Divorce the Champion and Die

The day Cole Bradley won the Grand Prix championship, I found a pair of black lace underwear wedged between the leather seats of his Aston Martin.

That same night, I tipped off the tabloids and kicked down the door of a five-star penthouse at the Ritz, catching the golden boy of American motorsports in bed with his newest protge.

Amidst the blinding flash of cameras and my own hysterical screaming, Cole looked utterly panicked. Yet, in the chaos, his first instinct was to pull the duvet up, using his own body to shield Madison from the lenses.

"It was a momentary lapse in judgment," he pleaded later, his voice cracking. "She means nothing to me, Nat. Nothing."

It wasn't until the internet ripped Madison to shreds, until the cyberbullying drove her into a manic frenzy that ended with her accelerating her car straight into mekilling the child growing in my wombthat I finally gave Cole an ultimatum.

Send her to prison, or sign the divorce papers.

Cole had stared at my flat, empty stomach, his eyes bloodshot. The very next morning, he handed over the dashcam and telemetry data to the district attorney. The evidence of Madison's vehicular assault was irrefutable.

After that, Cole walked away from the track. He transitioned to a background role in team management, dedicating every waking hour to pulling me out of the suffocating, pitch-black well of clinical depression.

Years passed. We healed, or so I thought. When I finally saw the two pink lines on a pregnancy test again, my heart swelled with a cautious, desperate hope. I wanted to surprise him.

But on my way home, passing an exclusive maternity boutique on Rodeo Drive, I stopped dead in my tracks. Inside, a young woman with a pronounced baby bump was casually pointing at displays, buying out half the store.

"My husband knows I'm terribly indecisive," she giggled to the clerk, "so he just told me to put the whole collection on his card."

"You guys deliver, right? Have it sent to the gated estate in Bel-Air."

The girl turned her head, catching the afternoon sun. I froze, the breath knocked entirely from my lungs.

It was Madison. The girl who was supposed to be rotting in a state penitentiary.

...

The blood in my veins turned to ice water.

The sales associate looked at Madison with starry-eyed envy. "Your husband must love you so much."

Madison rested a manicured hand delicately on her belly, a saccharine smile playing on her lips. "He really does. He was my mentor first, actually. A genius on the track. Hes been taking care of me since day one."

She sighed, playing with a lock of her hair. "When I first joined the racing circuit, I was so green. He was terrified the older guys would take advantage of me, so he taught me everything himself. Hand-over-hand on the steering wheel. He even had a custom blush-pink Porsche wrapped just for me."

Early in our marriage, I used to go to the paddock. I would stand in the deafening roar of the pit lane, waving his team colors, my throat raw from cheering.

But eventually, he started meeting me after races with a cold, distant expression. He told me to stop coming.

When I asked why, he simply said, "The track is too dangerous, Nat. Its not a place for a wife."

It wasn't that it was too dangerous. It was just that he couldn't be bothered to waste his energy pretending I belonged in his world.

"The other day, I just coughed a little from walking too fast," Madison continued, her voice dripping with mock exasperation. "And he completely panicked. Had his private concierge doctor come to the house for a full workup!"

Half a month ago, the morning sickness had hit me so hard I couldn't stand. Cole had initially promised to drive me to my OB-GYN appointment. But as I was grabbing my purse, his phone buzzed. He told me an urgent sponsor crisis had come up. Go ahead without me, he'd said, kissing my forehead. Ill come pick you up after.

I sat in that sterile waiting room alone. I got my blood drawn alone. I waited in the hospital corridor for six hours.

The only thing that came was a Venmo notification from Cole with a quick text: Caught up in meetings. Take an Uber Black home on me. Love you.

Madison looked radiant. Suddenly, her phone chimed. "Oh, my husband is pulling up. Don't forget the delivery instructions!"

I shrank back against the corner of the brick storefront, my eyes locked on the curb. A sleek, black Maybach silently rolled to a stop.

When the heavy door opened and Cole stepped onto the pavement, the world around me ceased to exist.

He caught Madison as she threw herself into his arms, his voice laced with an affectionate reprimand. "You're about to be a mother, Maddie. Why are you still running around like a teenager? What if you trip and hurt the baby?"

Madison pouted, looking up at him through her lashes. "Are you getting tired of me? Do you think I'm just not as good as your boring, washed-up wife?"

Coles tone softened into something I hadn't heard in years. Pure, unadulterated devotion. "Don't be ridiculous. No one could ever touch your place in my heart."

