Two Husbands Two Lies My Freedom

Twice in my life, I have been thrown out of my own home before the age of thirty.

The second time was Kellan. He was my childhood best friend, the boy who spent ten years chasing me with a devotion that felt like a religion. After we married, he was the picture of the perfect husbandpatient, attentive, and seemingly unbothered by the fact that my ex, Gideon, sent "tokens of regret" every anniversary.

Even when three years passed without a positive pregnancy test, Kellan never whispered a word of blame.

I remember the way he would press his lips against my ear in our most intimate moments, his voice a warm, honeyed lullaby: "If you don't want kids, we won't have them. As long as I have you, its enough."

But on the night of our third anniversary, the lullaby ended. He walked through the front door with a woman I didnt recognize, and I watched from the hallway as the housekeeper dragged my suitcases out of the master suite like they were bags of trash.

My fingers were white-knuckled around the pregnancy test I hadnt yet found the courage to show him. My voice shook, brittle as glass. "Kellan, what is this?"

He lit a cigarette, his eyes flashing with a mockery so sharp it felt like a physical blow. He looked at me as if I were the punchline to a joke only he understood.

"Nina, stop. The 'innocent wife' act is getting old." He exhaled a plume of smoke. "When Gideon Vane threw you out on the street, did you really learn nothing at all?"

The first time I was evicted, it was from a penthouse overlooking Central Park. It was a marriage of convenience to Gideon, a titan of industry. I had gone to the clinic for a checkup, only to return early and find him in our bed with a college student. He didn't offer an apology. Instead, he blamed my "lack of spirit" and had his security detail escort me to the curb.

When I told my father, he didn't offer a shoulder to cry on. He just sighed and said, "Men with that kind of money don't settle for one flavor, Nina. Grow up."

Maybe it was spite. Maybe it was a desperate need to feel wanted. That was why I finally said yes to Kellan. I thought I was marrying safety.

...

The pregnancy test in my palm felt like a live coal, burning through my skin.

I looked at him, but I didn't beg for an explanation. I didn't have to. The womans smug expression and the slight, unmistakable swell of her stomach told the entire story.

I reached for my purse, ready to vanish.

Kellan crushed his cigarette into a crystal tray and stepped into my path, his face twisted with a dark, vengeful satisfaction.

"Youve been pining for Gideon for years, and I never said a word. You refused to give me a child because of him, and I took the hit," he said, his voice rising with a terrifying sort of righteousness. "Now that Ive found someone who can give me a family, youre going to play the victim?"

His lips curled into a smirk. "Look, weve known each other forever. You know how this world works. Keep your title, keep your status. You can be the Mrs. Mercer people see at the galas, and shell be the one who keeps my bed warm. It doesn't have to change your position."

A familiar, dull ache throbbed in my chest. He wasn't wrong about one thingId been here before. I had experience.

I didn't waste words. I simply leaned forward and slapped him. Hard.

"You disgust me, Kellan."

The room went silent, the staff frozen in the periphery. Kellans smile vanished, his features hardening into something unrecognizable. He grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising.

"You think I'm disgusting? Youre a twice-married woman, Nina. What made you think I was going to stay celibate for a woman who gave her best years to another man?"

My grip tightened on the plastic stick until it snapped. The jagged edge sliced into my palm. I didn't feel the pain, but the tears escaped anyway.

Kellans eyes flickered, a momentary lapse of resolve crossing his face. He softened his voice, a conditioned reflex. "Fine. Ill make you a deal. Once the baby is born, Ill send her away. Just... don't walk out."

I looked at the face I had known since I was five years old. He was a stranger.

He noticed the blood on my hand and frowned, reaching for my palm. "What is that?"

I wrenched my hand away and tossed the broken pieces of the test into the trash can by the door.

"Its nothing," I whispered, my voice sounding like it was coming from a great distance. "Just a piece of garbage that wasn't wanted."

I was talking about the baby. And I was talking about myself.

Kellan opened his mouth to speak, but a sharp cry from the woman behind him drew him away. She was clutching her stomach, slowly pulling off her silk face mask.

