My Fiancé's Ultimate Deception

wers, read to me from books I didn't care for, and tried to engage me in small talk. His presence, instead of being com

d one afternoon, his voice laced with force

ed, my gaze fixed on the hospital window.

vibrant artist. But I was never really his wild card. I was just the cheap substitute, the r

ation. "Shut up, Clarissa!" he would yell, his face contorted in anger. "You're acti

tied me to the bed, gagged me with a scarf, and left me there. He didn't come back until the next morning. I had managed to free myself, but the house had caught fire due to a faulty wire in the kitchen. I almost died. The n

ss fertility treatments. I got pregnant. With twins. High-risk, but viable. And then, at Annis's whisp

red the last fragile t

t up to me. "Punish me, Clarissa," he pleaded, tears glisteni

was gone. The tiny heartbeats, the dreams we'd woven, the future I'd

washing over me. "Go do whatever it is you have to d

t me, a question in his

voice flat. "I'm not angry

had kept off for the last two days. The moment it powered on, it exploded with notifications.

to the door. "Something's come up. An emergency at

m satisfaction settling in my ch

g distraught, clinging to some executive from Coleton's company, a caption about "malevolent forces trying t

foreign and heavy. I walked to the open window and, without a second thought, tossed it out. It glitte