A physical agony ripped through my chest, sharp and breathless.

When Madison hit me with her car, I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant. I had to deliver him. He was a fully formed little boy, a tiny, perfect, lifeless weight placed on my chest before being taken away forever.

For months, I woke up screaming. I dreamt of a little voice crying out in the dark, begging me to save him.

The grief mutated into a severe depressive episode. I tried to end my life more than once, and every time, Cole was the one who pulled me back from the ledge. To stay by my side, he retired at the peak of his career, walking away from millions in endorsements and the only life he knew.

When his fans took to Twitter, blaming me for ruining his legacy, saying I was a psycho who didn't deserve him, Cole issued his first and only public cease-and-desist.

[My wife is my entire world,] his statement had read. [Caring for her is not a burden; it is the greatest privilege of my life. Anyone who speaks ill of her will hear from my legal team.]

A wave of bitter acid rose in my throat. As if sensing the sheer weight of my stare, Cole abruptly turned his head toward the alleyway.

I instinctively flattened myself against the brick wall, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"What are you looking at?" I heard Madison ask. "Don't ignore me! If you don't tell me exactly why I'm better than that old woman, I'm going to make you sleep on the couch!"

Cole chuckled, a low, helpless sound as he smoothed her hair. "You're better than her in every way."

"I should start recording you when you throw these tantrums," he teased gently. "Show the kids one day just how childish their mother really is."

Madisons face flushed. "You want me to ruin my body having multiple kids for you? Keep dreaming!"

Every syllable was a serrated blade, sawing slowly through the last remaining tethers of my sanity.

A cold California wind swept down the street, and I shivered uncontrollably.

Cole immediately guided Madison toward the open car door. "You shouldn't be out in the wind in your condition. Let's go home."

Watching the Maybach merge into traffic, a desperate, hysterical impulse took over. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.

In the past, even if he was halfway across the world in Monaco, Cole answered my calls on the first ring.

First attempt. Sent to voicemail.

Second attempt. Sent to voicemail.

By the third, the phone was turned off completely.

I raised a trembling hand to my face, only then realizing my cheeks were entirely slick with tears.

I floated back to our house like a ghost. When I pushed the heavy oak front door open, Cole was already sitting on the living room sofa, his jacket tossed over a chair.

The moment he saw me, he stood up, crossing the room to pull me into his chest. His brow furrowed with familiar, practiced concern. "Nat? Are you okay? Is it the depression again?"

I didn't lean into his touch. I didn't answer his question. I just stared straight into his dark eyes.

"Do you want a child, Cole?"

A microscopic flicker of unease crossed his face. "Your body... the doctors said your condition isn't suited for pregnancy right now."

Was my body not suited for it, or did Cole just not want me to be the one carrying his child?

I shoved hard against his chest, breaking his hold. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out the glossy photos Id printed at a pharmacy kiosk on the way homepictures I'd snapped of them outside the boutiqueand slammed them onto the glass coffee table.

Tears spilled over my lashes, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw ached. "You and Madison. Don't you think I deserve a goddamn explanation?"

Cole froze. For a second, he looked at the photos, and then the warmth bled out of his face, replaced by a glacial, defensive anger.

"You're stalking me?"

He scoffed, a cruel twist of his lips altering his entire demeanor. "Is this why you were blowing up my phone today?"

"What exactly do you want me to explain, Natalie? Yes, I cheated. I fell for my protg. What happened back then... the crash, it was a tragic accident. She was so young, Nat. I couldn't just let her rot in a cell and destroy her entire future over a mistake."

"I've kept her set up quietly. She knows her place. She has never bothered you. You're the one forcing this out into the open, making a mess out of nothing."

His calm, calculated blame felt like a physical blow. He was rewriting history. Rewriting the murder of my child as a "mistake."

A visceral cramp seized my stomach, and I doubled over slightly, gasping in pain. Seeing me wince, muscle memory kicked in; Cole instinctively reached out to support me.

I slapped his hand away with everything I had. "Don't touch me! Keep your filthy, hypocritical hands off me. You make me sick!"

Coles face darkened, his jaw ticking. He opened his mouth to snap back, but his phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered it instantly, his eyes locked coldly on mine.

"I'm leaving," he said to me, pocketing the phone. "Take a pill and calm down."

He walked out with hurried, urgent strides. Driven by a morbid need to twist the knife in my own chest, I followed him in my own car.

I watched from a distance as he stopped at a high-end grocer. He came out carrying a massive bouquet of imported Juliet roses and a small, delicate clamshell of organic strawberries.

