The Wife He Burned Alive

I had been married to Donovan for almost five years, and tomorrow was our anniversary.

To surprise him, I had taken time off from the hospital, boarded a five-hour flight from Boston, and landed in Manhattan where his private equity firm was headquartered.

The moment I stepped through the revolving glass doors of his building, my phone buzzed against my palm. I had been pulled into a new iMessage group chat.

The screen immediately lit up with a flurry of activity. Row after row of messages flooded inWelcome to the inner circle, sister-in-law!and a sweet warmth bloomed in my chest.

We had been doing long-distance for three years. He always said the firm was bleeding him dry, that the deals were relentless. Our weekends together had dwindled to nothing; the last time I felt his arms around me was five months ago.

I hadnt wanted to spend this anniversary alone in an empty house, so I flew out. I had been terrified he might have forgotten the date entirely in the haze of his work, but looking at my screen, I realized Id been a fool. He hadnt forgotten. He had orchestrated all of this.

Then, the screenshots started rolling in. His college buddies, the partners at his firm, were dropping massive wire transfer receipts into the chat.

But as I squinted at the screen, the breath caught in my throat. The account name wasn't mine. The money was being wired to an account under the name Sweet Briar.

Brad sent the first receipt: 0-000,000. The memo read: Welcome to the family.

Tyler followed with a $200,000 transfer. Welcome to the club.

Jax blew them out of the water with half a million. Welcome, sister-in-law.

The final notification was a transfer from Donovan.

He had wired this Sweet Briar an even one million dollars.

Time fractured. The air in the lobby turned to glass in my lungs. My hands shaking, I tapped on Donovans contact, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard to demand who the hell this woman was.

But before I could type a single letter, the screen shifted. I had been removed from the group.

It happened so fast it felt like a hallucination.

"Miss Gwendolyn? What are you doing down here?"

The voice jerked me out of my paralysis. The receptionist, who had been aggressively ignoring me a moment ago, was now practically glowing with deference as she rushed toward a woman standing just a few feet to my left.

"Mr. Warner was very clear," the receptionist cooed. "You're five months along now. You really shouldn't be on your feet."

I turned my head. Standing near the sleek marble front desk was a young woman in a flowing, cream-colored silk dress. Her baby bump pushed gently against the fabric. She was impossibly young, her profile soft and delicate, her eyes crinkling into crescents when she smiled.

She was beautiful. And she looked exactly like me, back when I was twenty-two.

"Where's Donny? Is he still locked in that boardroom?"

The young woman laughed, a light, musical sound, as she moved toward the plush leather waiting sofas. "It's fine, I'll just wait for him here. Don't tell him I'm downstairs, I don't want to break his concentration."

The receptionist practically fluttered around her, easing her onto the cushions. "Of course. Let me have the kitchen send down some of those macarons you like."

As the receptionist scurried away, the girl's gaze landed on me. "Oh, hi! Are you here to see Donovan too? He's tied up in a meeting, so you might be waiting a while."

I heard my own voice, brittle and thin, drifting out of my mouth. "Who are you to Donovan?"

"I'm his girlfriend," she said, her smile widening into something radiant and bulletproof. "Though, we're getting married soon."

She was practically glowing, suffocated by her own happiness. "You wouldn't believe it, but he just added me to this group chat with all his oldest friends. They sent me the craziest gifts! Like, actual money. Just to welcome me."

She leaned in, adopting a conspiratorial, friendly tone. "Listen, if you're here to pitch him a deal, you should really push for it. He's an incredible man. He works so hard, and every dollar he makes is blood, sweat, and tears."

Her hand drifted up to her collarbone. "But with me? He's a total softie. We've been together three years, and whatever I want, he gets it for me. No questions asked." She tapped a massive, staggering diamond pendant resting against her skin. "I saw this at a Sotheby's auction. He didn't even blink. Just bought it."

