When my husband fell seriously ill, I finally had a reason to step into his office after seven years of marriage. All I wanted was to ask for his sick leave. Instead, the receptionist froze, eyes widening as she studied my face. “The man you’re talking about… he owns this company. Our boss and his wife arrive and leave together every day. Unless… you’re not his wife.” In that second, my world cracked open.

It was toward the couple.

“Are you blind?” Steven snapped at her when he saw her hesitation. “Can’t you see she’s hurt? Get an ice pack. Now.”

The girl jumped, nodding frantically. “Y-yes, sir,” she stammered, and bolted for the back room.

Blood trickled down my neck, seeping into the collar of my blouse. It felt sticky and warm for a moment, then cold as the lobby’s air chewed through my adrenaline.

My legs shook. I pressed my palm harder against the wound, forcing myself to stand straight even as black spots began to creep into the edges of my vision.

Steven finally turned his head and looked at me. Not at my injury. Just at the inconvenience of me.

“Go home,” he said briskly, as if I’d interrupted a meeting. “I need to take Genevieve to the hospital. We’ll talk about this another day.”

I almost laughed. Another day. As if this were a minor scheduling conflict.

I swallowed hard, tasting iron.

“Even from today on,” I said quietly, forcing each word out past the pounding in my skull, “we’re even.”

He frowned, impatient. “What?”

“You think eight million is too much?” I continued. My voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone at the end of a tunnel. “Fine. My dowry, my eight years of youth, the blood I’m currently shedding on your marble floor—you don’t have to pay it back today. I’ll collect it piece by piece.”

Genevieve recovered enough to lift her head and glare at me.

“You’re dreaming,” she spat.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. The dream was over; what was coming next would be ruthless reality.

I straightened as best I could. Every step toward the door sent a blade of pain through my head, but I kept my back straight, my gaze fixed forward.

People can fall, I thought, but they don’t have to bend.

I left a small, rusty trail on the lobby floor as I walked out of my husband’s kingdom for the first time.

It would not be the last.

The law firm’s fluorescent lights made everything look harsher—my bandaged scalp, my bruised ribs, the faint yellowing of the fingerprints he’d left on my arms. Before going there, I’d taken a detour to the emergency room.

“Domestic dispute,” I’d told the triage nurse when she asked how I’d gotten hurt.

Her eyes had swept from my face to my heels, to my cardigan, to the faint tremble in my hands. Something in her gaze softened.

“Come with me,” she’d said.