I remembered my first pregnancy. The morning sickness had been unrelenting, and one afternoon, I had an overwhelming, desperate craving for fresh lychees.

Cole had been deep in prep for the Le Mans race, surrounded by engineers and press. He had his assistant send a massive, expensive fruit basket to the house. It was filled with exotic melons and berries, but not a single lychee.

Now, I sat in my idling car and watched the man who couldn't be bothered to leave the track for me step into a sprawling Bel-Air estate. Through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, I watched him carefully wash the strawberries by hand, cut off the stems, and feed them, one by one, to Madison.

The dam inside me finally broke.

I got out of the car, ran up the driveway, shoved open the unlocked front door, and marched straight into the kitchen. Before either of them could react, I swung my arm back and slapped Cole across the face with a sickening crack.

"Natalie, have you lost your mind?!"

He instantly pulled Madison behind him, shielding her just like he had in that hotel room years ago. His eyes blazed with unchecked hostility.

"Take your crazy out on me! Maddie has nothing to do with this!"

I stumbled backward, the floor swaying beneath my feet. I couldn't reconcile the monster standing in front of me with the man I loved.

When I first told him I was pregnant all those years ago, Cole hadn't cared that we were in the middle of a crowded restaurant. He picked me up and spun me around, tears in his eyes.

Nat! I'm gonna be a dad!

Before we even knew the gender, he had cleared out a room, filling it with model cars and tiny racing helmets, bragging to the press that he was raising the next generation of motorsport royalty.

And now.

"What do you want, Natalie? Do you want her to pay with her life?!"

Coles voice boomed through the kitchen, but as he took in my bloodshot eyes and trembling frame, he lowered his tone, attempting a twisted sort of negotiation.

"Once Maddie's baby is born, you can be its godmother. We can all move past this."

Staring at the man who was bargaining away my grief to protect the woman who killed our child, my heart didn't just breakit shattered into dust.

Madison peeked out from behind him, stepping forward to grab my forearm. Her perfectly manicured acrylic nails dug viciously into my skin, pinching the flesh hard enough to draw blood, even as she put on a terrified, trembling voice.

"I've always felt so guilty about what happened back then, Natalie... I just hope, one day, you can find it in your heart to forgive me"

"Get off me!"

I yanked my arm back violently. I hadn't pushed her, but Madison threw herself backward, collapsing onto the marble floor with a theatrical shriek.

"My baby...!"

She clutched her swollen stomach, her face contorting in faux agony, before letting her eyes roll back as she "fainted."

Coles face drained of color. He turned to me, a look of pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes.

"You know exactly what the pain of losing a child feels like, and youre trying to do the exact same thing to Maddie?!"

He shoved me. Hard.

He didn't look back as he scooped Madison into his arms and sprinted toward the door.

I staggered backward, my heel catching on the edge of the luxury rug. I fell hard, my tailbone slamming against the unforgiving marble. But a second later, a deep, tearing agony ripped through my lower abdomen.

"Cole... wait. Help me, I'm preg"

He paused in the doorway. Those dark eyes that used to look at me like I hung the moon were now cold and dead.

"The doctors were very clear, Natalie. You can hardly get pregnant."

"Don't try to manipulate me with cheap lies. You're draining whatever love I have left for you."

He walked out.

I lay on the floor, paralyzed by the pain, until a delivery driver found me through the open door and called an ambulance.

At the hospital, the ER doctor's voice was gentle but grave. Threatened miscarriage.

I squeezed my eyes shut, the tears leaking down my temples and into my mouth, tasting of salt and copper. Behind my eyelids, all I could see was Coles broad back as he walked away from me.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table. A photo message illuminated the screen.

It was Madison, her maternity blouse unbuttoned, slipping off her shoulder.

And there was Cole, his head bent over her chest, his lips approaching her breast.

An audio file followed. I pressed play with shaking, icy fingers.

Madisons voice drifted out, breathless and cloyingly sweet: "Its my first time pregnant, so my body is just so sensitive... Cole couldn't bear the thought of me hurting myself with a mechanical breast pump, so... he offered to help clear the ducts himself..."

A wave of pure nausea violently hit the back of my throat.

My hands trembled so hard I could barely type, but I opened the Reddit app. I bypassed the racing forums and went straight to a major pop-culture subreddit.

[IndyCar Golden Boy Cole Bradley knocked up the protg he swore he dropped. The same protg who killed his wife's unborn baby. Hes housing her in Bel-Air.]