My heart stopped.

I knew that face. She was the girl from the penthouse. The "scholarship student" I had personally sponsored for years out of a sense of misplaced charity.

Three years had passed, but Talia was still as fresh and radiant as a dewy morning. Gideon had once described her skin as "shaming the silk sheets." He told me he couldn't stop thinking about her, even when he was lying next to me.

My grand gesture of walking away from Gideon to "set them free" had led her straight to my second husband.

And she had managed to get pregnant first. Judging by her bump, this hadn't started yesterday.

I bit my lip until I tasted copper, stepping toward her.

"Nina," Talia said, her voice a sickly-sweet chirp. She grabbed my hand before I could react, her eyes wide with mock surprise. "I had no idea youd come back to Chicago after the New York disaster. What a small world. We really do have the exact same taste in men, don't we?"

I didn't answer with words. I swung my hand again.

Crack.

But the blow didn't land on Talia. Kellan had stepped in front of her, taking the hit across his cheek. His expression went cold, a dangerous edge bleeding into his voice.

"Thats enough, Nina! Two hits are all you get."

He shielded her with his body. "Shes fragile, and shes carrying my heir. Don't take your bitterness out on her. You remember how you ended up three years ago? Don't make me do that to you."

A violent shudder went through me.

Suddenly, I was back in that freezing New York alleyway. After Id caught Gideon, he stopped pretending to be the gentleman. He had looked at me with pure indifference and asked, "A womans expiration date is three months in my world. You got a year. Why are you complaining?"

To force me into submission, he had used every corporate weapon in his arsenal. He froze my accounts, seized my car, and had me dumped on the street like a stray dog in the middle of a blizzard. I remember the cold, the way the snow turned grey in the slush, and the terrifying weight of the men who had pinned me down in that alley.

Then, Kellan had appeared like a miracle. He had fought them off, gathered me into his arms, and wept into my hair. "Ive got you, Nina... Ill protect you with my life."

How pathetic.

Back then, Talia had knelt at my feet, promising to spend her life repaying my kindness. She chose to repay me in my husband's bed. And Kellan, the man who promised to be my shield, was now the one holding the sword.

The snow outside was light, but I felt colder than I ever had in New York. I wiped my eyes, grabbed my phone, and didn't look back. I headed for the guest wing, just needing a bed to collapse into for one night before I disappeared.

"Wait," Talia called out. I turned to see her winding her arms around Kellans neck. "Didn't you promise me wed stay in the south-facing suite? You said the view from the window makes everything... more exciting."

She looked at me, a predatory glint in her eyes.

Kellan gave a soft, dark chuckle. Holding my gaze, he scooped her up and carried her into our bedroom. My bedroom.

The room with the skylight hed installed because he wanted us to "sleep under the stars." The room hed later planned to convert into a nursery so our baby could be "woken by the sun."

Now, before my baby could even take its first breath, that sanctuary was becoming their nest.

I closed my eyes, but I could already hear the echoes of what was to comethe same sounds I'd heard through Gideon's door. The heavy breathing, the gasps, the betrayal.

The sound of the bedroom door slamming shut was the final twist of the knife.

I leaned against the hallway wall, my legs giving way. The silence of the house was deafening, broken only by the vibration of my phone.

An unknown number. A text message: Nina, don't you want to know the real reason Kellan ended up with Talia?

Meet me at The Magnolia Lounge. 9:00 AM.

I didn't need to check the contact. It was Gideon Vane.

The Magnolia Lounge was where we first met. It was where hed approached me after I lost the bidding on my mothers last estate painting, my eyes red from crying. The next day, hed shown up at my fathers house with the painting in hand.

For the next six months, the gifts never stopped. My father, seeing a golden goose, practically gift-wrapped me for him.

I grew up in a world of artifice; I expected nothing from a tactical marriage. But Gideon had used lettersclumsy, handwritten notesto crack my shell. When I fell overboard during a yacht gala, he had dived into the dark water without a second thought. I came out unscathed; his legs had been shredded by the reef.

