Abandoned Bride of the Warzone

The overseas evacuation in the Sahel region years ago left an indelible scar on my soul.

When the local government collapsed, everyone assumed Jeffrey would give the final seat on the extraction chopper to me.

Instead, he fled into the night with another woman, leaving behind nothing but a few hollow excuses.

He claimed she was fragile. He said the sight of mutilated bodies in the combat zone would break her mind, that she needed safety more than I did.

He told me I was tough. He said I could definitely hold out until the next rescue convoy arrived.

He even promised that once he got her to a safe house, he would come back to bring me home so we could get married.

But the rebel militia overran the compound hours later. The slaughter was absolute.

I hid in a trench filled with the dead, the soil turning to muddy crimson beneath me. My wounds burned with a blinding agony. I waited until all hope bled out of me, but his shadow never appeared.

Years later, our paths finally crossed again. When Jeffrey saw the diamond resting on my ring finger, his eyes instantly flushed red.

He demanded to know why. He asked how I dared to marry another man when I had promised to wait for him.

Six years after I crawled out of hell.

The first time I heard Jeffrey's name again was in the arrivals terminal at JFK Airport.

Standing by the baggage carousel, the girl waiting next to me stole her fifth glance in my direction before finally leaning in.

"Harper?" she whispered, her voice hesitant.

I turned my head, raising an eyebrow.

Seeing my face, she grabbed my arm with pure excitement.

"Oh my god, it really is you! Harper!"

"The story of you and Jeffrey is practically a legend among the Coalition Forces. I can't believe I am meeting you in person. You are gorgeous."

She started rambling about the past.

Six years ago, the Sahel region descended into total anarchy. The airports and seaports were locked down. All comms were jammed. We were completely cut off from the world.

The rumor going around the ranks was that Jeffrey wasn't even the diplomat assigned to the evacuation.

People believed he defied his superiors and risked his life in a warzone specifically to save his girlfriend, Harper.

Her eyes welled up with tears as she spoke.

"Back then, every single one of us was so jealous that you got on that first chopper out."

The atrocities in that warzone defied human comprehension.

The local warlords had set up fake humanitarian aid stations, luring refugees out of the safe zones only to gun them down in the dirt.

Her voice trembled.

"There were bodies everywhere. The riverbanks were literally dyed red. You have no idea how terrified I was."

A phantom pain flared in the old bullet scar on my lower abdomen.

Of course I knew. I knew exactly what it felt like to stare down the barrel of a loaded rifle.

Suddenly, her face lit up again.

"You and Jeffrey must be married by now, right? I bet you guys even have kids."

Looking at her envious, starry-eyed expression, a cold wave of irony washed over me.

Even now, people still believed I was the woman Jeffrey carried onto that helicopter.

Before I could figure out how to shut the conversation down, my phone buzzed.

Feeling a wave of relief, I muttered an apology and walked away. I tapped the screen, and a deep, velvety voice filled my ear.

"Did you land safely?"

"Yeah."

"What is wrong? You sound upset."

Even after being together for so long, his intuition never failed to amaze me.

A single syllable was all it took for him to read my mood.

"I bought you a welcome home present. I will come find you as soon as I finish my meetings."

A location pin popped up on my screen.

The Rosewood Estate?

I had casually mentioned once that I loved the historic architecture and the private botanical gardens there. The dark clouds in my mind instantly cleared.

I smiled and pulled my car out of the airport lot.

I never could have predicted that the estate would be crawling with the exact people I never wanted to see again.

Pushing open the heavy mahogany doors, a wave of loud chatter and clinking glasses hit me.

The Rosewood Estate had been bought at a private auction. It was my personal property now. Why was there a cocktail party happening in the foyer?

I scanned the room in confusion.

My eyes locked onto a man sitting at the center of the VIP lounge, surrounded by a crowd of kissing-up executives. It was Jeffrey.

He looked much more polished now, wearing a bespoke suit, but he still carried that same aloof, self-righteous aura.

"Mr. Jeffrey, we really owe you. If you hadn't pulled strings with Mr. Castello's secretary, we never would have known the boss was flying back to the States tonight."

Mr. Jeffrey?

So Jeffrey had completely abandoned his diplomatic career just to play corporate lapdog for Bonnie's family.

Another guest chimed in.

"I heard the only reason Mr. Castello is shifting his syndicate's focus back to New York is because his wife missed home."

"Exactly! He literally dropped a hundred and fifty million on this Rosewood Estate just for her. I even brought a custom aquamarine jewelry set tonight. I just hope Mrs. Castello likes it."

"Who knows? Mr. Castello protects his wife like a hawk. Barely anyone knows what she looks like, let alone what she likes."

So this was a networking ambush. They were all trying to get a slice of the Castello Group's billions.

But Arthur, my husband's secretary, had really dropped the ball this time.

Silas and I had not even spent a single night in this house yet, and these vultures were already ruining the peace. I wondered exactly how much bribe money Arthur had pocketed to let them in.