I attached the photo she had just sent me, along with the ones from the boutique, and hit post.

Within an hour, it was trending on X and TikTok. The internet exploded, tearing Madison apart, calling her a homewrecking sociopath.

But the victory was short-lived. A massive PR firm stepped in. The hashtags were scrubbed, the posts shadow-banned, and in their place, a polished, official press release from Coles agency took over the trending page.

[My former wife, Natalie Bradley, has long suffered from severe psychiatric delusions. We legally separated some time ago. The fabricated narratives circulating online are the tragic result of her declining mental health.]

I slid down the hospital wall, collapsing onto the cold floor.

When he proposed, Cole had gotten down on one knee in the rain, swearing to God he would never let a tear fall from my eyes.

When I lost our baby, he swore he would never touch a steering wheel again, dedicating his life to doing penance by my side.

Now, he told the world I was crazy.

The vows of our youth were nothing but a punchline.

My phone rang. It was Cole.

When I answered, his voice dripped with exhaustion and profound disappointment.

"Nat. Do you have any idea how hard Maddie has worked to get her life back on track? Do you really have to destroy her?"

"Shes locking herself in the bathroom, threatening to end it. Shes young and hormonal, and I'm terrified shes going to do something irreversible."

"Take down the posts, issue a retraction, and come here to apologize to her in person."

A jagged lump formed in my throat, choking off my air.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, forcing the tears back. "Me? Apologize? Who the hell is going to apologize to my dead son?!"

"Cole Bradley, you are bending over backward to protect a murderer! How do you sleep at night?!"

The child inside me seemed to contract, as if feeling the toxic rush of my despair. Despite my best efforts to hold onto my dignity, a ragged, animalistic scream tore from my throat. It was the sound of years of suffocated grief and betrayal finally clawing its way out.

My breakdown seemed to shock him. The line went silent for a long, heavy moment.

When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow.

"If thats how you want to play it, fine. Don't blame me for what happens next."

"You hurt Maddie. Actions have consequences."

He hung up.

The next morning, an anonymous whistleblower post went viral across my university's forums and local news outlets.

[Tenured by Day, Escort by Night: The Truth About Professor Bradley.]

The three-thousand-word expose was allegedly written by a former classmate. It claimed that to secure my coveted tenure-track position at the university, I had slept with my fifty-year-old department chair.

Attached was a grainy photo from years ago. I was standing in a cramped office, and an older mans wrinkled hand was resting inappropriately low on my waist.

My brain short-circuited.

I was a scholarship kid who clawed my way out of a dead-end town. I had no money, no connections. In grad school, my advisor had weaponized my vulnerability, assuming Id be too terrified to report him, and subjected me to relentless sexual harassment.

Even though I eventually fought back and he was quietly forced into early retirement for "academic misconduct," the trauma had left deep, lasting scars.

The only person in the world I had ever confided in about that was Cole.

And now, Madison was on Instagram Live, crying to thousands of viewers.

"Cole and I have known each other for years. He promised wed be together. But Natalie trapped him... she spiked his drink at a party years ago and used a pregnancy to force him into a miserable marriage!"

The internet turned its rabid attention toward me.

[They let this whore teach college kids? Homewreckers should kill themselves!]

[No wonder her baby died. Karma doing its job!]

The sheer volume of the hatred was a physical weight, pressing the air from my lungs. A sharp, pulling ache radiated through my lower pelvis.

Within an hour, I received an email from the Dean's office. I was suspended, pending a full investigation.

The sensation of drowning was total. I was still sitting numbly on the floor when my phone rang. It was my mother.

"Natalie, what the hell is happening on the news?! Get over here right now and explain this mess to me!"

Her voice was strained, breathless. She had a severe heart condition; any spike in her blood pressure was a death sentence.

I dragged myself to her house. The second I walked through the door, a hand struck my cheek with blinding force.

I stood there, ears ringing, holding my face. It was only then that I realized Cole was sitting calmly in her armchair.

My mother was shaking violently, her face pale. "Get on your knees! Natalie, I did not work my fingers to the bone raising you just for you to become some cheap mistress destroying another woman's home!"

I opened my mouth, desperate to explain, but she cut me off.

"Cole already told me everything! He told me how you've been blackmailing him, how you've been sleeping around behind his back!"

I snapped my head toward Cole. He met my gaze, a faint, mocking smirk playing on his lips.

Before I could form a word, my mother lunged, grabbing a handful of my hair.

