She Died in Chains , Now He's Crawling Back

He pulled a white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Leigh bent down and scrubbed hard at the spot on his shoe where I'd touched him. "Wipe that disgusting look off your face." He balled up the handkerchief and threw it at me. It slid off my face and landed in the blood pooling on the ground. "Ivy Chambers hasn't forgiven you yet. You don't get to touch me." I stared at the handkerchief. I didn't reach for it. I had to get away from him. Leigh straightened up and waved at the bodyguards. "Get her out of here. Don't dirty my car." Two bodyguards stepped forward. They each grabbed one of my arms and dragged me off the pile of hay. My legs had been broken months ago. The bones had healed crooked, fused at wrong angles, impossible to straighten. As the bodyguards hauled me forward, my deadened legs scraped across the ground, carving two long trails through the gravel and mud. The skin over my kneecaps split open against the rocks, exposing white slivers of bone beneath. Leigh walked out of the pigsty and stood on the dirt road at the edge of the village. Chief Hargrove and a handful of villagers waited by the roadside, thick wads of hundred-dollar bills clutched in their fists. Leigh swept his gaze over them. "You've all played your parts well these three years. Her stay here was very convincing." The Chief nodded eagerly, stuffing the money into the pocket of his threadbare coat. The bodyguards dragged me in front of Leigh and dropped me on the ground. My body slammed against the gravel road. Leigh looked down at my legs from where he stood. "You didn't want to do farmwork, so you broke your own legs." He let out a scoff through his nose. "Trying to play the crippled beggar for sympathy? Making yourself reek like this—you think that's going to make me feel sorry for you?" I closed my eyes. Three years ago today, I'd been slicing an apple in the kitchen of the villa. The blade slipped, leaving a shallow cut on my index finger. A tiny bead of blood welled up. Leigh had come running in from the living room and snatched the knife out of my hand. He held my finger under the faucet for ten minutes, then brought the first-aid kit and wrapped my finger in so much gauze it looked like a cotton ball. A month later, he rented out an entire private island. The grounds were carpeted in red roses. He knelt on one knee among the blossoms and slid a ten-carat diamond ring onto my finger. Two days later, Ivy came back from overseas. She moved into the guest room at the villa. A week after that, Ivy walked down the staircase wearing a white dress that belonged to me. She picked up the scissors from the coffee table and dragged the blade across her own forearm, opening a line of red. Leigh pushed through the front door and walked in. Ivy clutched her wound and pointed at me. "Leigh, she cut me with the scissors." Leigh knocked the glass of water out of my hand and pulled Ivy behind him. Another week passed. Ivy was carrying a cup of freshly boiled coffee. She poured every drop of it onto her own shoulder and screamed, curling into the corner of the sofa. Leigh came rushing down from the second floor. Ivy pointed at me. "She tried to scald me to death with boiling water." The next day, Ivy stood on the ledge of a thirtieth-floor rooftop. Leigh sprinted over and grabbed her. After that, Leigh tore up our marriage contract in front of the reporters. He canceled every one of my bank cards and had his bodyguards shove me into a car. He personally drove me to the Bleakridge mountains and handed a sum of money to the Chief. He told me I would stay here for three years, to experience the pain I'd caused Ivy. Those three years were real suffering. After the Chief took the money, he locked me in the pigsty. A heavy iron chain was fastened around my neck. Every day, the only thing I was given to eat was rancid slop.

Those men came into the pigsty every night. In the darkness, I miscarried again and again. The bodyguards hauled me up and threw me into the trunk of an SUV. When the plane took off, I lay curled in a corner of the cabin. I opened my mouth, trying to make a sound. Only a rasp crawled out of my throat. Leigh sat on the leather sofa and placed a pair of black noise-canceling headphones over his ears. "Enough. Stop playing mute. Save your energy. You're going back to the city to get on your knees and beg Ivy for forgiveness." The plane landed on a private helipad in the heart of downtown. A bodyguard wrapped my body in a sheet of black waterproof tarp and stuffed me into the last row of a town car. The car pulled into the underground garage of the Continental Hotel. The elevator went straight to the top-floor ballroom. The doors swung open. The ballroom was draped in heavy red carpet, crystal chandeliers throwing blinding light across every surface. The bodyguard stripped away the tarp and dumped me in the center of the floor. Leigh stood beneath a spotlight, microphone in hand. Guests holding champagne flutes crowded around on every side. He pointed at me. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gift I've prepared for Ivy, to help lift her spirits." His gaze swept the crowd. "A vicious woman I dragged back from the mountains." Laughter erupted. Several women in evening gowns drifted forward, wine glasses in hand. They looked down at me. "I heard she spent three years out there?" "She probably rolled around in the mud on purpose. And that smell. She's trying to disgust Ivy." I lay facedown on the red carpet. I extended my right arm, pressed my elbow into the floor, and dragged my body forward. My broken legs trailed behind me, leaving a dark, wet streak across the carpet. Ivy descended the spiral staircase in a pristine white gown. She saw the bloodstains on the floor and let out a shriek. She collapsed into Leigh's arms, fingers clawing at the lapels of his suit jacket. "Leigh, the blood on her is so red... I'm scared..." Leigh's expression turned cold in an instant. He turned toward the hotel security staff standing by the entrance. "Get water over here. Scrub every drop of that filth off the carpet." Two security guards came running with plastic cleaning buckets. The buckets were full of ice-cold, grimy water. Leigh pointed at me. "Pour it over her head. Wash off that disgusting act of hers." The guards lifted the buckets. Ice-cold water laced with grit came crashing down from above. It poured over my matted hair and seeped into the unstitched wound across my abdomen. The bone-deep cold sent my body into violent spasms. Leigh walked over and stopped beside me. The toe of his leather shoe landed an inch from my fingers. "Crawl over there. Bow your head to the floor three times for Ivy." He looked down at me. "Admit that you faked a pregnancy and played dead to compete for my attention. Do as you're told, and I'll let you stay on as an errand girl at the company." I lowered my head. The banquet moved into its second half. The bodyguards dragged me out of the ballroom and dumped me in the corner of the hallway outside the women's restroom. My clothes clung to my skin. Bloody water dripped from the hem onto the marble tile. Ivy stepped out of the restroom, a touch-up compact in her hand. She stopped in front of me. She lifted her right foot. The sharp stiletto heel came down on the broken index finger of my right hand. She ground it side to side. Every nerve in my body screamed at once. I seized up and recoiled on instinct. Ivy watched me and let out a light, airy laugh. "Did you really think Leigh set you up at some cozy little retreat?" She bent down and stared into my face.