She let out a soft sigh, resting a hand on her stomach. "And last month, I just made an offhand comment about his penthouse feeling a little tight for a baby. The next day, he bought a multi-million dollar brownstone. Put the deed entirely in my name."

She clamped a hand over her mouth, giggling. "Oh my god, I am so sorry. Listen to me babbling. Are you a client? I don't think I've seen you at the corporate parties. I'm Megan, by the way. What's your name?"

Now I knew who she was. She was Sweet Briar.

And in that sterile, air-conditioned lobby, the remaining illusions of my life quietly bled out on the marble floor.

The man I had loved for ten years. The man I had been married to for five. The man I commuted across state lines for, who I rearranged my entire existence for, had been sleeping with someone else.

A girl barely out of college.

And she was pregnant.

I stood there, a bone-deep frost spreading through my veins.

Donovan had sworn, on his own life, that he would never betray me.

We had met in the wreckage of a car crash. I was a surgical resident on my way home; I had sprinted out of my car in the rain to stabilize a bleeding driver on the asphalt. He had been in town on a business trip, stuck in the traffic jam, watching me from the window of his town car.

He told me later that it only took one look.

He spent the next year relentlessly pursuing me. The flowers, the cars, the real estate deeds left on my doorstepnone of it moved me. I was exhausted, married to my hospital.

It wasn't until I collapsed in the OR hallway after a twenty-hour surgical rotation that he finally broke through. When I woke up, he was sitting by my hospital bed, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

Camille, if you die, Im following you right into the dirt, he had whispered, his voice cracking.

I had pressed my ear to his chest, listened to the frantic, terrified beating of his heart, and finally surrendered. I said yes.

After the wedding, my career kept me in Boston, while his empire kept him in New York. Even when he was running on three hours of sleep, he would charter a flight to my city every single weekend just to wake up next to me.

How could the man who cried at my hospital bed, who promised me forever on his knees, do this?

"Hey, are you okay?"

Megan reached out, her soft hand patting my shoulder. Her brow furrowed in genuine concern.

"I'm fine."

The ambient noise of the lobby vanished. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I shook my head, feeling as though someone had taken a hunting knife, slid it neatly between my ribs, and twisted it until I was entirely numb.

"Megan? What did I tell you about wandering around the city by yourself? You're going to give me a heart attack."

The voice was a low, familiar rumble. I turned my head. My eyes locked onto Donovan's.

The indulgent, adoring smile on his face instantly crystallized into something horrified.

"Camille," the name slipped from his lips, breathless. "What are you doing here?"

"Donny!"

Before I could even open my mouth, Megan threw herself into his arms.

"This woman has been waiting for you forever! Is she a client?"

"Yeah." Donovan swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. His arms wrapped instinctively around her waist. "Just a client."

He gently pivoted her toward the exit. "Let's get you to lunch. I can starve, but my girls need to eat."

"But she's been waiting so long," Megan protested softly, looking over her shoulder at me. "Talk to her first. I don't mind."

Donovans jaw tightened. He gently guided Megan back to the sofa. "Give me five minutes. I'll be right out."

Only then did he look at me. The warmth in his eyes was completely gone, replaced by a cold, panicked calculation. "My private office. Now."

I followed him into his inner sanctum. I hadnt been here in two years. The last time I visited, the room was a masterclass in aggressive minimalismblack leather, steel, and dark walnut. Now, the space was littered with soft blushes, a pastel throw blanket over the couch, a ridiculous plush bunny on his desk.

It was the aesthetic of a college girl playing house.

"Why didn't you call me to say you were flying in?"

He dropped onto the sofa, pulled a cigarette from a silver case, lit it, took one drag, and immediately crushed it out in the ashtray.

"Megans pregnant," he muttered, staring at the crushed tobacco. "I'm trying to quit."

Donovan was a chain-smoker. During high-stakes mergers, he could kill a pack a day.

He was quitting. For her.

"Donovan," I choked out, the word scraping against my throat. "Do you have absolutely nothing to say to me?"

