Chapter 4

The man raised the tip of the knife toward me.

"I didn't believe it at first. Could a woman really be this vicious? But I saw everything from the window just now. You took the money, counted it, and handed it straight to the debt collectors without batting an eye. What do you think he is?"

Julian was still in the man's arms, but he didn't resist. "She treats me like livestock. I'm merchandise she can sell to pay off her debts. I used to be a scholar. I even passed my exams. But she starved me, locked me in the house, and hit my fingers with the back of a knife whenever I refused to cooperate."

He held up his right hand, the one I injured when he tried to kill me.

"She wanted me to marry her. But when I did, it wasn't enough. She forced me to sign away my freedom and call her my master. If I got it wrong, she'd withhold my food," he sobbed. "Even when I finally said it the way she wanted, she still complained that I wasn't loud enough.

"She took a pair of scissors and cut open my collar, saying that I needed to look better, or no one would pay for me."

The man narrowed his eyes at me. "Is everything your husband just told me true?"

My back was pressed against the wooden wall. My palms were slick with sweat.

Part of what Julian said was true.

I really did lock him in the house. I withheld his food. I really had struck his fingers with the back of a knife. What he conveniently left out was the reason I locked him up, how he got into debt, and why I'd forced him to earn his way out of it.

He laid out everything I'd done by picking the ugliest details and making them sound even worse. However, he stripped away every bit of context and never mentioned what had led to any of it.

The man stepped closer, pressing the knife against my collarbone. "I'll repeat myself one more time. Give me the papers."

Julian rose from the couch and gently placed a hand on the man's wrist.

"Let me do it. She locked me up for three days. I hate her. I'll never be able to live with myself if I don't do it," he whispered.

The man looked at him and then released the knife.

Julian took it and turned toward me. He pressed the tip against my throat and lowered his voice. "You brought this on yourself. If you'd just done as you were told, none of this would've happened. Don't worry. I won't kill you right away. I want you to know what it feels like to be humiliated."

I took a deep breath.

"Sir, you're a fool if you believed a compulsive gambler like him. There are plenty of ways to train a pet. You just chose the dumbest one."

"What are you talking about?" Julian screamed. He raised the knife and lunged at me. I was about to move when the man's assistant stepped in.

The knife hit the floor with a sharp clang.

I touched the cut on my neck and smiled. Then, I told the man everything that Julian had done. I told him he was welcome to investigate if he didn't believe me.

Before the man could send anyone after the evidence, Julian panicked and snatched the knife off the floor. "She's lying!"

I smiled and kicked him to the floor. I pulled open one side of my collar and exposed an old scar across my shoulder.

"He did this to me last winter after losing money gambling. He heated a pair of fire tongs and pressed them against my skin because I refused to go back to my parents' house and steal money from my dad for him."

"And these?" I said, pushing up my sleeve to reveal a row of old bite marks along my forearm. "He was drunk two years ago. He thought I took too long bringing him his coffee, so he bit my arm and called me useless. These marks took two months to fade.

"He tried to sell me to a brothel three times. The first time was two years ago. He pawned one of my pieces of jewelry, then went straight to a brothel and negotiated a price for me. One of my housekeepers found out and came to warn me."

I clenched my fists. "The second time was last fall. While I was visiting a sick relative at my parents' house, he brought people from the brothel to our home. I ran into them just as I was leaving.

"And the third time—"

"She's lying! Don't listen to her! I'm a respectable man. Why would I ever do something like that?"

"What exactly did you study?" the man cut in. "Did one of those books teach you how to gamble and sell off your wife?"

Julian completely lost his composure. He rushed forward and tried to explain himself, but the man kicked him aside.

"Leave. I'm not buying your indenture papers, and I'm not taking you in. Keep whatever mess the two of you have made of your marriage off my boat."

Once we were off the boat, Julian started demanding a divorce.

I laughed. I wasn't going to let him walk away, let alone divorce me.

As far as I was concerned, letting him go now would be doing him a favor. He needed to be held accountable. Killing him would be the real revenge, but unfortunately, the law wouldn't allow it.

The world had always been kinder to men. If I let him divorce me now, he'd still walk away as the respectable scholar everyone thought he was. He could rewrite the whole story and present himself as the devoted husband who had nobly refused to hold his wife back.

No one would make him answer for the money he squandered. No one would condemn him for treating me like dirt for three years. His attempts to sell me to a brothel and ruin my reputation would disappear without a trace.

Meanwhile, I'd be the one everyone gossiped about. I would be the jealous wife who drove her husband away.

That wasn't the ending I wanted.

I wasn't opposed to staying married to him for the rest of our lives, either.

We would eventually get divorced. Just not yet.

"You can't divorce me."

"Why not?"

"Because I won't sign the divorce papers. You can't end the marriage unilaterally."