นางร้ายผู้นี้ขอทวงคืนพระรอง

I tilt my head toward the mirror, squinting to see if the makeup covers the red mark. The foundation smooths over the skin fine enough, but somehow, I can still feel it…a prickling reminder right there on my cheekbone where his signet ring caught the flesh. I dab another layer, then another, the brush pressing harder until my jaw clenches with the pain.

He didn't even flinch when he hit me. Just watched the blood bloom with that cold fascination in his eyes.

I shake the thought away, pulling back to check my work. The mirror reflects something close enough to perfect, so I force a smile that doesn't reach my eyes. Five years of practice makes the deception almost believable. I pick up my phone and tap into it with trembling fingers. This—decorations, outfit, everything—has to mean something. Tonight's the night I'll make him see me again.

As the camera goes live, I tilt my face just right, adding a little shimmer of joy to my eyes that I've rehearsed a hundred times in private. "Hi, everyone! Welcome back to Estella's Living," I chirp, waving. "Tonight's a special night. It's our five-year anniversary, and I thought you'd all love a little peek into the surprise I've put together for him."

I adjust the angle to show the beautifully arranged roses—thirty-six of them, exactly as he once mentioned he liked—the candles imported from Venice at three times the price, the elegant table setup with the crystal glasses he threw at me last month, now replaced with money I'd secretly saved. Every detail planned down to the last rose petal, every element chosen to please him, to earn just one smile, one moment without his rage. "It took weeks to get everything just right, but... he's worth it," I add, laughing softly, though the sound scrapes my throat like broken glass.

Hearts and comments flood in from followers who believe the fairy tale I've crafted, the perfect marriage I pretend to have while I scrub blood from our sheets at midnight. As I reply, the comment bubbles go from cheerful emojis to bursts of text that steal the air from my lungs. Confused, I tap on one of the comments: "Is this your way of trying to distract from his dinner with her?"

Her.

I pause, the smile frozen on my face like rigor mortis, and scroll quickly through more comments. Your husband's cheating on you... Saw the gossip post, is it true? She's prettier than you; stop embarrassing yourself. The words blur as tears threaten to spill, but I blink them back—Marco hates when I cry. Says it makes me look pathetic.

Forcing myself to breathe through the vise tightening around my chest, I swipe to my texts, ignoring the audience, ignoring the comments and hearts and whatever else they're saying. I send him a quick message, Where are you? Then another, Did something come up? The words sound pathetic even to me.

Nothing. Silence. And the comments are still coming, each one driving the knife deeper.

Check Page Six. Are you really gonna ignore this? Stop pretending for your followers. Your marriage is a joke.

With fingers shaking so badly I can barely hold the phone, I pull up the gossip site. And there it is, front and center, the world crumbling beneath me. The first thing I see is the headline: "Inside Scoop: Marco Valdez Caught at Romantic Dinner with Best Friend Amid Anniversary Plans!" A picture of him leaning into Claudia Romanov, his hand resting over hers across the table—the same restaurant where he proposed to me, I realize with a wave of nausea. She's laughing, gazing up at him with adoration I once saw reflected in my own eyes before he systematically destroyed every shred of confidence I possessed.

My heart constricts until I can barely breathe as I scroll, seeing her arm—her thin, graceful hand—resting against her neck. Her blonde waves almost cover her face, but not quite. Around her throat is a delicate gold pendant, unmistakably the family heirloom his mother once promised me when I became the mother of her grandchild. The one that was supposed to signify my acceptance into their family. The pendant I found myself staring at in the family portrait, dreaming of the day I'd truly belong.

"When you prove your worth," Helena had whispered at our wedding reception. "When you prove you're not just another gold-digger after the Valdez fortune."

They... gave it to her?

I scroll down further, to a picture of them standing, side by side. Her hand is placed gently on her stomach. My breath stutters, stomach twisting into violent knots. She can't be... But the article hints, speculating if she's pregnant and whether the two of them are starting a family—the family he told me last night I was too broken to give him.

Each line of the article feels like a knife twisting deeper, suggesting that I might have known all along, that I just played along for attention, that I was the fool everyone thought I was. The comments beneath are even worse—strangers laughing at my humiliation, pitying my ignorance, celebrating her victory.

My phone vibrates with a message—finally, from him. But the words freeze my blood and shatter what's left of my heart.

Stay put. Don't embarrass yourself.

Don't embarrass myself? I blink, bile rising in my throat as his words sink in like poison. He's out there, flaunting her, while I sit here, painted up and dressed like a fool for a celebration he never planned on attending. The man who swore before God to love and cherish me is parading his mistress—his pregnant mistress—while I arranged roses petal by petal.