I didn't want to cry. I swore to myself I wouldn't. But the tears spilled over, hot and humiliating.

Seeing me cry, Donovan dragged a hand down his face and exhaled a heavy sigh.

"She was an intern at the clinic. I collapsed from a stress ulcer a few years ago, and she took care of me. She's... she's not like you, Camille. Youre brilliant. Youre independent. If I walked out that door today, you would survive. You would thrive. But Megan? Megan can't even make toast without burning it if I'm not there."

He paused, looking up at me with an infuriating sense of martyrdom. "The distance was killing me. If I didn't have her keeping me sane, the stress of this firm would have put me in the ground."

I stood there, letting the tears fall, absorbing the sheer audacity of his defense. Without a word, I closed the distance between us, raised my hand, and slapped him across the face as hard as I physically could.

The sound cracked through the quiet office like a gunshot.

"I want a divorce, Donovan. You can have her."

He didn't flinch. He reached out, wrapping his large hand around my trembling wrist, and pressed his lips to my palm.

"I told you on our wedding day. The only way you leave me is in a body bag," he said, his voice dropping into a dark, calm register. "You are the love of my life, Camille. Nothing changes that. Look, I know my mother has been down your throat for years about you not wanting kids. Once Megan has the baby, Ill have the legal documents drawn up. Well adopt it. We'll raise it as ours. I'm doing this to take the pressure off you. You need to look at the bigger picture here."

I stared down at the man kneeling in front of me. I realized, with a sickening drop in my stomach, that I had never actually known him at all.

He entirely missed the horror in my eyes. "Shes due soon. Im going to throw her a wedding. Just a ceremony to make her happy, to make things right for her before the birth. Since you're already in town, stay at the penthouse for a few days. I'll have the driver take you there now. Once I drop Megan off, I'll come home to you."

The penthouse. The home we had bought together. Because his mothera terrifying, old-money matriarch who thought a surgeon was essentially blue-collar laborrefused to let me stay at the family estate.

"Be a good girl, Camille. Megan is heavily pregnant. Her blood pressure is fragile. If youre going to stay in my city, you need to understand what is and isn't acceptable behavior."

With that, he stood up, straightened his custom suit, and walked out of the room.

I lunged toward the door, desperate to scream, to tear the room apart, but two massive security guards materialized in the doorway, blocking my path.

"Apologies, Mrs. Donovan," one of them said, his face a stone wall. "Mr. Donovan requested that you remain here until he and Miss Gwendolyn have left the premises."

I watched Donovan's broad back disappear down the hallway. My hands shook so violently I could barely pull my phone from my purse. I dialed Evelyn, my mother-in-law.

"Evelyn," I breathed, my voice hollow. "You've spent five years praying I'd leave your son. You win. I want a divorce."

There was a pause on the line. The clinking of a porcelain teacup. "You finally woke up. What's your price? Name the figure."

"Nothing. I don't want a single dime of his money. Just make him sign the papers. Fast."

"Consider it done."

The guards eventually escorted me to a black SUV, which dropped me at the penthouse.

I hadnt been here in five months. It looked exactly the same. I had picked out the rugs, the art, the linen drapes. This was supposed to be our sanctuary.

Now, it felt like a tomb.

I spent three hours moving methodically through the rooms, pulling every piece of clothing, every book, every photograph that belonged to me, and shoving them into garbage bags.

I was halfway through emptying the bathroom cabinet when the front door banged open.

Donovan stormed down the hallway, his face twisted in a murderous rage. He grabbed my arm so hard my shoulder popped.

"Did you tell my mother? Did you run your mouth about Megan?!" he roared, spittle flying from his lips. "You know damn well my mother will destroy her! Why would you do that!"

The pain in my wrist made me gasp, but I shook my head violently. "I don't know what you're talking about! I didn't say a word to Evelyn about your mistress!"

"Liar!" he spat. "You're coming with me right now! If anything happens to Megan or the baby, I swear to God, Camille, I will make you pay."

