Chapter 2

The faux-pine stench of aerosol air freshener hit me the second I pushed open the front door.

Liam stood in the foyer, spray can in hand, his brow pulled tight in a knot of sheer disgust as he watched me cross the threshold.

"You dragged that sewer stench into the house again." He took a sharp step back and aimed the nozzle directly at the air around me, holding down the trigger. "Noah is coming home any minute to grab his cello sheet music. Are you trying to make him sick again?"

I didn't answer. The pulmonary fibrosis made every breath I drew feel like swallowing ground glass. I dragged my leaden legs toward the hallway, desperate to retreat to the cramped basement room that had become my designated exile.

"Stop." Liam closed the distance in two long strides and clamped his hand around my arm.

He yanked me down the hall toward the utility closet. The tiny space was a claustrophobic hoard of industrial bleach, ammonia, and heavy-duty disinfectants.

"You need to calm down. Take a minute to think about that hysterical stunt you pulled at the hospital today," Liam snapped, shoving me inside without a shred of hesitation. "And while you're in there, use some of that bleach to scrub the stench of dead bodies off your skin!"

Slam. The door jerked shut, instantly followed by the sharp click of the deadbolt locking from the outside.

There were no windows in the closet. Pitch-black darkness and the suffocating fumes of chemical solvents collapsed on me all at once.

Six years ago. A sealed crime scene. The memory of nearly asphyxiating to death on formaldehyde rushed back in like a tidal wave, pulling me under. My throat seized, spasming completely out of control.

"Liam... open the door..." I threw myself against the solid wood, palms slapping it blindly. Oxygen deprivation clawed at my brain, and bloody red spots began blooming across my vision in the dark.

"I’m teaching you how to be civilized, Chloe," his voice filtered through the wood, chillingly composed. "Don't use those gutter-level, hysterical theatrics on me."

"Please... I can't breathe..." I clawed desperately at the doorframe, my fingernails scraping against the jamb. I gasped out, fighting for oxygen, but all I sucked in were highly concentrated chemical fumes. Every breath felt like it was accelerating the tearing of my already petrified lungs.

My knees gave out. My body slid down the door in an uncontrollable heap to the floor.

Just as the darkness threatened to swallow me permanently—just as I thought I was going to die on that linoleum floor—the deadbolt tumbled open.

I tumbled blindly out of the closet, collapsing onto the hardwood. Violent, ragged coughs ripped through my chest as my fingers locked in a death grip around the hem of Liam’s slacks.

"Don't... don't ever lock me in there again..." I tilted my head up, my voice barely a thread. "I'll die..."

Liam stared down at me from above. There wasn't an ounce of pity in his eyes—only deep, seething annoyance. "Playing the victim again, Chloe. Really? Do you honestly think this cheap little pity party is going to emotionally blackmail me?"

He forcefully jerked his pant leg free from my grasp.

"You spend fifteen hours a day soaking in grotesque crime scenes just fine, but five minutes in a utility closet is going to kill you? Can you ever stop lying?"

I sat slumped on the cold floor, staring up at the man whose life I had bought back with my own.

The past six years flickered before my eyes in a disjointed nightmare.

To scrape together the money for his heart transplant, I had let site managers maliciously dock my pay. I had stood there as grieving families pointed their fingers and screamed abuse in my face. There were even sick creeps who secretly filmed me scraping liquefying brain matter out of rotting carpets to post on the dark web for kicks.

I had knelt in a putrid, maggot-infested dumpster at two in the morning during a torrential downpour, sifting through trash for a severed rotting finger, just to secure a thousand-dollar hazard bonus.

I had swallowed every ounce of humiliation and exploitation, truly believing I was saving my family.

But looking at him now, the brutal truth finally crystallized. The husband I had traded my soul to lift from the grave had used my dignity as his literal stepping stone. To him, the inhumane hell I’d endured wasn't a sacrifice; it was just proof of my inherent vulgarity. He despised the mud I had crawled through to save his life.

"Mia has everything set up for the dinner on Friday," Liam said, crouching down to eye level. His tone left zero room for negotiation. "It’s not just a celebration of my promotion. It’s our engagement party. Top media outlets and senior partners from the firm will all be there."

He pulled a folded divorce agreement from his pocket and tossed it onto the floor in front of me.

"You will attend, and you will sign this agreement in front of everyone. You're going to show the world that our marriage dissolved due to irreconcilable differences, not because I abandoned my wife. This is a rational, civilized public severance. A clean break."

I stared at the stark black print on the white paper. My throat felt thick, choked with bloody cotton. "And if I don't go?"

"Then you will never see Noah again." Liam let out a short, cold laugh. "As long as you play ball and sign on the dotted line, you keep your visitation rights, and Noah stays in his elite academy. But if you refuse, I will have my lawyers file an emergency injunction by morning. You will lose every legal right to your son before you even wake up."

A long, suffocating silence fell over the hallway.

I looked down at the fresh blood drying under my split fingernails, feeling the scarred, failing organ decaying in my chest. Two weeks. I had exactly fourteen days left on this earth.

In that precise moment, all the rage, all the crushing grief, evaporated. It was simply siphoned out of me, leaving an icy void.

Faced with a monster utterly consumed by his own arrogance and ego, tears and pleas were the most useless weapons in the world.

I slowly uncurled my fists from the floorboards. I pulled a tissue from my pocket and, with chilling tranquility, wiped away the fresh trace of black blood leaking from the corner of my mouth.

Then, using the wall for support, I pushed myself up. Inch by inch, until I was standing completely straight.

"Alright," I said, my voice dead calm. "I'll be there."