Chapter 1

Damian's POV

As the metal gate of the mental institution clanged shut once again, the fluorescent lights in the corridor were completely cut off, plunging the ward back into suffocating, pitch-black silence.

I was strapped tightly to an iron-framed bed. My wrists and ankles had long since been rubbed raw, covered in layer upon layer of dark, crusted scabs.

I had just undergone the most intense electroshock treatment yet, and my body was still convulsing violently against my will. Cold sweat had soaked through my thin hospital gown, plastering it to my back in a sickening, sticky mess.

The faint smell of burnt flesh, seared by the high-voltage current, still lingered in the air.

For the past month, this living hell had been my daily reality.

Serena Seacrest, my wife, whom I had loved for seven years, had personally sent me to this hell on earth just to make me pay for what happened to her childhood sweetheart, Adrian Cross.

A month ago, Adrian had tripped and fallen down the stairs at our mansion, nearly breaking his leg.

I had been standing two yards away from him, yet he clutched his leg and pointed at me, claiming I had pushed him out of jealousy over the place he held in Serena's heart.

Serena didn't even give me a chance to defend myself. She had me pinned down against the cold floor and said, "Damian Vale, you are absolutely vicious! If you can't control your jealousy, I'll send you to a mental institution and let them teach you what it means to be a normal person!"

No matter how I shouted or tried to explain, Serena remained unmoved.

It wasn't until today that she brought Adrian along to inspect the results of my treatment. She looked at me as if I were a worthless piece of trash.

She thought a month of electroshock therapy, solitary confinement, and drug injections would be enough to make me kneel before Adrian and beg for forgiveness. She also thought that as long as she held our daughter, Delilah Vale, over my head, I'd grovel at her feet begging for mercy.

But what she didn't know, and this was something she would never know, was that a month ago, when she heartlessly ordered her men to drag me into the ambulance bound for the mental institution, my five-year-old daughter, Delilah, had run out barefoot after it, crying out, "Daddy!"

The rain had been pouring so hard that night that I could barely hear Delilah's cries. I pressed myself against the rear window of the ambulance, pounding desperately on the glass and begging them with everything I had to stop.

Then, right there at an intersection, right before my eyes, a massive truck suddenly careened out of control and mercilessly ran over the tiny figure in the pink nightdress. Bright red blood mixed with the cold rain began spreading across the pavement beneath the stark white streetlights.

The love I once had for Serena, the love that had lain humbled in the dust, was crushed to pieces alongside Delilah on that night of blood and carnage.

There was no greater sorrow than a heart that had already died. With no more tears left to cry, I closed my dried, exhausted eyes.

I thought, "This is the end for us, Serena Seacrest."