“Isabelle, are you really still this clueless?
“This was never about that bastard baby. I wanted everything you had!
Fold Up
“I used to be the most beautiful girl on campus. But then you showed up, and suddenly everyone loved you-teachers, classmates, all of them.
“I finally got you kicked out, but you bounced back as the precious Mrs. Thornton!”
“And my brother-he saw you once and lost his damn mind. Got into fights over you.
“And my mom? Just one look at you, and she said you looked like…”
She cut herself off. Her eyes turned dark. Venomous.
The whip lashed across my shoulder. My clothes split open, skin shredded. Blood bloomed.
I screamed. My body trembled uncontrollably.
Marcella laughed, pure delight in her eyes.
“Hahaha!”
“Look at you. You really thought someone low-born like you could live like royalty?”
But that’s not true.
I remembered when I was little, important men from TV used to visit my grandparents.
It was my grandma who stopped them from coming, afraid they’d disturb my brother and me while we studied…
“You’re going to regret this, Marcella!”
“Regret?” she sneered. “If I don’t beat you, that’s what I’ll regret.”
She raised the whip again.
Creak.
The basement door opened.
Jacob stood in the doorway, tall, unmoving. His eyes were fixed on me, dark and unreadable.
“You’re just in time, Jake,” Marcella said sweetly, tossing the whip aside and running into his
arms.
“I was just teaching her a lesson. If she hadn’t guilt-tripped you into marrying her, we wouldn’t have lost all those years!”
Guilt-tripped? That’s not what happened.
It was his grandmother who came to my house with gifts, begging my grandma to let me marry
him.
But here they were, rewriting the story-turning me into the villain.
Jacob said nothing. Just stared at me, eyes cold.
Fold Up
Our marriage had been arranged by both families. His elders had told him to be good to me, to treat me well. He’d hated the word “debt” from the beginning.
Marcella, sensing his silence, wrapped her arms around his neck, her voice syrupy.
“Jake, you have me now. Why not send her to the underground auction?
“I heard there are a lot of men in Boston who’ve been waiting for her…”
Something snapped in his eyes. A storm.
He stepped forward and grabbed my fractured shoulder, fingers digging into the break.
“Sounds good…” he said.
“Let’s see how many men still want a woman I’ve already thrown away.”
Tears streamed down my face from the pain-but even that couldn’t compare to what I felt inside.
Boston’s underground auctions always saved the “best” for last-stunning women sold to the highest bidder.
Pretty words called them companions.
The truth?
Sex slaves.
Three years. We’d had good moments.
And now he was throwing me on an auction block…
I think I had a fever.
The basement was damp. My wound was infected-oozing pus and bleeding.
I was curled up on the floor, shaking. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, but I was burning up inside.
My head was pounding. Everything was going fuzzy again.
I dreamed of when I was little. My family adored me. My brother, lan Zimmer, treated me like a princess.
Then suddenly, I married Jacob. My baby got tossed in the trash. His bone marrow was fed to a dog.
My fingers were crushed. Marcella curled up in his arms…
Heaven to hell. Just like that.
I missed lan. I missed Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa. They called all the time, ? was okay.
Fold Up
I lied every time and said Jacob was good to me.
My whole body hurts. Everything was so heavy.
I was like a moth free-falling into hell.
My baby was down there, reaching for me.
I wanted to die.
If I died, I could be with him. He was so small… He never even learned to walk…
When I woke up, I caught the scent of cedar-familiar and expensive.
Silk sheets brushed against my skin. The 200-thousand-dollar chandelier above scattered little specks of light across the ceiling.
My shoulder was in a cast. Fingers bandaged. An IV needle in my arm. Clear fluid dripping into my veins. Antibiotics and fever meds sat on the nightstand.
This was Jacob’s room.
Since the night he first took me two years ago, this had been our bedroom.
“You’re up?”
His voice came from the couch-low and rough.
He was in loungewear, slouched on one side of the couch. A cigarette between his lips-unlit. Spinning a lighter in his hand.
His face was half lost in the light from the floor lamp.
I opened my mouth, lips dry and cracked. My voice came out like air from a busted bellows.
“You saved me?”
“Why…”
The hope in my eyes was obvious.
Jacob walked to the bed, looking down at me. His eyes were cold.
“The underground auction in Boston sells stuff they can’t put on the market. The kind of place where only the rich and powerful play.
“You were once a Thornton. If you end up crippled, people would think we abused you. That’s not a look my family can afford.”
I laughed. It was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.
He offered up our baby to the woman he loved. He did this to me. And now he said ” Thornton family had a reputation to protect?
Fold Up
Laughing pulled at my wound. Pain stabbed my gut. I sucked in a sharp breath.
Jacob frowned, irritated.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Oh, just laughing about how I managed to stay alive. Thanks for that.
“If you’ve got nothing else to say, Mr. Thornton, stop wasting my time. I’ve got wounds to heal. Wouldn’t want to embarrass your precious family again.”
I threw off the covers, pretending I was getting up to use the bathroom. Blood had already soaked through my pajama top.
His gaze lingered on the stain. His lips parted slightly.
“What?” I snapped. “Are you planning to help me pee too?”
He stared into my eyes but didn’t say a word. Just let out a quiet sigh as he walked out the door.
I smirked.
I hadn’t died. So I was going to live-really live.
And I was going to make damn sure every last one of them knew, when someone they’d crushed got back up, she wasn’t just holding back tears. She was holding a poison-tipped blade and ready to cut!
I’d make you all suffer. Equally. Miserably!
I called lan. The second he picked up, I broke down sobbing.
He panicked. “Belle, what happened? Did that bastard Jacob hurt you again?”
“lan, I want to see you tomorrow.”
I heard gunfire on his end. Explosions. Wind roaring from helicopter blades.
In the chaos, he shouted into the phone, “Belle, I’m coming for you. Right now!”
This was the top hotel in Boston. The dome sparkled with crystal chandeliers, shining bright.
I was stuffed into a clear acrylic box, limbs bound by white velvet ropes, wearing nothing but a paper-thin white dress.
It was picked personally by Marcella. She said the buyer needed to see every inch of the product.
When the box was lifted onto the rotating platform, hundreds of men’s burning, lewd gaze locked onto me.
In the front row, rich men in suits rolled cigars between their fingers.
Fold Up
In the back, tattooed thugs tugged at their collars, revealing grotesque scars.
Even shadows in the upstairs VIP rooms glinted with binoculars scanning over me.
“Mrs. Thornton really is something else. Her figure…”