He dragged me out of the penthouse, half-carrying, half-pulling me down the hall. I didn't even have time to put on my shoes.

"Let go of me! Donovan, you're hurting me!"

I stumbled after him into the private elevator. I thought he was taking me across town. Instead, the elevator doors opened one floor down.

He had bought her the penthouse directly beneath ours.

He kicked the door open. Inside, Megan was on her knees on the hardwood floor, sobbing hysterically, her body trembling.

Evelyn sat on the velvet sofa, looking down at her like she was scraping something foul off her shoe. "Lets skip the theatrics," Evelyn said coldly. "How much will it take for you to abort it and disappear?"

"Mrs. Donovan, please!" Megan wailed, clutching her stomach. "Donny and I love each other! I know I'm not from your world, I know I don't have a pedigree, but I didn't choose how I was born!"

"Love?"

Evelyn let out a sharp, aristocratic laugh. "You're a parasite playing house, and you dare invoke the word love? Thats exactly what my idiot son said when he begged me to let him marry Camille. Five years later, hes slumming it with you. How deep could that love possibly be?"

"What?"

Megan froze. The tears suspended on her lashes. "What do you mean, slumming it? What do you mean, married?"

"Mom!"

Donovan shoved past me, dropped to his knees, and pulled Megan into his chest.

"Why the hell would you say that to her! She's pregnant! Her heart can't take this!" He whipped his head around to glare at me. "Is this your doing, Camille? Did you sick my mother on her?"

I stared at him, exhausted to my marrow. "How is this my fault?"

"If you hadn't called her, how would she have found out?!" he yelled, his face red with veins. "You were terrified Megan was going to steal your title. You used my own mother as a weapon against a pregnant girl. How could you be so vicious, Camille?!"

"You're the one who cheated on your wife!" I fired back, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. "If you could keep your pants zipped, she wouldn't have anything to find out!"

A loud gasp cut through the room. Megans eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed limp against Donovans chest.

"Megan! Baby, wake up! Megan!"

Panic hijacked his face. He scooped her up in his arms and sprinted out the door toward the elevator, screaming for his driver.

I stood alone in the entryway with Evelyn. She watched her son disappear, letting out a long, weary sigh.

"Theres nothing quite as pathetic as a man panicking over a bastard child," Evelyn muttered. She turned her sharp gaze to me. "Ive never liked you, Camille. I still don't. But compared to that weeping gold-digger, you at least have a spine. I was going to leverage this to force him back in line with you. But looking at you now... I see you're done."

"Thank you, Evelyn. But you're right. I'm done."

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the heavy, vintage Cartier emerald ringthe Donovan family heirloom she had bitterly handed over on my wedding dayand placed it on the console table.

Evelyn looked at the ring, then at me. Something resembling respect flickered in her eyes. "Seven days," she said quietly. "The finalized divorce decree will be in your hands."

After Evelyn left, the silence in the apartment was suffocating. I finally looked around.

Above the fireplace hung a massive, custom-framed photograph. Donovan and Megan at a carnival. He had his arms wrapped tight around her waist, his head thrown back in a booming, uninhibited laugh.

It was a look of pure, unadulterated joy. I hadn't seen him look like that in years.

I walked slowly up the floating staircase to the master bedroom.

A sheer, ridiculously expensive La Perla nightgown was tossed carelessly across the unmade bed. It was provocative, loud. Something I would never wear.

The nightstand drawer was cracked open. Inside was a box of condoms. Only one left.

The vivid, sickening image of my husband sweating and writhing on these sheets with a twenty-two-year-old made the bile rise in my throat.

I don't know how long I stood there, trapped in a dissociative daze, before heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs. Two of Donovan's private security men stormed into the room.

"Mrs. Donovan. You need to come with us."

"Excuse me? Where are you taking me?"

One of them grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. Pure terror spiked in my chest. I fought, kicking and scratching, but they hauled me out of the building and shoved me into the back of a Suburban like a criminal.

