The Island Trial To Train An Obedient Wife

After the yacht went down, I was stranded on a nightmare of an island for three years.

I had my fingernails ripped out. I was forced to eat raw meat. I was broken and trained like a wild animal.

Until the day a red flare shot into the sky. I ran for my life, desperate for rescue.

But when I reached the beach, I watched the tribal chief wipe the blood-red war paint from his face.

Underneath was the face of my fianc, Joseph.

"Congratulations. You passed the wife-training trial."

"From now on, you are going to be a perfect, obedient wife."

Joseph pulled my violently trembling body into his arms. His eyes were red, his voice as sickeningly gentle as it used to be when we were dating.

And the "Chief's Wife," the woman who used to hold my hands down and laugh while she ripped my nails out one by one?

That was Valerie. My best friend.

"You were too rebellious before, Scarlett. Too spoiled. Your temper was unacceptable."

Back home, my parents smiled warmly, showering me with praise.

"Exactly. This is wonderful. Look how docile she is now."

Pop.

A red flare exploded over the ocean while I was squatting by a rocky pit, smashing animal bones with a rock.

I was making soup for the Chief.

If the bones weren't crushed fine enough, I would be beaten tonight.

I froze for a split second, dropped the heavy stone, and bolted toward the water.

My right leg had been mangled by a wild dog during my first year fighting for scraps. I ran with a heavy, pathetic limp.

Jagged reefs sliced open the soles of my feet. Low-hanging branches tore at my arms. I didn't care.

Rescue was here.

I truly believed rescue was here.

I stumbled and collapsed onto the sandy beach, dragging my body toward the pristine white yacht anchored in the shallows.

"Help me. Please, God, help me."

A man stood on the deck.

Tall, heavily muscled, his face smeared with bloody tribal paint, wearing a crown of feathers.

The cannibal Chief.

My entire body locked up. A second later, my knees gave out and I slammed hard into the wet sand.

"Master. I wasn't running away."

"I was looking for firewood. I swear I wasn't running."

I wrapped my arms around my head and pressed my forehead brutally into the sand. My voice was a broken, terrified squeak.

A soft sigh floated down from above me.

"Scarlett."

Perfect, unaccented English.

My head snapped up.

The Chief slowly pulled off his carved wooden mask. He wiped the greasepaint from his jaw, revealing a face I knew better than my own.

Joseph.

My billionaire fianc.

My lips trembled uncontrollably. It took me agonizing seconds to choke out a single word. "...Joseph?"

He stepped off the boat and crouched in front of me. Just like he had done a thousand times before we got engaged, he reached out and gently stroked my hair.

"It's me."

"Don't be scared. It's over."

I stared at him. My brain felt like it was being cleaved in half with an axe.

A familiar giggle echoed behind him.

The "Chief's Wife", the woman who always pinned my wrists while iron pliers tore my nails from their beds, took off her bone mask.

Valerie.

My ride-or-die best friend.

"Scarlett, why do you look like that?" Valerie smiled, crouching down next to me. "You should be thrilled. Joseph went through so much trouble to set this up for you."

I stared at her. A deafening ringing filled my ears.

Joseph pulled me into his chest. His voice was velvet.

"Scarlett, you used to fight with me constantly. You threatened to cancel the wedding. You kept saying you wanted to build your own startup."

"You were too proud. Too independent. You had no idea that a marriage can't survive on just love."

"I had to use extreme measures to teach you how to submit. To teach you how to rely on me. I had to rip those thorns right out of you."

His hand rubbed my spine, soothing me like a spooked stray dog.

"I know you suffered out here."

"But if I didn't do this, you would never have learned how to be a proper wife."

"It's all good now."

"You finally know your place."

My blood turned to ice. My stomach violently rebelled, and I threw up right there in the sand.

Valerie immediately jumped back in disgust.

But Joseph didn't flinch. He used an expensive pocket square to wipe the bile from my lips, his eyes practically swimming with tender affection.

"Alright, let's go home."

"Your parents are waiting for you."

That was the exact moment I realized the truth.

These past three years weren't a shipwreck. They weren't an act of God.

It was a calculated, custom-built slaughterhouse designed just for me.

The day we flew back, the Montgomery and Vance families threw a massive welcome home gala.

Joseph wanted the entire elite social circle to know he had brought his missing bride back from the dead.

The ballroom was blindingly bright, dripping in crystal and designer perfume.

I wore a high-necked, long-sleeved gown to hide the mosaic of scars covering my body. I wore lace gloves to hide the missing fingernails.

