Lauren lay in the hospital bed, her body surging with intense pain, her heart a graveyard. The image of Melissa, naked in Alex’s bed, smirking like she had just won the battle, was a wound that wouldn’t stop aching and bleeding. It seemed like it would never heal. She’d fought through kidnappers, stumbled through woods, her love for Alex had become her downfall. It had become ash.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed on the bedside table, waking her from her deep thoughts, a blocked number flashing. She grabbed it, her hands shaking as bandages pulled at her raw skin.
“Who is this?” she demanded, voice hoarse and shaky, cracked from screaming into the void of her captivity.
A distorted voice answered, cold and mocking. “Lauren, you seem to be tougher than we even imagined, now I see why Alex is so infatuated with you. But it's too bad. Your Alex, your husband? He’s already moved on.”
Her phone pinged, an incoming notification. A video loaded: Melissa in Alex’s office, hours ago, her manicured h