When we pulled up to the private wing of Mt. Sinai Hospital, I saw Donovan slumped on a bench in the hallway, his head buried in his hands.

Hearing our footsteps, he looked up. His face was gray. Dead.

"You're here," he said, his voice terrifyingly flat. "Megan terminated the pregnancy."

I froze. The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet. Terminated?

How could she? She was five months along.

"Donovan..."

I opened my mouth, searching for something, anything to say. But before a sound could escape, he crossed the hallway in two massive strides and wrapped his hands around my throat.

The force of it slammed me against the plaster wall. The air was violently crushed from my windpipe.

"Camille! Are you happy now?! Is this what you wanted?!" he roared, his spit hitting my face. "Why did you drag my mother into this! You take an oath as a doctor to save lives, and you drove a girl to murder her own baby!"

Black spots danced in the corners of my vision. The hatred radiating from his eyes was blinding. I clawed at his wrists, my feet kicking weakly off the floor, suffocating under his iron grip.

"Do you have any idea how much I wanted that child? I loved you so much, Camille! Why would you destroy me like this?!"

With a feral yell, he threw me to the ground. I hit the linoleum hard, instantly curling into a ball, hacking and gasping desperately for oxygen, my lungs burning like fire.

"I didn't... cough... Donovan, I swear to God I didn't tell her! She runs your trust funds, she probably saw the money moving!"

"Stop lying to my face!" he screamed. "Get inside! You're going to get on your knees and beg for Megan's forgiveness. You're going to apologize to my dead child!"

He grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me across the floor, kicking the door to the VIP suite open.

Megan was in the hospital bed, pale and weeping. When she saw me, her face contorted into absolute hysteria.

"Get her out of here! I don't want to look at her! Donny, make her leave!"

She snatched a heavy crystal vase from her bedside table and hurled it directly at me.

Crash.

The heavy glass slammed into my forehead and shattered. A blinding spike of pain shot through my skull, followed immediately by the warm, thick slide of blood running down into my eye.

The metallic smell of blood hit the sterilized air. Megan pointed a trembling finger at the door. "Get out! Both of you! Leave me alone!"

Donovan didn't look at my bleeding head. He snapped his fingers. The two guards stepped into the room. Before my brain could even register the threat, they forced me to the ground, shoving me face-first into the carpet.

Straight into the shards of the shattered vase.

The jagged glass sliced deep into my bare knees. A raw, animalistic scream ripped from my throat as the pain flared hot and white.

"I brought her to apologize, Megan. To make amends for our baby," Donovan said, his voice chillingly calm as he stood over me. He nodded at the guards. "Make her bow. Keep her down until Megan says it's enough."

"Donovan! You are the one who cheated! This is your fault!" I shrieked, blood pouring from my forehead, blinding my left eye. The guards forced a hand onto the back of my neck, shoving my face inches from the bloody glass.

"Megan is my entire world. If you hadn't intervened, she would be holding my baby right now," Donovan said, his voice entirely devoid of reason. He was lost in his own twisted narrative.

"Stop playing the victim!" Megan shrieked from the bed, covering her ears. "I'll never forgive either of you!"

With a dramatic gasp, her eyes rolled back and she slumped into the pillows, unconscious again.

Nurses rushed in, followed by the attending doctor, who physically pushed Donovan toward the door. "Mr. Donovan, she just underwent a late-term surgical procedure. Her heart rate is erratic. You need to leave the room immediately."

Donovan backed out into the hallway. The guards finally released me. I dragged myself up, my knees leaving bloody smears on the floor. My purse and phone were back at the penthouse. I had no money, no ID, and I was bleeding profusely in a city where the only person I knew was the man trying to destroy me. I had no choice but to limp after him to his car.

He took me back to his penthouse and called his private concierge doctor to stitch my forehead and bandage my knees.

