The Cost of Love: Abandoned and Broken

The Cost of Love: Abandoned and Broken

Lucy Cartwright

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My life was perfect: a star quarterback, engaged to my high school sweetheart, Chloe, and surrounded by a loving adoptive family who always put me first. Then Liam appeared, claiming to be my long-lost biological half-brother, weaving tragic tales that instantly captivated everyone around me. One by one, my adoptive mother, my three stepsisters, and even Chloe, chose him, abandoning me completely when a flash flood swept me away, leading to my brutal kidnapping and torture, which they dismissed as my own fault. Liam stole my dreams, my scholarship, and then my last chance to play football, while my family celebrated him as their new hero, claiming I was "not up to it." The ultimate betrayal came when he brazenly wore my jacket and used a precious, deeply personal memento, meant for the child Chloe had lied about losing, as a dog toy. How could everyone I loved turn their backs so easily, believing every lie from a stranger while my entire life shattered around me? With nothing left but the raw ache of their indifference, I walked out of that house and that town forever, determined to find a new life, far from the shadows of my past and the people who destroyed me.

Introduction

My life was perfect: a star quarterback, engaged to my high school sweetheart, Chloe, and surrounded by a loving adoptive family who always put me first.

Then Liam appeared, claiming to be my long-lost biological half-brother, weaving tragic tales that instantly captivated everyone around me.

One by one, my adoptive mother, my three stepsisters, and even Chloe, chose him, abandoning me completely when a flash flood swept me away, leading to my brutal kidnapping and torture, which they dismissed as my own fault. Liam stole my dreams, my scholarship, and then my last chance to play football, while my family celebrated him as their new hero, claiming I was "not up to it."

The ultimate betrayal came when he brazenly wore my jacket and used a precious, deeply personal memento, meant for the child Chloe had lied about losing, as a dog toy. How could everyone I loved turn their backs so easily, believing every lie from a stranger while my entire life shattered around me?

With nothing left but the raw ache of their indifference, I walked out of that house and that town forever, determined to find a new life, far from the shadows of my past and the people who destroyed me.

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His Quiet Escape

His Quiet Escape

LGBT+

5.0

My wife, Vicky, said she had a business trip. "It's important, Ethan," she' d said, not looking at me. That was her excuse for missing the music festival, the one I' d bought tickets for months ago. So I went alone. Then, on the main stage screen, there she was, smiling next to Dylan Hayes, her college ex. The interviewer asked about inspiration. "Sometimes you wish you could go back to a simpler time," Vicky cooed, her eyes on Dylan. "Like, three years ago, before I made certain life choices." Three years ago. That's when we got married. My stomach dropped. The beer tasted like poison. My own public declaration of divorce at an open mic that night spiraled into a media frenzy. Vicky, terrified of public backlash, hit back. Not at me, but at my sick younger brother, Liam. She threatened to cut off funding for his life-saving leukemia treatments unless I went along with her sanitized PR narrative: we'd "amicably separated," and she was simply "reconnecting" with her new business partner-Dylan. The injustice burned. To leverage my brother's health for her image? To see her ex-lover ensconced in her company, a reminder of her betrayal? I was trapped, but I wouldn't be broken. She wanted a new chapter without me? Fine. I would write one for me and Liam. That night, while she celebrated her carefully crafted facade, I packed our bags. I typed up a divorce petition, signed it, and left it on her pristine kitchen island. I found a new, fully-funded clinical trial for Liam across the country. My brother' s treatment, my escape. We were gone, leaving her to face the consequences of her choices.

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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