow-acting poison designed to seep into his very core.

Augustine took a step closer, his eyes burning holes through me. "Attention? You think this is about attention? You think I care about 'attention' when you bring a stranger into our bed, into my house?" He spat out the words, each one a sharp shard of glass. "After everything? After we reconciled?" The accusation in his tone was meant to crush me, to invoke guilt. But there was only a hollow space where guilt used to be.

I didn't flinch. "Reconciled? Is that what we did, Augustine? Or did I just stop fighting?" My chest felt tight, a familiar ache starting deep behind my ribs. It wasn't just the betrayal, it was the chronic, gnawing pain that had become my constant companion. My body was a traitor, echoing the wounds of my soul.

His face contorted, a mask of disbelief and pain. "You hated me for it, didn't you? All this time. You hated me." He sounded bewildered, as if the depth of my resentment was a revelation, not a natural consequence.

I closed my eyes for a moment, a wave of nausea washing over me. The room spun. The nausea was a constant companion now, a cruel reminder of the disease eating me from the inside. My body was failing, but my mind, oh, my mind was sharper than ever. It was a cold, hard diamond. "Hate?" I echoed, opening my eyes to meet his gaze. "You told me once, Augustine, that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. I guess I just decided to flip mine."

The ruined bedroom was a battleground, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood-his, from where he' d punched the door, or perhaps mine, from the phantom pains that clawed at my stomach. The lingering scent of cheap cologne, not his expensive one, was a silent taunt.

Augustine stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders slumped, his shadow stretching long and distorted behind him. His knuckles were bleeding freely, dripping onto the pristine white carpet, staining it a rusty red. He looked menacing, yet strangely pathetic, like a broken titan.

"Annice? What happened?" The voice was young, unfamiliar, tinged with fear. It was the man from the bar, the one I'd brought home. He stood frozen in the hallway, clutching his shirt, his eyes wide and panicked.

Augustine didn't even turn. He just lifted a hand, a single, dismissive gesture. "Get out," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "Now." The young man didn't need a second invitation. He stumbled backward, fumbling with the door, and then he was gone, leaving only the reverberating slam of the front door in his wake.

Augustine turned fully to me then, his eyes dark, unreadable. He moved slowly, deliberately, like a predator stalking its prey. Every muscle in my body tensed, anticipating the strike. He closed the distance between us, his shadow engulfing me.

I tried to pull away, to dart past him, but his hand shot out, grabbing my wrist with brutal force. His grip was iron, inescapable. He dragged me across the shattered glass, ignoring the crunch beneath our feet, the sharp fragments digging into my bare soles. My protest was a choked gasp, swallowed by the sheer force of his will.

He pulled me into the master bathroom, a blindingly white, sterile space that suddenly felt like a torture chamber. With a violent shove, he threw me into the oversized marble bathtub. The impact rattled my teeth, and before I could even register the pain, the faucet roared to life. Ice-cold water blasted down on me, soaking my hair, my clothes, chilling me to the bone.

"We need to cleanse you," Augustine whispered, his voice a chilling juxtaposition to the icy flood. His eyes, still burning with fury, held a terrifying flicker of something else-a twisted possessiveness, a deranged tenderness. "Cleanse you of him. Cleanse you of your filth."

A raw, guttural cry tore from my throat, not from the cold, but from the searing humiliation. I thrashed, water splashing wildly, a desperate, futile attempt to escape the deluge. This wasn't anger; this was something far worse. This was a violation of my very soul.

My hand found a solid object – a heavy glass lotion bottle. Without thinking, I swung it, a wild, desperate arc aimed at his head. He didn't even blink. The bottle connected with his temple with a dull thud.

He staggered back, a thin line of blood appearing at his hairline, but his eyes never left mine. They were deep, fathomless pools of pain and accusation. He looked at me as if I had just ripped out his heart with my bare hands.

Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through my manufactured calm. I shrank back against the porcelain, trying to make myself invisible. But he was on me in an instant, his hands on my neck, not squeezing, not yet, but his thumbs pressed hard against my carotid arteries. His mouth descended, a brutal, punishing kiss that tasted of blood and rage.