"Don't blame me, Camille. You know how this works. If I didn't make you bleed, she wouldn't believe I was punishing you. She wouldn't forgive me," he said, pouring himself a scotch as the doctor packed up his bags.

I stared at the wall, nodding slowly. The cold inside me had finally crystallized into something solid and unbreakable. I didn't want to fight anymore.

Seeing my quiet submission, his shoulders relaxed.

"You're the only woman who will ever be my wife," he murmured, crouching in front of me and resting his hand on my bandaged knee. "Once Megan recovers, we'll try for another baby. Don't worry. As long as you play nice and let her have her moment, you'll always be taken care of."

"Okay," I whispered, my voice completely hollow.

"I'm going to give her the wedding next weekend. If she wants you there..."

"I'll go."

"Good girl. There's my Camille."

He smiled, stroking my cheek. He didn't notice that the light in my eyes was completely, irreversibly dead.

I didn't sleep that night. Around 3 A.M., hovering in a feverish, pain-medicated haze, I heard the faint click of my bedroom door opening.

Before I could sit up, a heavy cloth was shoved over my head. Strong hands yanked my arms behind my back, binding my wrists with industrial zip-ties, then my ankles.

I was shoved violently into a heavy burlap sack, suffocating in darkness, completely paralyzed.

Blind panic seized my chest. I tried to scream, but a thick layer of duct tape had been crushed over my mouth. Only muffled, pathetic whimpers escaped.

I was dragged down a flight of stairsthe service stairs to the basement of the building, where the climate-controlled storage units were.

Above me, a voice broke the damp silence.

"I know you're grieving, Megan. I know the baby dying broke you. I brought her down here for you. Take it out on her. Bleed her out until you feel better. Then... will you forgive me?"

"If I kill her, does it bring my baby back? Will you actually marry me?!" Megan's voice was shrill, echoing off the concrete walls.

"I will!" Donovan cried, pulling her into what sounded like a desperate embrace. "I'll give you the wedding of the century. You'll be the only Mrs. Donovan!"

Megan sniffled loudly. "You promise you aren't lying to me?"

"I swear it on my life! I will never lie to you again!"

I heard the scrape of something heavy being dragged across the floor.

"Camille killed our child," Donovan said, his voice mutating into something sinister. "Do whatever you want to her. I won't stop you."

"Are you sure you can stomach it?" Megan asked.

The moment the words left her mouth, a deafening CRACK exploded against my ribs.

Donovan had swung first.

My spine arched off the concrete, an involuntary, muffled scream tearing through the duct tape as tears instantly flooded my eyes.

That was why he hadn't yelled at me when we got back from the hospital. That was why he played the gentle husband.

He hadn't spared me. He was just saving me for the slaughter.

Crack! CRACK!

The second and third blows landed with the sickening thud of wood against bone. It wasn't a warning strike. He was swinging a baseball bat with the full, terrifying momentum of a grown man.

Pain arced through my nervous system like lightning. I curled into a tight, trembling ball, my brain short-circuiting as the agony drowned out all rational thought.

Then came the fourth blow. The fifth.

The coarse burlap grew wet and heavy against my skin, sticking to the open wounds on my back. Blood pooled on the cold concrete beneath me.

Through the roaring in my ears, I heard nothing but the relentless, rhythmic thud of the bat and my own pathetic, muffled sobbing.

I don't know how long it lasted. Hours, minutestime no longer existed. Finally, the swinging stopped.

"Are you tired, baby?" Donovans voice drifted down from above, soft, tender, dripping with devotion. "Let's get you upstairs to bed. Once you're healed, we're doing the wedding."

"I want Camille to be my bridesmaid!" Megan demanded, breathless.

Donovan hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Okay. Whatever you want."

Their footsteps echoed up the concrete stairs, growing fainter until the heavy metal door slammed shut. Alone in the dark, my body finally gave out, and I slipped into the merciful black void of unconsciousness.

Just before he reached the penthouse, Donovans phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from his head of security.

Sir, what do we do with the girl in the bag?