Joseph held my hand tightly, parading me through the crowd to soak up the compliments.

"Joseph is a saint. Searching for three years and finally bringing her home."

"Look at her. She went through hell, but she looks so much softer and tamer now."

"Now that is exactly how a bride should act."

Joseph soaked it all in, thoroughly satisfied.

He squeezed my hand and whispered, "See? Everyone loves the new you."

I kept my head down. I didn't say a word.

Right then, a waiter wheeled out a cart for table-side flamb steaks.

The moment the liquor hit the hot pan, a massive fireball erupted into the air.

I let out a blood-curdling scream. My legs buckled and I dropped to the floor, scrambling on all fours to hide under the nearest banquet table.

"Don't burn me! I'll eat it! I'll eat the raw meat! Please don't burn me!"

I dragged the tablecloth down with me. Expensive wine glasses and plates shattered across the marble floor.

The entire ballroom went dead silent.

Joseph's face tightened. He immediately reached down to pull me up.

But the second I saw his hand approaching, it was like looking at a glowing red branding iron. I curled into a tight ball, wrapping my arms defensively over my head.

"I'm sorry. I won't run. Please don't use the fire."

Joseph froze.

He dropped to one knee, scooped me out from under the table, and started whispering in my ear.

"Scarlett, it's okay. We aren't on the island anymore. As long as you are a good girl, no one is going to burn you."

He held me tight and flashed an apologetic smile to the stunned billionaires. "I am so sorry, everyone. Scarlett just got back and is still adjusting. I am going to nurse her back to health."

That night, Joseph brought me back to the master suite of his penthouse.

The moment the door clicked shut, he wrapped his arms around me from behind. His warm lips pressed against the nape of my neck.

"Scarlett, tonight we can finally sleep in a real bed."

His hands trailed down to my waist, carrying a very obvious, suffocating implication.

My entire body turned into a block of cement.

A familiar, horrifying tremor shot up my spine.

His expensive cologne suddenly warped in my nostrils, smelling exactly like rotting fish and cheap tribal face paint.

On the island, whenever Valerie whipped me with thorny vines until I was half-dead, the masked "Chief" would step out of the shadows.

He would stroke my bleeding back exactly like this. And then, ignoring my agonizing screams and my torn flesh, he would force himself onto me in the mud.

He called that brutal violation a "Master's reward" for surviving the day.

"Don't touch me!" I screamed, violently shoving him away. I scrambled backward, falling off the bed and slamming into the corner of the room, dry heaving.

Joseph's hands hovered in the air. His face turned thunderous.

But eventually, he just sighed and tossed a towel at me.

"I know you need time. I won't force you tonight."

He turned on his heel and went to the guest room.

In the middle of the night, footsteps echoed in the hallway.

It was just a maid going to the bathroom. But to my broken brain, it sounded exactly like the island guards doing their nightly patrols.

I threw myself off the mattress, crawled into the deepest, darkest corner of the walk-in closet, and curled into a tight ball. I dug my ruined nails into the floorboards, too terrified to even breathe.

On the island, the only way to survive the night without being spotted by wild animals or the savages was to sleep pressed against the freezing stone walls.

Right before dawn, Joseph opened the bedroom door.

He stared at the empty bed. Then, he found me huddled like a beaten stray dog in his closet.

"Why are you sleeping on the floor?" he asked, frowning, reaching out to pick me up.

I flinched violently and clamped my hands over the back of my neck.

"Master, I wasn't being lazy. I'll get back to work right now."

Joseph's hand stopped. A complicated emotion flickered in his eyes, but he aggressively scooped me up and dumped me back onto the mattress.

"Scarlett, you are my wife now. You don't have to do manual labor anymore."

The next morning, his private doctor came to do a full checkup.

The blood tests confirmed it. I was two months pregnant.

Joseph looked stunned for a second, then his face lit up with absolute euphoria.

He crouched in front of my chair, gripping both my hands like they were a sacred treasure.

"Scarlett, this is incredible. A baby is exactly what we need to anchor you. From now on, we are going to be a perfect family."

I yanked my hands out of his grip. My voice shook. "I don't want it."

Joseph paused. His tone remained frighteningly patient.

"Don't be difficult. Your temper has gotten so much better lately. Having a baby will only help you settle down."

I stared at him, and the tears just spilled over.

"Joseph, that whole year. It was you. Every night you..."