"Apologize! You apologize to Cole and Miss Madison right now! Or so help me God, you are no longer my daughter!"

The crushing injustice of it all snapped whatever fragile thread was holding me together. I gritted my teeth against the pain in my scalp, refusing to break.

"I didn't do it! I am the victim here! Why should I apologize to the woman who ruined my life?!"

"You... you want to put me in the ground, is that it?!"

My mother gasped, her chest heaving. Suddenly, her eyes rolled back. She clutched her heart and collapsed onto the hardwood floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Mom!"

I threw myself toward her. Her lips were already turning a terrifying shade of blue, her breathing reduced to wet, rattling gasps.

My hands shook violently as I fumbled for my phone to dial 911, but a hand shot out and snatched the device from my grip.

"You can call the ambulance," Cole said, his voice terrifyingly calm, "right after you apologize to Maddie."

I was hovering over the abyss of total madness. I screamed at him, my voice shredding my throat.

"I'll apologize! I'll do whatever she wants! Just let me call the paramedics, please!"

Cole frowned, looking slightly displeased by my volume, but he tossed the phone back onto the floor.

The moment the ambulance arrived at the emergency room doors, Cole stepped in front of me, physically blocking my path to the sliding glass doors.

"Kneel down and apologize to Maddie. Until you do, my private medical team won't so much as look at your mother."

Madison had just arrived, chauffeured in one of Coles SUVs. Seeing me panic-stricken and covered in sweat, a flash of triumphant glee crossed her face.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted a rush of warm blood.

Swallowing my pride, my dignity, and the last remnants of my soul, I dropped to my knees on the dirty concrete in front of Madison.

"I'm sorry. I am the homewrecker."

"You stop when Maddie says she forgives you," Cole dictated, his arms crossed.

I bent forward, pressing my forehead against the pavement.

One time. Two times. Three times. The concrete scraped my skin raw. Blood began to trickle down my brow, blinding my vision. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

Coles brow furrowed, a flicker of something like discomfort crossing his face. "Enough. Go check on your mother."

He turned to walk inside. As he did, Madison leaned down, her lips brushing my ear. Her voice was pure venom.

"I showed her the deepfake videos of you sleeping with those older men before she collapsed. She really didn't take it well, did she?"

My mother couldn't take any more stress.

My fragile grip on reality disintegrated entirely. I scrambled up, practically crawling through the ER doors toward the resuscitation bay.

The attending physician walked out, slowly pulling off his surgical mask. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry. The patient suffered a massive cardiac event. Given the delay in getting her here... there was nothing we could do."

The world went silent. My heart didn't just break; it ceased to exist.

My body began to convulse uncontrollably. A sudden, blinding agony tore through my abdomen, twisting my insides like barbwire. I looked down to see dark, crimson blood pooling around my legs, staining the sterile linoleum.

They rushed me into emergency surgery.

When the doctors initiated the D&C to remove what was left of my pregnancy, the physical agony was nothing compared to the violent severing of my spirit. I felt every scrape, every pull. My soul was being hollowed out, piece by bloody piece.

"Your uterus has suffered significant trauma from the fall," the surgeon murmured later, her eyes full of pity. "Coupled with the history of your previous loss... the scarring is severe. It is highly unlikely you will ever be able to carry a child to term. I am so deeply sorry."

I stared at the ceiling tiles, entirely numb. Dead inside.

I arranged my mothers cremation alone. I dragged my hollowed-out, broken body back to the house.

This house was supposed to be our forever home. When we bought it, Cole had insisted on putting the deed solely in my name, a grand romantic gesture to prove I would always have a safe harbor.

Looking around at the sprawling, empty rooms, I let out a dry, rattling laugh that quickly turned into sobbing.

I signed the paperwork, slipped the medical documents into a manila envelope, and paid a courier for immediate, expedited delivery to Coles office.

Then, I turned around, flicked open Coles silver Zippo lighter, and tossed it into the heavy velvet drapes.

I stood by the second-story window, watching the flames lick the ceiling, turning the beautiful cage he built for me into an inferno.

Closing my eyes against the heat, I whispered into the smoke.

Cole Bradley, if there is a next life, I pray to God I never meet you.

I stepped out into the empty air.

...

Meanwhile, miles away in a glass-walled corner office, Coles assistant burst through the heavy oak doors, breathless.

"Mr. Bradley! A priority courier just dropped this off"

"It's a medical diagnostic report... and a signed divorce agreement!"