Donovan typed back without breaking stride: Write her a check. Tell her to get lost. Make sure Megan never finds out the girl in the sack wasnt actually Camille.

When I regained consciousness, the smell of damp concrete and dried blood filled my nostrils.

The duct tape was gone. The burlap sack was gone. I was curled on the floor of one of the basement storage units. The icy chill of the concrete seeping into my battered skin was the only thing keeping me awake.

I was freezing. My throat was sandpaper. Every millimeter of my body screamed in agony.

I tried to drag myself toward the steel door, but my legs refused to obey. I couldn't move an inch.

I never could have imagined the depths of Donovan's cruelty. It wasn't enough to let his mistress break a vase over my head. He had bound me, beaten me into a bloody pulp in the dark, and locked me in a cellar.

A brutal fever spiked that evening. Through the delirium, I heard the heavy deadbolt slide open.

Someone set a plastic cup of water and a styrofoam container of food on the ground. A small blister pack of Tylenol dropped next to it.

"Poor thing," a woman whispered. The housekeeper. "She doesn't even know Mr. Donovan is marrying that girl tomorrow."

"Yeah, they're pulling out all the stops. Rented out an entire estate in the Hamptons. Even Evelyn is going," a second voice muttered. "What the hell are we supposed to do with the wife?"

"Who knows. That Megan girl is a psycho. She demanded the wife be brought up as her bridesmaid. It's a total power trip."

Despair washed over me like a rising tide, but beneath it, a tiny, stubborn ember of survival sparked. I knew I couldn't die down here.

Trembling, gritting my teeth against the blinding pain in my fractured ribs, I dragged myself toward the styrofoam box. I picked up the plastic fork with bloody fingers and forced the cold rice down my throat, choking on every bite.

It's almost over, I told myself, staring at the concrete wall. Just a little longer, and I'll never have to look at him again.

A memory, unbidden and agonizing, drifted into my mind. Our wedding day. Donovan, flushed with champagne and overwhelming joy, spinning me around the dance floor like he had conquered the earth.

Camille! Youre my wife now! You're mine! Don't you ever think you can leave me, because I won't let you!

He had been so young, so fiercely alive with love.

And now, he was standing at an altar with someone else.

I don't know how many days passed in that basement. Slowly, the fever broke. I could finally stand, leaning heavily against the wall.

Faint sounds drifted down from the street grates. Traffic. Horns. Life moving on.

Three days had passed. Today was the wedding.

The steel door swung open, blinding me with the harsh fluorescent hallway lights. A maid stood in the doorway, holding a garment bag.

"Mrs. Donovan. The boss and Miss Gwendolyn already left for the estate. You need to wash up and put on the dress. A car is waiting to take you."

I limped out of the cell, my body stiff and aching. The penthouse above was eerily quiet, though remnants of floral arrangements littered the foyer.

"Oh, right. Evelyn sent this via courier this morning."

The maid handed me a thick manila envelope.

My heart hammered against my bruised ribs. I ripped the seal open with shaking hands. Inside, embossed with the state seal, was the finalized decree of absolute divorce.

It was done. I was divorced.

I was free.

"Ma'am, please hurry. The driver is getting impatient," the maid urged.

I folded the decree, slid it carefully into my purse, and grabbed the garment bag containing the bridesmaid dress.

"I'll head down now. I don't want to ruin the dress on the ride over, I'll change at the venue."

My voice was raspy, hollowed out, yet thrumming with a bizarre, electric calm.

The maid watched me limp toward the elevator. "Be careful out there, ma'am."

Before the elevator doors closed, I took one last look at the penthouse. The soaring ceilings, the art we bought in Paris, the life I had built. I turned around and never looked back.

I walked straight past the idling black town car waiting to take me to the Hamptons, and flagged down a yellow taxi on the avenue.

"Penn Station," I told the driver, staring out the window. "And step on it, please."

It was over. Have a beautiful life, Donovan.