I thought I had found my soulmate. I was so certain of it that I brought Talia, my charity case, into our home to give her a better life.

And they turned me into a pariah.

Thinking about it didn't hurt anymore. Even seeing Gideon again didn't stir the old grief. He looked the samesharp, handsome, perhaps a bit thinner.

"Theres something you need to see," he said as I sat down. He pushed his phone across the marble table.

"What?"

He hesitated, then swiped the screen.

My blood turned to ice.

The video was grainy, but unmistakable. It was Kellan, three years ago. He was leaning against his car in a New York alley, lighting a cigarette and handing a thick envelope of cash to a group of vagrants.

My breath hitched.

Gideon adjusted his glasses, his voice low and grim. "I'm a bastard, Nina. I know that. But Kellan? Hes a different kind of monster. I threw you out, yes. But the men who attacked you that night? The ones who 'traumatized' you so he could play the hero? He hired them."

The world tilted.

"He wanted you broken," Gideon continued. "He knew youd never choose him while you were whole. So he destroyed you to make sure he was the only one left to pick up the pieces."

Flashes of that night surged back. The twisted faces. The laughter. The tearing pain in my abdomenthe loss of the pregnancy I hadn't even known about yet.

"Stop it!" I gasped, clutching the table.

The air in the lounge felt too thin. I stared at Gideon, my teeth chattering. "And you? Why tell me this now? Just to prove youre the 'lesser' of two evils? To show me that the man I ran to was worse than the man I ran from?"

Tears blurred my vision. "You want to prove that Ill never be happy without you. But you're just like him. You all use me like a pawn."

Gideon was silent for a long moment. "Im a prick, Nina. I cheated. I failed you. But I never planned to replace you. Not legally."

He leaned in, his eyes piercing. "Kellan has been taking Talia to the Mercer family estate. Hes introducing her as his future. And Nina..."

He paused. "He filed for a quiet annulment weeks ago. He didn't just throw you out of the house; hes erased you from the marriage entirely. Come back to New York with me. Let me fix this."

The shock was so total I felt nothing. It was the white-out of peak agony.

I opened my mouth to tell him to go to hell, but a hand suddenly clamped onto my shoulder, yanking me backward.

"Gideon! Youve got a hell of a nerve!"

Kellans voice exploded in my ear. He was shaking with rage, his grip on my neck nearly choking me.

"Is this how it is, Nina? You get your feelings hurt and run straight back to your old flame?"

I didn't fight him. I just stared at him with empty eyes.

Gideon stood up, his face darkening. "Let her go, Kellan."

In an instant, a circle of security guards surrounded the table. Kellan laughed, a jagged, ugly sound.

"You have no standing here, Vane. Shes my wife. You spent years sending her gifts, playing the pining ex. If you loved her so much, maybe you shouldn't have been so busy screwing the help."

Gideon flinched, his fists curling. "Don't get cocky. Youre making the same mistakes I did." He turned to me. "Nina, when you're ready, call me."

He walked away, his guards clearing a path.

The air between me and Kellan was thick with unspoken venom. I walked to the car without a word, and he trailed behind me, his voice a low, frantic growl.

"You aren't going with him. You aren't calling him. Youre done with him!"

When I didn't respond, he snapped. He grabbed my shoulders and began to shake me. "Answer me! Do you hear me?"

"You've been through one divorce. You really want to be a two-time loser? Your father won't take you back. No one wants a used-up socialite. Im the only one who loves you, Nina. Just stay in your lane. Be my wife."

Love me?

Is that what this was? Betrayal, manipulation, and hired violence?

I started to laugh. A low, ragged sound that bubbled up from my chest.

Kellan forced my head up, his eyes wide with frantic desperation. "Whats so funny?"

I didn't look at him. I just whispered, "Besides Talia... is there anything else you're hiding?"

Kellan went rigid. He turned his face toward the window, unable to meet my eyes.

He didn't confess, but his silence was a signed confession.

My laughter grew louder, more hysterical. It tore through the cramped space of the car like a serrated blade.