He tore his lips from mine, his breath ragged, hot against my cheek. "You ruined us, Annice! You ruined everything!" he hissed, his voice thick with a mixture of heartbreak and fury.

My stomach lurched. The cold water, the physical shock, the sudden, violent assault-it was too much. I retched, a dry, painful heave, nothing but bile coming up.

Augustine recoiled as if struck. His eyes widened, a flicker of something akin to horror replacing the rage. "You disgust me," he choked out, his voice hoarse, disbelieving. "You actually disgust me."

I couldn't answer. My body was shaking uncontrollably, not just from the cold, but from a deeper, more insidious tremor. My stomach burned, a fiery acid pit that had become a permanent part of my existence. I just hunched over, clutching my midsection, the pain a silent scream.

"You destroyed everything we had," he said again, his voice echoing in the tiled room, filled with self-pity and accusation. "And for what? A moment's pathetic revenge? You always do this, Annice. You always find a way to make me the villain."

He turned, his back to me, the water still cascading into the tub. "I'm done," he snarled, though his shoulders still shook with suppressed emotion. "You want to erase me? Fine. Be careful what you wish for." The bathroom door slammed shut with a force that rattled the entire house, leaving me alone, shivering, in the ice-cold deluge.

Annice Turner POV:

The water continued to gush, a deafening roar that filled the sterile bathroom. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, but the cold was almost a comfort, a physical sensation strong enough to momentarily distract from the chaos in my mind and the burning in my gut. I dragged myself out of the tub, my muscles screaming in protest, my soaked clothes clinging unpleasantly to my skin. Every movement was an effort, a testament to the unseen battle raging within me.

My feet crunched on the shattered wine bottle in the bedroom, each step a painful reminder of Augustine's fury. The room was a wreck, pillows torn, lamps overturned, a chaos mirroring the landscape of my soul. But amidst the destruction, something glinted under the harsh overhead light.

It was a small, velvet box, almost perfectly preserved despite the wreckage around it. My vision blurred slightly, my head swimming from the cold and the pain, but I stumbled towards it, drawn by an inexplicable pull. Gently, I picked it up, my fingers trembling.

Inside, nestled on a silken cushion, was a diamond necklace. Not just any necklace. It was the "Starlight Embrace," a bespoke piece from Cartier, the central diamond a tear-shaped marvel surrounded by smaller, intricately set stones. It had been featured in Vogue, a masterpiece of modern design. Augustine had outbid a Saudi prince for it at a charity auction, a grand, public display of his supposed devotion.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips, a dry, rasping sound. I remembered the night he'd presented it to me, just a few months ago. He'd orchestrated a lavish "reconciliation dinner," complete with a private chef and a string quartet playing our wedding song. He'd spoken of new beginnings, of rebuilding what we'd lost, of a love stronger than any mistake. He' d showered me with expensive gifts, taken me on extravagant trips, meticulously rebuilt the facade of our perfect life. He had been so earnest, so attentive, so obsessive in his pursuit of winning me back.

And for a while, a foolish, fleeting while, I had almost believed him. I started to wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, his affair had been a moment of weakness, an aberration. He had seemed so genuinely remorseful, so desperate to atone. He' d become the perfect husband on paper, anticipating my every need, stifling me with his suffocating affection.

But the fear of betrayal had calcified inside me, forming an impenetrable shell. Every late phone call, every hurried text message, every shared glance with a female assistant-they all became monumental red flags, proof of his inherent deceit. My childhood trauma, the way my world had shattered when my mother died by suicide after my father left, abandoning me to days of solitary terror, had warped my perception. Augustine had become a proxy for my father, and I was constantly braced for the next abandonment.

The truth was, I was exhausted. Exhausted by the constant vigilance, by the pretense, by the slow, painful decay of my own body. The cancer was a cruel joke, a physical manifestation of the emotional rot that had set in after Augustine' s first betrayal. It was a ticking clock, and with each passing day, my patience, my capacity for forgiveness, withered. I didn't want a new beginning. I wanted an ending. A finality that would erase the pain.

