I Came Back To Make my Ex-Husband Pay

“You’re the only one who survived.”

Angelica stared at the stranger beside her bed.

Her brain was trying to register the words being spoken to her. Her head felt heavy, her throat felt tight and burned, and something that felt like a vice covered the left side of her face. Bright light shone above her head, making her squint slightly.

Her memory started to come back in bits. She remembered the fire and the smoke that had filled her lungs. She remembered screaming loudly for help that wasn’t coming. Then she remembered why she had dashed into the burning house in the first place.

“My family,” she whispered.

The stranger only stared back at her.

“Where is my family?”

His silence told her what words were not saying.

“No.”

She tried to sit up, but pain held her body down. A hand caught her shoulder before she could fall back against the pillows.

“I’d advise you not to do that. You’re badly burned. You need to stay still.”

“No.” Her breathing quickened. “No, you don’t understand. My family was in the house. I need to—”

“You can’t get up.”

“Let go of me!”

Her shout sounded hoarse to her ears. She barely recognized her own voice.

She pushed against the mattress, wanting to be free from it. Her body refused to obey. Every movement sent another wave of agony through her limbs.

“No, no, no…”

“Angelica.”

She froze. This stranger called her by her name. She turned toward him, or tried to. The movement made the left side of her face hurt even more.

“How do you know my name?”

He didn’t answer immediately. She studied him through the medication haze she was under. He was most definitely a stranger. His dark clothes were blackened by smoke, and he had a bandage wrapped around one of his hands.

He had been there when the fire happened, she thought. Perhaps he was the one who had dragged her out. But that still didn’t explain how he knew her name.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Someone who got you out.”

“How?”

“Don’t you remember?”

Angelica closed her eyes. She tried to reach for the memory, but all she found were fragments.

Heat.

Smoke thick enough to choke her.

Her mother’s voice calling her name.

The crackling of wood overhead. A door she couldn’t open. Her fingers slipping against the handle as she pounded on it with what little strength she had left. Then the floor rushing up to meet her.

After that, she thought she was gone, but arms had wrapped around her, and someone was dragging her across the floor. She remembered wanting to scream, but her lungs had refused to give her any air to shout.

Then she descended into darkness.

“How long have I been here?” she asked.

“Three days.”

Her eyes widened.

“Three days?”

He nodded.

She looked toward the window. Through the curtains, she could see how bright it was outside. It had been three days. Three days since she’d last seen her family. Three days since she’d heard their voices.

Her gaze dropped to her hands. They were wrapped in thick white bandages.

“Did my face survive the fire?”

The stranger’s expression changed. It was subtle, but she caught it. He looked away.

Angelica swallowed painfully.

She already knew the answer. She could feel the dressings tight against her skin and the ache that was present all over her body.

Still, she had wanted to be wrong.

“How bad is it?”

“You need time to heal.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

He exhaled slowly.

“The burns are serious. The doctors will explain everything when you’re ready.”

“When I’m ready?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “My family is dead, and you’re worried about whether I’m ready to hear what happened to my face?”

His jaw tightened.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Then tell me the truth.”

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Finally, he said, “You survived. That’s what matters right now.”

Angelica turned her face toward the window.

She hadn’t survived anything. She had simply been left behind.

The next four days blurred past. Doctors came and went. Nurses changed her bandages, adjusted her medication, and spoke jargon she couldn’t make out, except that she would need several forms of reconstructive surgery.

The burns on the left side of her face were particularly severe. The doctors themselves couldn’t gauge the extent of the damage and suggested letting parts of it heal first. They mentioned there would be procedures and that she would take months to recover.

She was told she was in luck. That it could ultimately be treated. Angelica wondered how several rounds of plastic surgery, as they implied, was anything remotely lucky.

She didn’t ask anyone for a mirror. She didn’t need one to know that the fire had changed her.

The stranger continued to visit.

He never stayed long, and he wasn’t one for conversation or answering questions. Occasionally, she caught him watching her with an expression she kept trying to pinpoint. She hated how pitiful she was in this state.

On the seventh day after the fire, she felt strong enough to sit upright for more than a few minutes at a time. She still ached, and perhaps it was her grief as well, but she felt much more pain than the burn injuries she had sustained.

She had asked the stranger about her family. She got the same answer she always got: him ignoring her.

She had grown tired of talking to a wall and eventually stopped asking.

That afternoon, she felt stiff and asked the stranger to help her settle against the pillows. As he reached for the bedside table, she noticed the television across the room.

She hadn’t paid attention to it before. Now, a familiar image on its screen made her turn her head.

The news anchor stood in front of footage of a house, or rather, the remains of it. Angelica felt her breath tighten in her lungs.

She knew that house. She knew every hallway, every staircase, every window.

It was her home. The home she had grown up in and had loved.

“Tragedy struck the Vale family seven days ago when a devastating fire destroyed their residence, claiming the lives of everyone in the family house.”

Angelica’s fingers tightened around the glass of water she was holding.

The anchor continued speaking, but she barely registered the words. Her attention was fixed on the burning ruins behind him. Then the footage changed to a photograph.

A brown-haired woman stood beside a man in a black suit. Her hair fell around her shoulders, and she had a smile she thought no one could take from her. Oh, how wrong she was!

The woman was standing beside a man whose face brought another wave of pain.

It was Cassian Devereaux. Aka her ex-husband.

The man she had once loved enough to take his surname.

The man she had later left behind, returning to her maiden name, Vale, when their marriage collapsed beyond repair.

The man whose family was entirely at fault for the ruin of hers.

“Cassian Devereaux, chairman of Devereaux Holdings, has yet to make a public statement following the death of his former wife, Angelica Vale.”

The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered against the floor.

The stranger stood immediately, muttering something as he reached for her, but she couldn’t hear him.

A high-pitched ringing filled her ears as the words from the television played sharply in her ears.

Angelica Vale.

Former wife of Cassian Devereaux.

Dead.

She stared at the television. The woman in the photograph was her, without question.

The fire hadn’t scrambled her brains. She wasn’t imagining things. The world genuinely believed she was dead.

Her own face was staring back at her from the television while a news anchor spoke about her life in the past tense.

And somewhere out there, the man she blamed for so much of her suffering was free to continue living as though she had never existed. He hadn’t even bothered to comment on her passing. Did he really think so little of their love? Their marriage?

Sniffling, she thought, well, if he did, he wouldn’t have divorced her.

She didn’t know where she would go from here, but she knew one thing.

If the world had already buried Angelica Vale, then perhaps it was time to let her stay buried.