"The day Chief Hargrove got the money, he messaged me asking how I wanted you handled." She straightened up and smoothed out her skirt. "I told them they could do whatever they wanted. Just keep you breathing." Ivy stared at the blood soaking through my abdomen. "All those hundreds of days and nights. Must've been quite the experience, hm?" The sound of leather shoes striking marble echoed from the far end of the corridor. Leigh appeared around the corner. Ivy threw herself backward instantly, slamming hard onto the marble floor. She clutched her ankle with both hands, tears rolling down her cheeks in fat, heavy drops. "Please, I know you hate me, but why did you have to push me..." Leigh's expression darkened. He closed the distance in three long strides. He didn't spare me a single glance. His right foot drove straight into my body. The polished tip of his shoe connected with the wound on my abdomen with surgical precision. The makeshift bandages burst apart on impact. Blood and shredded tissue sprayed across the wall. I lay on my back, eyes wide open, unable to breathe. Ivy leaned against the wall, panting, her face drained of color. "Leigh, I got so scared, my anemia's acting up. I'm so dizzy..." Leigh turned his head immediately, his gaze locking onto me like a blade. "If you had the strength to push her, then you can use your blood to make it up to her." He pulled out a two-way radio and called for his private physician outside. Seconds later, the doctor came running down the corridor with a medical kit. Leigh pointed at my arm. "Draw her blood." The doctor crouched down and took my left hand. He cinched a tourniquet around my upper arm and pulled a glass collection tube fitted with a thick, long needle from the case. Inside my head, the system's alarm blared again, the intervals shrinking to almost nothing. Seventy-two-hour countdown interrupted by lethal external force. Program accelerating termination. Somatic vitality severed. Pain suppression protocol disengaged. Soul extraction successful. Wishing the host a pleasant journey in the new world. The needle plunged into the collapsed vein. The extraction pump whirred to life, emitting a thin mechanical hum. Leigh stood nearby, glancing at the watch on his wrist, his expression one of pure impatience. "Faster. She's not going to die." His cold eyes settled on me. "She starved off every ounce of fat under her skin just to fake being sick. That kind of cheap trick only fools clueless servants like you." I stared up at the corridor ceiling, at the chandelier overhead. The light was dimming in my vision, bleeding away at the edges. I didn't even have the strength to twitch the corner of my mouth. My eyes lost focus. My head followed gravity, lolling softly to the right until it rested against my shoulder. Leigh's brow furrowed tight. His voice cracked through the corridor like a whip. "Stop playing dead. Look at me!" The words had barely left his mouth. CRASH. A piercing shatter rang through the hallway. The doctor let out a scream, his hands flying open. The glass collection tube hit the marble floor and exploded into fragments. Dark red liquid splattered in every direction. Leigh stormed forward. "What the hell are you doing?!" The doctor didn't answer him. His eyes were blown wide with horror. He scrambled backward until his spine hit the wall. His hands shook violently in the air, one finger pointed at the gaping hole torn open in my abdomen. Foul-smelling black blood was pouring out in a steady, unending stream. The doctor's voice came out so shrill it barely sounded human. "Mr. Simmons, the tube... everything that came out was septic fluid from massive organ failure!" He clutched his head with both hands. He pointed at the rotting flesh. "And there's no healed muscle tissue in her abdomen. There's a necrotic fetal corpse inside!" The air in the corridor solidified. Everyone froze in place. The doctor's trembling voice continued to echo. "Mr. Simmons, this body was already falling apart days ago. She's dead. Completely dead!"