My revenge affair wasn't an act of passion. It was an experiment. A desperate, twisted test. I needed to see if he would truly change, if his possessive love was genuine, or if it was just another facet of his control. I needed to know if he would feel the same soul-crushing emptiness I had felt.

"You said you' d never abandon me again," I whispered to the empty room, clutching the necklace. "But you did, didn't you? You abandoned me in plain sight, while pretending to build me a gilded cage." I thought of his first affair, the one that had started all this. How could he have walked away from me, from everything we built, for her? What had she offered that I couldn't?

My fingers brushed against something else hidden beneath a crumpled receipt. It was a small, embossed card. My vision swam again, but I forced my eyes to focus. "For Annice, my one true love. May this be a symbol of our unbreakable bond. Forever yours, Augustine." The words were scrawled in his elegant hand, a stark contrast to the violence he' d just unleashed.

A wave of bitter laughter wracked my body, turning into a dry, hacking cough that squeezed my abdomen, sending sharp stabs of pain through my gut. It felt like a thousand tiny needles piercing my stomach, a familiar agony that brought tears to my eyes. The diamonds on the necklace mocked me, sparkling with a cold, indifferent brilliance.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table, a jarring interruption to the suffocating silence. I picked it up, my fingers clumsy. It was a message from an unfamiliar number. A picture.

It was Cristina. Cristina Reynolds, the social media influencer, Augustine' s mistress. Her face, perfectly sculpted by filters and expensive procedures, beamed from the screen. She was draped across a sleek, black Porsche, her lips parted in a sensual pout. The caption beneath the photo was short, sharp, and designed to wound: "Augustine's new toy. Some women know how to keep their men happy."

My breath caught in my throat. I recognized the Porsche. It was Augustine's newest acquisition, a car he'd bought just last week, claiming it was an investment. I stared at the image, then back at the "Starlight Embrace" necklace in my hand. Two very different gifts, two very different women. My calm shattered, replaced by a cold, searing fury.

The phone buzzed again. Another message, from the same number. "He always comes back to what he truly desires, Annice. You were just a temporary distraction. A charity case."

A profound sense of emptiness washed over me, deeper and colder than the ice water. I knew this feeling. It was the same one I'd had when my mother left. The world outside the bedroom faded. All that remained was the pulsing pain in my stomach and the image of Cristina's triumphant smile. The game wasn't over. It had just begun.

Annice Turner POV:

My fingers, trembling slightly, scrolled through Cristina Reynolds' public feed. Each perfectly curated photo, each saccharine caption felt like a fresh stab. Her life was an endless parade of luxury cars, designer clothes, and exotic vacations-all funded by Augustine. And there, prominently displayed on her wrist, was the silver bracelet Augustine had given me on our fifth anniversary. It was a simple, handcrafted piece, a tiny replica of my first sculpture, a symbol of our shared artistic dreams before his ambitions consumed him. Now it adorned her, a trinket casually tossed aside.

This wasn't new. The public displays of affection, the thinly veiled digs-they had been going on for months, even after Augustine supposedly ended things with her. I'd grown numb to it, or so I told myself. A hollow echo of the pain I once felt. It had been a ritual: wake up, scroll through her feed, feel the familiar ache, then push it down. But seeing my bracelet on her wrist, especially after the humiliation in the bathroom, twisted something deep inside me.

A perverse impulse seized me. I took a screenshot of her post, then another of the Cartier necklace, still lying in its velvet box, a cruel joke of reconciliation. I opened my own social media, a dormant account I rarely used, and uploaded both pictures. The caption I added was short, brutal, and utterly unlike the 'old' Annice: "Some women collect art. Others collect scraps."

The phone rang almost immediately. It was Augustine. His voice was tight, strained. "What the hell was that, Annice? Are you trying to ruin me?"

