Chapter 30%
Jessica Valcruz wore white on her wedding night but it was nothing like Athena’s beautiful fairytale gown.. just a hands–me–down from one of the maids.
Instead of the grandeur, a mere paper was signed and she was given water and half baked food as wedding gifts.
The world had watched in confusion as she, the disgraced Valcruz daughter married Gregory Carson, the seventy–year–old titan of steel and scandal. Rumors swirled that she was sold off as and even her own father publically disowned her. But Jessica walked down the aisle with a smile so rehearsed it could slice glass.
“Smile for the cameras. Gregory had whispered, lips like dry parchment. “This is your last chance at relevance.”
But that night when the doors to the Carson estate bedroom clicked shut Jessica didn’t tremble.
She waited.
She waited as he poured wine, as he lit cigars with wrinkled fingers and boasted about how “young women like her need to learn humility”
Then, when he tumed his back, she pulled the jagged piece of broken
n glass fr
from her corset.X
And plunged it into his neck.
Again.
And again.
The guards found her soaked in blood, standing barefoot on the marble, murmuring: “No one owns me! I am born to become a rich madam not an ugly bastards bed toy!“}
She didn’t run far. But she ran loud,
Straight into courtrooms, dressed in white crocodile tears shimmering in her eyes as she sued Mason Valcruz her father with a lawsuit saying that he sold her off for money.
“I was abused,” she cried. “It was self–defense. He wanted to break me. I did what I had to.”
For a brief moment, the media stirred. Headlines read: “Valcruz Daughter Fights Back” and “Jessica’s fight–support her cause“!!
But justice has a way of peeling back pretty skin
And what it found undemeath was rot.
The Carson family released the evidence. The footage. The testimonies and soon Jessica’s schemes against her own sister. Her betrayal of James Carson. Her planted scandals and the evil face was all revealed. The video files of her selling Athena’s dignity for her own social climb.
Courtrooms gasped
Reporters reeled.
And Jessica?
Was sentenced to thirty–five years without parole.
They took her heels. Her earrings. Her mirrors,}
And threw her into a place where no one cared who she once was.
PRISONS
Jessica Valcruz’s fingers clawed at the TV screen as static buzzed and Athena’s wedding coverage ended.
Her lips curled into a snarl, breath ragged.B
“She took everything. everything. And now she gets him too?“!
Her eyes locked on the image frozen in her mind–Killian Arrows, all sharp jawline and brutal devotion, his hand cradling Athena’s waist like she was worth the world.
Jessica’s fists slammed into the bolted table.
“I should’ve had that life, she spat. “He should’ve been mine. Not hers.”
Across the common area, a group of women in ragged uniforms snorted.
“Someone shut that lunatic up, one muttered. “She thinks she’s a princess in a pigsty.”
Jessica turned,
“What did you say?”
A tall woman with a cruel scar leaned forward. “You heard me, sweetheart. Nobody cares who you were. Out here, you’re just meat with a mouth
Jessica stormed toward them, rage bubbling under her bruised skin, “Say it again.”
And she did.
A second later, fists flew.
The guards were slow to respond and no one really cared when prisoners bled.
Hair was yanked, Skin was bitten as Jessica’s screams echoed off the cement walls as someone slammed her against the iron bars. She tried to fight. Tried to claw back the last shards of her pride.
five anninst one didn’t care about pride
10:06 AM c d
But five against one didn’t care about pride.}]
A punch cracked across her jaw. Blood sprayed from her nose. A knee to the ribs. Her body curled in on itself as boots found her stomach, her back, her spine.
“Think you’re better than us?” someone hissed.”
“Rich bitch gonna cry now?”
Jessica didn’t cry.
She laughed.
A broken, hollow laugh.D
Because somewhere in her mind, the wedding was still playing.
She could see Athena smiling. Killian spinning her under golden lights. The world bowing at her sister’s feet.!!
And Jessica?
Left bleeding on concrete.
Stripped of her name.
Of her power.E
Of everything.[
As she lost consciousness, one thought seared through her mind like flame:”
Af I ever get out.. I will burn her world down.”
But no one would let her out.
Not anymore.