I had survived on my own for two years in that jungle. In the third year, the fake tribe captured me and turned me into a slave.

I couldn't even finish the sentence.

He acted like he didn't understand the horror in my eyes. He just reached out and wiped my tears away.

"Scarlett, it's in the past. If you didn't go through that, you never would have realized how important having a home is."

"As long as you understand the value of family now, it was all worth it."

I stopped crying instantly.

So that was it. In his eyes, letting Valerie pull my nails out, raping me when my mind was shattered, training me like a literal farm animal... all of that was just "teaching me how to be a wife."

Joseph drove me to the Montgomery estate.

He said since we were having a baby, my parents needed to know.

I hadn't seen them in three years.

I used to think that even if the whole world sided with Joseph, my own mother and father would protect me.

When they saw me walk through the door, neither of them hugged me.

My mother's eyes dropped straight to my stomach. She frowned in disgust.

"Pregnant before the wedding? Do you have any idea how bad this makes our family look?"

Joseph stepped in smoothly. "Mrs. Montgomery, Scarlett's situation is unique. This child is"

"I was asking her," my mother snapped, cutting him off. She glared at me. "Three years fighting for your life, and instead of learning some grace, you come back knocked up? Haven't you humiliated the Montgomery name enough?"

My throat tightened. "Mom. It wasn't like that. I was forced"

"Enough!" my father roared, slamming his hand on the mahogany coffee table. "Joseph already filled us in on everything."

"Do you even remember how you used to act?"

"Arrogant, selfish, flipping out over nothing. You refused to listen to anyone. Threatening to break off the engagement every time Joseph tried to guide you. You were a walking PR nightmare. What man would put up with that?"

"But look at you now. You swallowed some bitter pills, and you finally know how to bow your head."

I stared at the floor. All I ever wanted was to avoid an arranged marriage and build my own tech company before settling down.

My mother chimed in. Her voice was quieter, but the words cut infinitely deeper.

"Look at you now. You're so quiet. So polite."

"If you had just acted like this from the start, none of this drama would have happened."

I stood frozen, my fingers going numb.

"But Mom. They weren't saving me on that island."

"Valerie used pliers to rip my fingernails out. When I tried to run, they broke my leg. And at night. At night Joseph would hold me down and..."

I choked on my own words. Thick, hot tears streamed down my face.

My mother just rolled her eyes.

"Stop it. Talking about things like that in front of us is incredibly vulgar. And even if something did happen, that is private business between an engaged couple."

"Besides, if you really fought back, who could actually force you to do anything?"

My father scoffed. "Exactly. The truth is, you just never respected the institution of marriage. Now that Joseph has finally put a leash on you, you're throwing a tantrum."

Those words scrambled my brain like a blender.

Flashbacks of the island hit me like physical blows.

Valerie pressing red-hot wire against my calf, forcing me to swallow chunks of bloody, raw meat.

And Joseph, sitting just a few feet away in a throne made of animal skins, watching with dead, cold eyes.

As long as I refused to spread my legs and beg for him, Valerie's torture never stopped. Every time I screamed, Joseph would just sigh and say, "She still hasn't learned."

To stay alive, I had to crawl through the mud to his boots and beg him for mercy.

And now, my own flesh and blood were asking me why I didn't just fight back.

I looked at the people who raised me, completely incapable of forming a single word.

My mother stepped closer. Her tone shifted into something sickeningly comforting.

"Listen to your mother."

"The most important thing for a woman is to secure a good marriage."

"Joseph spent a massive fortune and so much energy to fix your personality. That proves he truly loves you."

"With the way you used to behave, he is the only man on earth who would still want you."

"Now that you're pregnant, stop playing the victim. Marry him, keep your mouth shut, and be a respectable society wife. Stop embarrassing us."

They knew.

They knew everything.

But they didn't care about the barbaric, inhuman torture I endured. They only cared that the wild stallion had finally been broken into a docile, breeding mare.

Joseph walked over and wrapped a protective arm around my shaking shoulders.

"Scarlett, they just want what's best for you. Look, we have a baby on the way. It's time to settle down."

That night, in my childhood bedroom, I started bleeding heavily.

The doctor said the emotional trauma was causing a threatened miscarriage.

Joseph sat by the bed, his eyes bloodshot from stress.

"Scarlett, don't be scared. The baby will make it. Just please, for my sake and the baby's, stop fighting me. Just behave. Please?"

I lay flat on the mattress and slowly turned my head to face the blank wall.