Jeffrey's gaze drifted over the crowd and landed on me.

The moment he recognized my face, the charismatic smile froze on his lips. His expression shattered into absolute shock, followed by a storm of complicated emotions.

After a suffocating silence, he walked toward me like a man seeing a ghost.

"Harper... you are alive."

His tone was heavy with relief.

The guilt that must have been eating at him for years finally evaporated now that he knew I had not died in the dirt.

How hilariously pathetic.

A decade ago, Jeffrey and I were deployed to the Sahel region together.

Back then, I used to lean against the clinic window, secretly watching him run drills with the peacekeeping troops.

He would always invent terrible excuses just to walk past my medical tent.

Eventually, even his military dog would wag its tail frantically whenever it saw me, literally dragging Jeffrey by the pant leg to my triage station.

Then came the day the local militia surrounded the hospital.

To buy time for the critically wounded to evacuate, I volunteered to stay behind as a hostage. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my collar and yanked me backward.

Jeffrey, bleeding heavily from a shrapnel wound, stood tall and shielded me.

"I am a soldier. I am far more valuable to you than this medic."

The warlord did not care.

They tied us both up and threw us into a bombed-out trench.

When the machine-gun fire started, Jeffrey threw his body over mine without a second thought. Hot tears dripped from his face onto my neck.

"If we make it out of this alive... Harper, promise you will marry me."

Later, he was reassigned to a neighboring country as a lead diplomat. I stayed behind with the frontline medical unit.

I truly believed we were different from other long-distance couples. I thought we were bulletproof.

That was until Jeffrey was tasked with mentoring his superior's daughter, Bonnie.

He used to call me just to complain about her.

"Harper, she is seriously so incompetent. I have to stay up until 2 AM helping her fix her reports, and then she forces me to take her out for midnight snacks."

"Harper, she is nothing like you. She is so needy. She got a mild fever last night and cried until I sat with her in the ER."

Eventually, I called him out on Bonnie's blatant boundary-crossing.

At first, he apologized. But soon, his apologies turned into annoyance. He accused me of being paranoid and asked why I was so threatened by a harmless young girl.

I tried to swallow my doubts and keep the relationship alive.

But then the border conflict exploded. Bonnie and I were both trapped in the hot zone.

And Jeffrey, the man in charge of the evacuation chopper, physically shoved me away.

His voice had dripped with blame.

"You have survived in combat zones for years. Bonnie is different! She is fragile. Just looking at a rifle gives her nightmares."

"There is only one seat left on this flight. Are you seriously going to throw a jealous tantrum and let Bonnie die just to prove a point?"

I refused to accept it. I chased his dust-covered Jeep down the broken road for miles.

I ran until my foot caught on a bloated corpse. I crashed into the gravel, a sharp rock slicing deep into my stomach. I lay there bleeding, screaming in agony.

He never looked back. He kept his arms wrapped tightly around Bonnie the entire time.

A shrill, grating voice snapped me back to reality.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in. Harper."

Noticing Jeffrey staring at me, Bonnie marched over and wrapped her arms possessively around his bicep. She glared at me with blatant hostility and a smug warning.

"You vanished off the face of the earth. We all thought you were rotting in a ditch somewhere."

"Jeffrey had to leave you behind to save my life. If you want to hold a grudge, blame me."

She intentionally made her voice crack at the end. That pathetic, innocent victim act always triggered Jeffrey's savior complex.

"Harper, leave her alone." Jeffrey stepped in front of her.

"I do not know how you tracked my schedule or why you stalked me all the way here, but I have moved on."

"You need to leave. The Rosewood Estate is not a place for someone of your status."

Stalked him?

If a certain someone heard that, he would flip this city upside down looking for answers.

If Silas dug up my history with Jeffrey, I would be dealing with a wildly jealous mafia boss for the next six months.

Hearing Jeffrey defend her, Bonnie relaxed. A vicious, mocking smile spread across her face.

"Oh, come on, Jeffrey. She dragged herself all the way here to see you. The least we can do is catch up."

She exchanged a nasty look with her group of wealthy girlfriends. They grabbed their champagne flutes and circled around me like vultures.

"Harper, after that evacuation, the entire region went completely dark. The coalition forces pulled out. How exactly does a girl like you survive in a place crawling with bloodthirsty cartels?"

She heavily emphasized the word "survive," causing the other women to cover their mouths and giggle.

A woman in a tight red dress rolled her eyes in absolute disgust.

"Ugh, please. We all know what those warlords do to cheap foreign girls. In peacetime, women like her sell themselves for a cup of coffee. In a warzone? She definitely spent her nights on her knees just to get a ration bar."

The girl next to her gently slapped her arm, putting on a tone of exaggerated pity.

"Oh, stop it! She didn't have a choice."

"Not everyone is as blessed as Bonnie. Not everyone gets a billionaire fianc who loves her enough to risk his life."