I leaned back against the headboard, feeling a familiar wave of nausea wash over me. "Ruin you? Augustine, darling, you do that perfectly well all by yourself." My voice was flat, devoid of emotion, a stark contrast to the hurricane I felt brewing inside. "Aren't you happy? You got everything you wanted. The perfect little socialite, the adoring public, the endless praise. My congratulations are in order, wouldn't you say?"

His anger flared, sharp and instantaneous. "You think this is funny? You think this is some kind of game? You're playing with fire, Annice! You think you can just embarrass me, humiliate Cristina, and get away with it?"

"Get away with what, Augustine?" I asked, my voice rising slightly, a brittle edge forming around the words. "Exposing the truth? Is that so terrible? Or are you just angry that your carefully constructed illusion is crumbling?"

"You're pathetic," he snarled, the contempt dripping from his voice. "A bitter, discarded woman lashing out. Don't think for a second you have any power here, Annice. I can make your life a living hell. A hell you won't recover from." The line went dead with a click, leaving me with the chilling echo of his threat.

I hung up, my hand shaking slightly. Not from fear, but from the effort it took to keep my composure. My stomach cramped, a familiar, agonizing twist that made me double over. I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying to suppress the dry heaves that threatened to erupt.

Augustine, true to his word, wasted no time. Within days, Cristina was everywhere. Magazine covers, talk shows, luxury brand endorsements. He pulled every string, leveraging his vast wealth and influence to catapult her into superstardom. They were photographed together at every high-profile event, a dazzling, defiant couple. His message was clear: I choose her.

Then came the announcement: Augustine and Cristina were co-hosting the annual Art Gala, the very event where Augustine had purchased my necklace. It was a brazen, public declaration, a slap in the face. My mother's favorite gallery, the place where I'd once dreamed of having my own exhibition, was now their stage.

A strange calm descended upon me. It wasn't resignation, but something colder, more calculating. Augustine expected me to rage, to break, to beg. He expected tears. But all I felt was a quiet, seething resolve.

He called again, a few days before the gala, his tone laced with an almost triumphant condescension. "I trust you'll be attending, Annice? It's important for appearances." He was baiting me, testing me.

"Of course," I replied, my voice smooth, almost cheerful. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. After all, I hear Cristina's wearing something rather... familiar." I could almost hear his jaw clench on the other end.

Cristina, predictably, sent me a message later that day. A single photo. It was her, standing in front of a mirror, wearing my wedding dress. The one I'd painstakingly designed, the one my mother helped me sew. A triumphant smirk played on her lips. "Some things just fit better on others, don't you think, Annice?"

I looked at the image, then tossed my phone onto the bed. It was a cheap shot, but it landed. The pain was a dull throb now, a constant companion. But it wasn't enough to break me. Not anymore. I walked past the shattered wine bottle, past the carelessly discarded necklace, and into my studio.

My studio. My sanctuary. It was where the true Annice still lived, though barely. There, covered by a pristine white sheet, was my most cherished possession, the sculpture I had made for my mother. A delicate, ethereal piece carved from white marble, depicting a woman cradling a tiny, nascent flame. It was my heart made tangible, my grief transformed into art.

My hand went to my stomach, a sharp, involuntary gasp escaping my lips. The pain was intensifying, a deep, burning ache that radiated through my entire core. I knew, with a chilling certainty, that time was running out. This aggressive stomach cancer, fueled by years of stress and heartache, was claiming me faster than I'd anticipated.

I pulled the sheet off the sculpture, revealing its smooth, cool surface. My eyes traced the flowing lines, the gentle curves. My mother had always told me that art was the only way to truly live forever. I needed to finish this. Not just this sculpture, but my masterpiece, the one that would truly define me. The one that would be my final, defiant scream against the unfairness of it all. I needed to finish it before the darkness claimed me entirely. I needed to leave something behind. Not for Augustine, not for Cristina, but for myself. For the Annice who still believed in beauty amidst the ashes. I needed to ensure my mother knew I remembered her, even as I prepared to join her.