In that exact second, the very last shred of hope I had for humanity evaporated into thin air.

The night of the Joseph Corporation's annual charity gala, he personally picked out my dress.

A flowing white gown with a high, loose empire waist, perfectly concealing the slight bump in my stomach.

As he locked a diamond necklace around my throat, his voice was as patient as a man talking to a toddler. "Scarlett, don't be nervous tonight. After this, the whole world is going to know that you are finally fixed."

He loved using that word. "Fixed." As if the old me, the woman who had pride and dignity, was a diseased monster that needed putting down.

He held my hand tight the entire evening.

He paraded me around, telling investors that while I was still recovering from the shock of the island, I was healing beautifully.

Men praised me for being so gentle. Women whispered that Joseph truly knew how to tame a wild heart.

Whenever he heard those comments, Joseph just smiled proudly.

Halfway through the night, he led me to the grand piano in the center of the room.

"Scarlett, play something for us. Mariage d'Amour. It used to be your favorite."

My entire body locked up.

My fingers started to violently shake. The eight fingernails that had been ripped out had only just started growing a paper-thin layer of new keratin. Pressing them against solid piano keys would be agonizing.

Joseph noticed my hesitation. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. "Don't be scared. The only way to forget the past is to push through the pain."

He said it with such absolute conviction.

As if forcing me to press my most agonizing physical wounds into my most traumatic memories was an act of profound love.

I sat down. I pressed the first key.

A sharp, blinding pain shot straight into my finger bones.

All the color drained from my face, but I kept playing. Halfway through the song, blood started seeping from my nail beds.

Little red droplets smeared across the pristine ivory keys.

Joseph stood right beside the bench. His eyes were actually shining with pride.

Like a strict teacher watching a slow student finally ace a test.

When the song ended, the room erupted in applause. Joseph pulled me up and kissed my forehead. "Good girl."

Right then, a man in a tailored suit walked over, holding a cocktail. "Congratulations, Joseph."

I recognized that voice instantly. On the island, he was one of the fake savages. He was the one who loved making me bark like a dog for fresh water.

They were all in on it. Every single one of them.

The man looked at me, a nasty smirk on his face. "Miss Montgomery, care to cheers?"

I kept my head bowed and offered my glass of sparkling cider. He deliberately tilted his wrist, dumping his entire martini straight into my face.

Ice cold alcohol dripped from my eyelashes and soaked my hair.

Without a second of hesitation, I raised my right hand and slapped myself across the face as hard as I could.

Smack.

I swung again.

Smack.

"I'm sorry. I was clumsy. I failed."

I chanted the apology mechanically. It was a reflex burned directly into my nervous system.

On the island, any mistake required immediate, violent self-punishment. If I hesitated, I would be thrown into the underground water cage.

The entire ballroom gasped in horror. Even the man who spilled the drink took a step back, visibly spooked.

Joseph's face went pale. He grabbed my wrists, real panic bleeding into his voice.

"Scarlett, stop! No one is mad at you!"

But my body wouldn't stop violently trembling. I collapsed against his chest, and suddenly, a sharp, stabbing cramp ripped through my lower abdomen. Hot, thick liquid began pooling down my thighs.

Joseph looked down, saw the dark red blood staining the hem of my white dress, and his composure completely shattered. "A doctor! Get a fucking doctor right now!"

The gala devolved into pure chaos. Valerie sprinted over in her designer heels, screaming, "Why is she bleeding?!"

I couldn't stand. Joseph scooped me up into his arms, shaking like a leaf. "It's going to be fine. The baby will be fine..."

But just as he turned toward the exit, the massive projector screen at the back of the stage went completely black.

A few seconds later, it flickered back to life. The footage that began to play caused several women in the room to scream in absolute terror.

Joseph froze mid-step. He stared up at the giant screen, and for the very first time, I saw genuine, unadulterated terror shatter his arrogant face.

And in that exact moment of distraction, I used every ounce of adrenaline left in my dying body. I grabbed a jagged, broken shard of a champagne flute from the nearest table, and violently jammed it directly into my own jugular.

"Scarlett!!" Joseph let out a sound that didn't even sound human.

I looked at him, gave him a bloody, triumphant smile, and sliced deep.

Hot blood sprayed like a fountain across his immaculate white shirt. In the final second before my vision faded to black, looking at his completely destroyed, hysterical face, I felt nothing but the pure, intoxicating euphoria of revenge.

Die.

Once I was dead, I would never have to be his "perfect wife" ever again.