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THE JOURNAL

Penulis: Ella Mart
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-21 13:56:04

Ava's POV

The penthouse is too quiet at night. During the day, there are staffs moving around, phones ringing, the city noise filtering through the windows. But after midnight, when Damien thinks I'm asleep, the silence is suffocating.

I've been awake for hours, lying in the dark, listening to footsteps in the hallway. Damien paces when he can't sleep. Back and forth, back and forth, like a predator circling prey. Sometimes he stops outside my door. I held my breath until I heard him move .

Tonight, he's been in his study for the past two hours. I know because I've been counting the minutes, waiting for my chance.

Dr. Chen's words from this morning keep replaying in my mind: "Sometimes physical activity can help trigger memories. Walking around familiar spaces might help."

Damien immediately said I should rest, not push myself. But the way he said it felt less like concern and more like a command. Like he doesn't want me walking around, doesn't want me exploring, doesn't want me finding anything I'm not supposed to find.

Which makes me desperate to do exactly that.

I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent on the thick carpet. I'm wearing the silk pajamas someone laid out for me, expensive and soft and not mine. Nothing here feels mine except the fear that lives in my chest, constant and cold.

The bedroom door opens without sound. The hallway stretches in both directions, dimly lit by small lights along the baseboards. To the left is Damien's study, where I can see a sliver of light under the door. To the right is the rest of the penthouse, rooms I haven't explored yet because he's always guiding me, controlling where I go and what I see.

I turn right.

The first room I pass is a guest bedroom, impersonal and perfect. The second is a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, leather chairs, and a fireplace. Beautiful but empty of life. The third room is locked.

I stand in front of the locked door for a long moment, hand on the handle, knowing this is important. Why lock a door in your own home unless you're hiding something?

I move on before I get caught. The hallway opened into a massive living area, all windows and modern furniture and that enormous Christmas tree I saw when I first woke up. Presents are stacked underneath, wrapped in silver and white. I wonder if any of them are real or if they're just props in the set design of our supposed perfect life.

There's a staircase I didn't know existed, curving down to a lower level. I follow it, drawn by instinct more than logic. The lower level holds a gym, a home theater, and what looks like a guest suite. But at the end of the hallway, I find something else.

A dressing room. Not just a closet, but an entire room dedicated to clothes. Women's clothes. My clothes, I suppose, though nothing looks familiar.

I step inside. One wall holds dresses and gowns, organized by color. Another wall is shoes, dozens of pairs I can't imagine ever wearing. The third wall has drawers, and I open them one by one. Jewelry. Scarves. Handbags are worth more than most people's cars.

And in the back corner, behind a stack of sweater boxes, I find a small leather bag, dusty and out of place among all this perfection.

My hands shake as I pull it out. Inside is a journal, worn at the edges like it's been handled often. I open to the first page, and the handwriting makes my heart stop.

It's mine. My handwriting. My words.

January 15th. I married Damien Cross yesterday on New Year's Eve. Everyone says I'm the luckiest woman in the world. So why do I feel like I just made the worst mistake of my life?

I sink to the floor, the journal clutched in my hands, and start reading. The early entries are conflicted, showing a woman who loved a man but feared him in equal measure. Ava, the woman I was, wrote about Damien's charm and his coldness, his generosity and his control. She wrote about feeling trapped even in the early days of their marriage, about wondering if the man she fell in love with ever really existed.

Then the entries get darker.

March 10th. I found discrepancies in the company accounts. Damien says it's nothing, just creative accounting. But I was a corporate strategist. I know what I was looking at. He's hiding something.

April 22nd. I confronted him about the offshore accounts. He got so angry. I've never seen him like that, barely controlling himself. He said I was betraying him by investigating, that a wife should trust her husband. But trust goes both ways.

May 8th. I'm pregnant. I should be happy. Instead, I'm terrified. How can I bring a child into this?

Tears blur my vision. I was pregnant. Damien told me we lost a baby, but reading these words makes it real in a way his careful explanation didn't. I can feel the fear bleeding through the pages, the sense of being trapped with no way out.

The entries continue through the summer, documenting Ava's growing horror as she uncovered more evidence of Damien's crimes. Insider trading. Bribery. Corporate espionage. She wrote about contacting federal investigators in secret, gathering proof, and planning to testify.

Then October brought tragedy.

October 15th. I lost the baby. The stress, the fear, my body couldn't hold on. Damien blames me. Says if I'd just trusted him, if I'd just stopped investigating, everything would be fine. Maybe he's right. Maybe this is my fault.

October 20th. He's watching me constantly now. Has someone followed me when I leave the apartment? I'm not allowed to work anymore. He says it's because I'm grieving, that I need time to heal. But I know the truth. He's punishing me.

The final entries are desperate, written in a shaking script.

December 1st. I have to get out. The federal investigators need the evidence I've gathered. If I don't deliver it soon, they'll move on without me and he'll get away with everything. I've hidden copies in places he won't find. I just need to survive until I can escape.

December 10th. He knows I'm planning to leave. I don't know how, but he knows. Last night he made me drink wine at dinner and I woke up confused, hours missing. I think he's drugging me. I have to go soon. Before Christmas. The gala at the upstate estate will be my chance. I'll take the car, drive to the city, and meet the investigators. I can't fail. Too many people have been hurt by what he's done.

December 20th. This is my last entry. If something happens to me, if I don't make it out, please know I tried. Please know I'm not the perfect wife he'll claim I was. I was scared and trapped and I fought back the only way I knew how. He will tell everyone we were happy. Don't believe him. Don't let him rewrite our story. The truth is in the files hidden at my mother's storage unit, locker 247. The truth will destroy him. And he knows it.

The journal ends there. Five days before Christmas Eve. Five days before the accident that stole my memory and trapped me here.

I sit on the floor of the dressing room, holding the journal, finally understanding what I'm dealing with. Damien didn't save me. He contained me. Used my amnesia to erase the woman who threatened him and replace her with someone he could control.

Footsteps in the hallway. Close. Coming closer.

I shove the journal back into the leather bag, push it behind the sweater boxes, and stand up just as Damien appears in the doorway.

"Ava." His voice is calm but his eyes are sharp, assessing. "What are you doing down here?"

"I couldn't sleep. I was exploring. Dr. Chen said it might help with my memory." I keep my voice steady even though my heart is racing.

He steps into the room, and suddenly it feels much smaller. "You should have woken me. What if you fell? What if you got hurt?"

"I'm fine. I'm not a child, Damien."

"No, you're a woman with a serious head injury who needs to be careful." He reaches for my hand, his grip gentle but firm. "Come on. Let's get you back to bed."

I let him lead me out, but I memorized the location of the journal. Tomorrow, when he's in a meeting or distracted, I'll come back. I'll take photos of the pages. I'll find that storage unit.

I'll find out who I really was, and what he did to make me so desperate to escape.

Back in the bedroom, Damien tucks me in like I'm something fragile that might break. Maybe he's right. Maybe I am breaking. But I'm also starting to remember how to fight.

"Sleep," he says softly, brushing hair away from my forehead. "We have the Christmas gala tomorrow night. You'll need your strength."

After he leaves, I stare at the ceiling, planning. The gala is my chance. There will be other people there, witnesses, potential allies. If I can find someone who knew me before, someone who can tell me the truth...

The door opens a crack. I close my eyes, pretending to sleep.

Damien stands in the doorway for a long time, watching me. When he finally leaves, I hear the soft click of a lock.

He's locked me.

And that's when I realized for certain: I'm not his wife, but his prisoner.

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