"Enough! Shut up!"

Kellan lunged, trying to cover my mouth. The rage in my chest finally broke. I grabbed his hand and bit down, hard, until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

"Youre a goddamn animal, Kellan!" I spat. "You want to know who I love? I love Gideon. I regret every second I spent with you. At least he was an honest bastard. At least he didn't kill my soul just to own it!"

Kellans breath came in ragged hitches. His eyes turned a violent, bruised red. He pinned me against the seat, his hand tightening around my throat.

"You think I don't regret it?" he hissed. "I could have had any woman in this city, and I chose a broken, discarded toy. Gideon had the right ideaTalia is ten times the woman you are. Shes actually fun. She actually knows how to please a man."

The words felt like a physical weight on my lungs. I tried to speak, but he squeezed harder.

"What? You like biting? Let's see how much you like this."

The world began to dim. The last thing I saw was Kellans distorted, angry face before everything went black.

...

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the house. But I wasn't in the guest room. I was in bed, and my wrist was shackled to the headboard by a heavy iron chain.

Talia was sitting in a chair by the bed, smiling as she stirred a steaming cup of liquid.

"Kellan said youre a bit... hysterical. He wants you to take your medicine."

With Kellan gone, she dropped the act. She grabbed a handful of my hair and forced my head back.

"I was good to you," I rasped, my voice a broken thread. "Why would you do this?"

Talia laughed, a sharp, jarring sound. "Why? Because youre pathetic! Youre so desperate to be 'good' that you practically handed me your life on a silver platter. I hate people like you. Always looking down from your mountain of gold, offering 'charity' like were stray dogs. I didn't want your help, Nina. I wanted your chair. And now I have it."

She forced the liquid into my mouth. It was bitter, stinging my throat.

A few minutes later, a sharp, cramping pain bloomed in my lower abdomen. I curled into a ball, my fingers digging into the mattress.

"What... what did you give me?"

She smiled, a sweet, angelic expression. "Medicine."

"Its an abortifacient. In ten minutes, your second chance at a family will be nothing but a mess on the sheets. You really aren't meant to be a mother, are you?"

Her laughter filled the room. I reached out, my eyes landing on a paring knife on the fruit plate nearby. With a burst of adrenaline, I lunged, the chain clattering as I pressed the blade against her throat.

"Stop it!"

Kellan burst into the room, his face pale. He didn't look worried; he looked furious that I was still fighting.

"Youre going to kill someone over Gideon? Is he really worth it?"

"Kellan, help me! Shes crazy! Shes trying to kill the baby!" Talia wailed, clutching her stomach.

"Don't worry, honey. Ive got you," Kellan said, his voice dripping with a tenderness hed never shown me.

I wanted to scream. Their baby would be fine. But mine?

I looked down. The white duvet was already blooming with a dark, horrific red. The knife felt heavy in my hand.

Everything became a blur. Kellan disarmed me, throwing the knife aside. He looked at me, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "Nina, where are you hurt?"

"Its just... her period," Talia lied quickly.

He hesitated, a flash of disappointment in his eyes. I watched him. I watched the man who had been my "protector" since I was thirteen years old.

When I was thirteen, I fell off a swing. He had dove under me to break my fall, breaking three of his own ribs. I had cried, asking why he didn't just move. Hed smiled through the pain and said, "If I moved, you would have gotten hurt. I never want you to feel a second of pain, Nina."

The boy who couldn't bear to see me stub a toe was now the man watching me bleed out from his own betrayal.

I dragged myself toward the edge of the bed, reaching for him one last time.

Talia let out a staged scream.

Kellan reacted instinctively. He grabbed the knife from the floor and turned.

Pain is supposed to make you weak, but in that moment, it made me clear. I didn't move. I let the blade sink into my shoulder.

The world turned crimson. I saw Kellans pupils dilate, his face turning a ghostly white as he realized what hed done.

I reached up with my good hand, touching his cheek. My voice was a whisper.

"Why the New York alley, Kellan?"

"Why... why did you kill both of them?"

Then, the darkness claimed me again.