Rejected Luna I Will Take Everything Mine by Stevanyla

For seven years, I was a prisoner in a wheelchair, and my husband, Carter, was my devoted savior. After the accident that stole my legs, he fed me, bathed me, and carried me. He was my entire world.

Then I discovered his secret: he was having an affair with Jade, the daughter of the man who crippled me. My "recovery" smoothies weren't for healing; they were laced with sedatives to keep me weak and dependent.

When I confronted them, Jade pushed me down the stairs. As I lay bleeding on the cold marble floor, I felt a sharp, agonizing pain. I was losing our baby.

Carter looked down at me with disgust.

"You're pathetic, Alayna. Stay here and rot."

He walked out, leaving me to die.

But I didn't die. My family found me. And as I slowly, miraculously, learned to walk again, the broken wife he knew was gone.

They took my legs, my child, and my trust. Now, I would take everything from them.

Chapter 1

My world had shrunk to the confines of this mansion, a gilded cage where the only freedom I knew was the turning of the pages of a book. For seven long years, my legs had been useless, souvenirs of an accident I barely remembered, a blur of screeching tires and searing pain. Carter, my husband, had been my rock, my devoted caregiver, or so I had believed. He fed me, bathed me, carried me, his strong arms a constant presence. He was the only window to the outside world, my sole connection to a life I' d lost.

Then Jade Howard arrived. She was Carter' s new live-in assistant, a whirlwind of efficiency and charm. She moved with a strange, almost unsettling grace, her smile a little too wide, her eyes a little too bright. There was something about her, a flicker in her gaze, a certain angle of her jaw, that snagged at a forgotten corner of my mind. It was a phantom ache, a whisper of dread that I couldn't quite place.

"She's excellent, isn't she, Alayna?" Carter would say, his voice warm with approval as Jade effortlessly navigated the house, bringing me tea, organizing Carter's chaotic schedule. "So capable. A real asset to the company."

I' d try to voice my unease. "There's just something about her, Carter. I can't put my finger on it, but she... she reminds me of someone." He would brush it off, a gentle hand on my forehead, a dismissive chuckle. "You're just not used to new faces, my love. Being cooped up can make you imagine things." His words, meant to soothe, only amplified the gnawing suspicion in my gut. I hated feeling helpless, hated being dismissed.

I started watching her. Not overtly, but with the quiet intensity of someone whose only currency was observation. I noticed the way she' d sometimes flinch when a car horn blared outside, a subtle tremor in her hand when she poured water. Little things, insignificant to anyone else, but to me, they were pixels in a blurry image struggling to come into focus. One afternoon, while she was busy in Carter's study, I managed to wheel my chair close enough to peek at her open laptop. A photo winked back at me from her desktop background: a smiling young Jade, arm-in-arm with a man. My breath hitched. It was just a glance, a fleeting image, but it was enough. The man' s face was older, lined, but unmistakable. My mind screamed. Fidencio Howard. The sketch artist' s rendering from the old police file, the one they still hadn' t closed, the one Carter always made sure I never saw. The hit-and-run driver. Her father.

A hot wave of nausea swept over me. My hands tingled, then went numb. My vision blurred, the room spinning around me. This wasn't some vague suspicion anymore. This was concrete, terrifying truth. My body, already a prison, now felt like it was actively betraying me, trembling with a mixture of shock and white-hot rage. I wanted to scream, to shatter the elegant silence of this house, but the sound was trapped in my throat, a painful gasp.

I had to act. I had to. My heart hammered against my ribs, a furious drumbeat of defiance. This wasn't just about me anymore. This was about justice. My first thought was to confront them, to expose the lie that had festered for so long. I pushed myself away from the laptop, the wheels of my chair scraping softly on the polished floor, a sound that in my heightened state felt deafening. I gripped the armrests, my knuckles white, a fierce resolve hardening my gaze. I would make them pay.

I wheeled myself towards Carter' s office, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Every turn felt like a monumental effort, every inch forward a battle against my own failing body. Just as I reached the slightly ajar door, a murmur of voices stopped me cold. It was Carter. And Jade. My hand froze on the cold metal of my chair.

"Are you sure she's settled, Jade?" Carter' s voice was laced with a frantic anxiety I'd never heard directed at me. "I don't want her making any trouble. Not right now."

"She's fine, Carter," Jade purred, her voice dripping with false concern. "Just took her usual evening smoothie. She'll be out cold soon enough."

My blood ran cold. Smoothie? The one he insisted I drink every evening for "recovery." Recovery he had been sabotaging all along?

"Are you sure about this, Carter?" another voice, gruffer, older, interjected. It was Mr. Henderson, Carter's long-time business partner, who often stopped by. "Keeping Alayna sedated... It's a dangerous game. And bringing Jade's father into the picture, even just to hide him... What if someone finds out?"

"No one will find out!" Carter snapped, his voice now a low, dangerous growl. "I've covered every track. And Fidencio is perfectly safe, hidden away. He won't be a problem."

Fidencio. The name echoed in my mind, a death knell to my sanity.

"But why, Carter?" Mr. Henderson pressed, sounding genuinely disturbed. "Why go through all this for Jade's father? You risked everything."

A breath, heavy with self-pity and a chilling sense of possessiveness, escaped Carter's lips. "Because Jade was... is my true love. The one I should have been with all along. The accident... it was an opportunity. Fidencio crippled Alayna, yes, but it meant Jade needed me. She was so lost, so vulnerable. I couldn't let her father go to jail, not if it meant losing her. Alayna was just... collateral."