"Harper, you are totally used up. You hit rock bottom, and now you are here trying to latch back onto Mr. Jeffrey? Do you have any self-respect?"

Bonnie scoffed, swirling the champagne in her glass. She looked at me with a sickening mix of fake pity and utter contempt.

"You did take care of Jeffrey for a little while back then. I guess I should thank you for your service."

"I am a very nostalgic person. If our merger with the Castello Group goes well tonight, I will save a janitorial spot for you at the new headquarters. The pay is trash, but at least the work is clean. It is definitely a step up from your previous... activities."

She dragged out the last word, letting the implication hang in the air.

Her friends immediately chimed in.

"Bonnie, you are way too innocent! She is probably so used to doing dirty work in the desert that she actually prefers it."

Jeffrey stood there in complete silence. His knuckles turned white around his whiskey glass, and the look he gave me was laced with profound disappointment.

Disappointment?

He had fought in those trenches with me. He knew better than anyone in this room what reality looked like.

He knew exactly what the medics and peacekeepers sacrificed for that bleeding country.

They dragged civilians out of crossfire. They built triage centers in the middle of plague zones.

Yet he stood there, watching Bonnie degrade me and every single soldier who bled on that sand, and he said absolutely nothing.

All those years chasing money and status in the corporate world had completely rotted his soul.

Seeing my face remain completely emotionless, Bonnie and her entourage got bored. They rolled their eyes and turned to leave.

Click.

The sharp sound of my digital recorder echoing in the quiet room stopped them dead in their tracks.

I pressed playback. Their vicious, venomous insults played out loud and clear.

Bonnie's face dropped.

"Harper, are you insane? Delete that right now!"

I spoke, my voice eerily calm.

"I am going to forward this audio to the board. The Castello Group will never do business with a single person standing in this room."

Bonnie panicked for a split second before sneering.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I am saying the Castello Group, and this Rosewood Estate, belong to me. Now get the hell out of my house."

The bustling, noisy room went dead silent.

Every single executive and socialite turned to look at me like I belonged in a psychiatric ward.

Bonnie broke the silence with a loud, mocking laugh.

"Harper, have you completely lost your mind?"

"Jeffrey and I are top-tier elites in this city, and even we could not get a direct meeting with Mr. Castello! We had to bribe his secretary just to find out he was bringing his wife here tonight."

"We are literally confined to the guest lounge because we are too scared to trespass, and you think you can just waltz in here and claim you own the Castello empire? You are going to get yourself killed."

Right at that moment, the heavy double doors of the lounge swung open.

A middle-aged man in a sharp, tailored suit walked in.

The crowd gasped. It was Arthur, the legendary right-hand man to Silas Castello.

The executives instantly morphed into groveling sycophants. They swarmed him, bowing and smiling. Jeffrey quickly fixed his tie and practically sprinted over, extending both hands.

"Arthur! Thank you so much for making the trip."

"Do you know what time Mr. and Mrs. Castello will be arriving? We want to make sure the reception is absolutely perfect."

Jeffrey carefully studied Arthur's face before tentatively adding his real motive.

"And regarding that renewable energy contract I pitched... I would be incredibly grateful if you could put in a good word for me with the boss."

Arthur did not even look at him. He walked straight past Jeffrey, taking the seat at the head of the table, and began flipping through a thick stack of files.

The crowd stood in absolute, terrified silence. Their legs were practically shaking by the time Arthur finally spoke.

"Mr. Castello has reviewed the proposals."

Bonnie's face lit up with greedy joy. Her friends immediately started kissing up to her.

"With Castello backing, Jeffrey's company will be worth billions! Bonnie, you are officially a billionaire's wife!"

"I am so jealous! Please don't forget about us when you are running the city!"

Drowning in the flattery, Bonnie's ego inflated to the size of a blimp.

She threw a smug, degrading look at me standing in the corner.

"Congratulations, Harper. Like I promised, I will make sure the HR department keeps that janitor closet open for you."

The room was quiet for a second before erupting into a cruel, piercing chorus of laughter.

"Bonnie, stop being so nice to her."

"When Harper got left behind to die, her trashy parents actually stormed into the Jeffrey family estate to cause a scene. Jeffrey's security threw them out into the street. Talk about karma... they got crushed by a truck on their way home."

"Trash breeds trash. She is just a leech. Make sure you don't let her latch onto your man again."

My breath caught in my throat. It felt like a stick of dynamite had just detonated in my chest.

I always thought it was a tragic accident.

My parents died because they went looking for me, and Jeffrey threw them to the wolves.

Arthur, annoyed by the sudden noise, turned his head.

The moment his eyes locked onto my face, the absolute arrogance melted off his features. The thick stack of corporate files slipped from his hands, crashing onto the marble floor.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, sprinting across the room until he was standing right in front of me.

He bowed at a strict ninety-degree angle.

"M-Madam Castello! I am so sorry, I had no idea you were already here."