The Five-Year Scam

Melissa Shaw's smile froze the moment she heard my question.

Melissa's fingers tightened around the hem of her dress. I couldn't have been mistaken, it was an old nervous habit I knew too well… It really was her! But before she could speak, Connor Hayes shot up from his seat and drove his boot into my stomach, sending me crashing to the ground.

"You filthy servant," he spat. "Who gave you the right to get near my wife? Forgot every rule I taught you?"

Connor had been Melissa's childhood friend. I thought everything was purely a coincidence when I first arrived here five years ago… from their names to their relationship and everything, I never imagined it was all part of a carefully constructed lie.

I swallowed the pain and forced myself to my feet, keeping my eyes on Melissa.

"You insolent creature. Have you forgotten your place?" Melissa said, covering her nose as if my very existence was an offense. "How filthy! It's disgusting! Take him out now and dunk him in the pond until he's clean."

The guards grabbed and dragged me outside. First, they plunged me into the pond, shoving my head underwater, letting mud and foul water rush into my lungs. Then, they hauled me up only long enough for me to gasp, and forced me under again, again and again, always stopping right before I blacked out.

I did not fight back.

Melissa and Connor stood above me, looking down with that same cold superiority. I stared up at the two people who had turned my life into hell. The pain washed over me... the pain that she gave me, and the pain Connor delivered with his riding crop whenever he felt like venting his anger out on me.

Sometimes he would let the servants "take good care" of me. After all the beatings, the spit in my food, and the filth dumped over my head — the abuse became so overwhelming that I once truly believed that I'd been thrown into some medieval nightmare, where a single wrong move could really get me beaten to death.

For five years, this had been routine. I prayed day and night that Melissa would never suffer what I did, and I felt so filthy that I didn't even deserve a place to be in her memory anymore.

How absurd to think of this now.

When I was drowning in that pond and barely conscious... I looked toward Melissa. Was I hoping for something? I didn't know. I only knew she was the woman I once loved… But she didn't look at me. She was kissing Connor like nobody was around.

Of course. If Melissa had ever felt anything for me, would I be in this situation after five long years?

"How dare that creature defile you with those eyes of his?" Connor noticed my stare and scowled with disgust.

"Don't waste your anger on a servant," Melissa soothed him immediately. She flicked an order to the servants. "Drag him up. Beat him!"

They hauled me from the water, and before I could catch a breath, the beating began like a storm. Some servants hesitated, trying to appease the couple with flattery. "Sir, ma'am! There's no need to waste your energy on a lowly servant on such a great reunion day!"

"Exactly. Please go enjoy the celebration. Staying here is just a waste of time." They agreed and left without a second glance, with laughter and music drifting from the courtyard as I lay gasping in the dirt like a dying dog.

I curled my hand into a fist with the last of my strength. For the first time in years, a strange calm settled over me. I knew I would find a way out, I would leave this place, and every single thing they had done to me over the past five years would be paid back. Not once, not twice, but a thousand times over!