Chapter 1: The Death of Innocence
954words
I traced my trembling fingers along the faded photograph—Dominic and I on our wedding day. His azure eyes, once my universe, now seemed like twin pools of deceit. How naive I had been, believing in forever with a man whose soul was as empty as my refrigerator now stood.
"You'll never amount to anything without me," Dominic's voice haunted me, a phantom more real than the mold creeping up my bathroom walls.
Three years ago, I had been Elara Winters-Blackwood, wife to the heir of Blackwood Industries. My wedding dress had cost more than this entire building. Now, I clutched my stomach as another hunger pang twisted my insides. Forty-eight hours since my last meal—a half-eaten sandwich from a sympathetic diner owner.
The eviction notice on my door gave me three more days. Three days before even this pathetic shelter would be taken from me. I laughed, a brittle sound that cracked in the stale air. Where would I go? Who would help the woman whose reputation had been so thoroughly destroyed that her name was synonymous with scandal and disgrace?
My mind drifted back to that night—the night everything shattered.
"Dominic?" I had called, wandering through our mansion's marble halls. The sound of hushed giggles led me to the guest bedroom. Something primal in me already knew, yet my heart refused to accept what my mind understood.
When I pushed open the door, there they were—Dominic and Vivienne, my stepsister, tangled in our Egyptian cotton sheets. Her cascade of auburn hair spilled across his chest, her lips curved in triumph as she spotted me in the doorway.
"Oh, Elara," Vivienne had purred, not bothering to cover herself. "You weren't supposed to find out like this."
Dominic's face—I'll never forget it. Not shock. Not shame. Just irritation at the interruption.
"We need to talk," he had said, as if discussing a minor household matter.
The "talk" came the next morning. In our—his—study, with lawyers present.
"Vivienne understands me in ways you never could," he explained, signing papers without meeting my eyes. "She's carrying my child. My heir. Something you failed to provide."
I had stood there, mute with betrayal, as he continued.
"The prenuptial agreement is clear. Infidelity voids all financial obligations. Since you've been having an affair with my business partner—"
"What?" The word escaped me, barely audible. "That's a lie!"
Dominic's smile had chilled me. "The photographs suggest otherwise. Fabricated, of course, but the board won't know that. Neither will the press."
Within a week, I was homeless. Within a month, blacklisted from every company in the industry. Vivienne had moved into my home, worn my jewelry, slept in my bed. My friends—people I'd known since childhood—crossed streets to avoid me.
The worst came when I discovered their final cruelty. My mother's locket—the only thing I had left of her—had been planted on a maid accused of stealing. The woman was arrested, the locket "recovered" and subsequently "lost." When I confronted Vivienne, her laughter cut deeper than any knife.
"Did you really think he ever loved you?" she had whispered. "Dominic needed your family connections. I was always his choice. Always."
A violent cough racked my body, bringing me back to my present reality. The infection in my lungs had worsened. Without insurance or money for antibiotics, I knew what awaited me. The fever made the room swim before my eyes.
My phone—a prepaid model, my last connection to civilization—buzzed weakly. A news alert. I opened it with fingers that felt disconnected from my body.
"BLACKWOOD HEIR BORN: Dominic and Vivienne Blackwood welcome son."
The accompanying photo showed them outside the hospital. Vivienne radiant in designer clothes, Dominic beaming with pride. My replacement, complete and total.
Something broke inside me then—something beyond my heart or spirit. A fundamental belief in justice, perhaps. Or maybe it was just the last thread of hope I'd foolishly clung to.
I dragged myself to the bathroom, each step an odyssey of pain. The face in the cracked mirror belonged to a stranger—hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, skin stretched tight over bones. At twenty-eight, I looked twice my age.
The bottle of sleeping pills—my last prescription before my insurance was canceled—sat nearly full on the sink's edge. I hadn't been able to sleep naturally since the divorce.
I didn't plan it. Not consciously. But my hand moved of its own accord, tipping the pills into my palm. One by one, I swallowed them dry, my throat protesting each bitter capsule.
As I lay back on my threadbare mattress, a strange calm enveloped me. The rain seemed to soften, almost musical now. My breathing slowed.
"If I ever get another chance," I whispered to the empty room, "I'll make them pay. Every smile, every lie, every betrayal. I'll return it all tenfold."
The darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, comforting in its finality. My last thought wasn't of Dominic or Vivienne or even revenge. It was of a man I'd met only once—Thorne Everett. The billionaire who had looked at me with such intensity at a charity gala years ago. I had dismissed him then, too enamored with Dominic to notice anyone else.
How different might my life have been?
As consciousness slipped away, I felt something impossible—a rewinding, a shifting, as if the universe itself were folding around me.
Somewhere between the fading of breath and the end of thought, I heard a low, distant voice—familiar, yet shaken in a way I'd never heard before.
"Elara?!!!!"
And then, darkness.