The comments are relentless now, every notification a dagger digging deeper. People are laughing. Mocking. Telling me to "take the hint" or "stop pretending." The smiles, the hearts—they've vanished, replaced by sneers and accusations from strangers who think they know my life. My fingers curl around the phone, knuckles white, the knot in my throat threatening to choke me. The room around me feels too bright, too empty, every carefully placed decoration mocking my foolishness.

Another text from him: Don’t overreact, like always. We'll talk when I'm home. Don't make a scene online. You know how this works.

Like always. Like always. I stare at the screen, numb. He's saying it's my fault, that I'm the problem, that I'm overreacting. Even after... after this. Even after I found another woman's lipstick on his collar last month. Even after I caught him whispering to her on the phone in our bathroom at 3 AM. Even after I've swallowed every lie, every excuse, every "you're imagining things, Estella, you're going crazy."

I step back from the camera, ending the livestream mid-sentence. The screen goes dark, leaving my reflection staring back, bare and vulnerable in a way that makeup couldn't.

I sink to the floor, my back against the cold edge of our bed, knees hugged to my chest, staring blankly into the darkness. Everything I'd hoped for tonight now feels like a cruel joke played by a sadistic god. The diamonds at my throat—his "forgive me" gift from the last time he put me in the hospital with "accidental" bruised ribs—feel like they're strangling me.

My gaze drifts over the cake with its perfect icing that reads, Happy 5th Anniversary baby. Five years of shrinking myself to fit into smaller and smaller spaces. Five years of believing tomorrow would be different. Five years of hospital visits explained away as "clumsy accidents" while nurses exchanged knowing glances.

I glance at my phone, my thumb hovering over the screen. I've already scrolled through the messages I've sent too many times to count,.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm waiting for you."

"It's our anniversary. Please, just come home."

I desperately want to believe that he's stuck in traffic, that he's lost track of time, that he'll walk in any minute, apologize, and tell me it's all just a misunderstanding. But as the hours creep on—one, then two, then three—I can't cling to that hope anymore. Not with the images of him and Claudia branded behind my eyelids.

I let my head rest against the bed, the scent of roses and wine nauseating now, like a perfume that has turned sour with time and neglect. I don't realize I've drifted off until a loud slam jerks me awake. My eyes fly to the clock: 3:15 a.m.

Marco stumbles out of the bathroom, his footsteps heavy, uneven, and the acrid smell of whiskey fills the room, sharp enough to make my stomach heave. There's lipstick on his collar—the same shade she wore in the photos—and the scent of her perfume clings to him like a second skin. His eyes are bloodshot, unfocused, the way they get when he's at his most dangerous.

He stops when he sees me, and for a second, I think maybe he'll feel some remorse. But his face curls into a sneer instead, eyes glittering with malice I once couldn't believe he possessed. "Still waiting up like a loyal little lapdog, huh? Pathetic bitch."

I swallow, trying to keep my voice steady, but it wobbles, betraying me. "Why, Marco? Did you even think of me tonight?" My words spill out, shaky and raw. "While you were out with her? While everyone watched you humiliate me?"

He laughs, that cold, dismissive sound I've come to dread, the sound that strips away another piece of my soul. "Think of you? God, Estella, you're such a bore now. You think that's what a man like me wants? Look at you—" he gestures dismissively at me, at the dress I spent hours choosing "—trying so hard and still failing. It's embarrassing."

His words land exactly where he knows I'm most vulnerable. "Maybe I've become that way because you've spent years breaking me down, Marco. Maybe you're too blind to see what you've done to me. What you keep doing to me."

His eyes flash with rage and in one stride, he crosses the room, his hand clamping around my throat with enough force to make spots dance in my vision. I gasp, fingers reaching up instinctively to pry him off, but he pulls me close suffocating me.

"Do you forget who's in control here?" he hisses, increasing the pressure until I can barely draw breath. "Who owns you? Who could destroy you with one phone call? Who could have you locked up in a psychiatric ward with one word? You think anyone would believe you over me? Over the Valdez name?”

Then his hand whips across my face. My cheek burns, stinging with the force of it, but I refuse to cry.

He leans closer. "You've always been weak, Estella. Not enough of a woman to give me a family, not enough of a wife to make me feel like a man. Do you know what Claudia told me tonight? That she's pregnant with my son. My son, Estella. Something you could never give me with your worthless body."

The words shatter something inside me, pain blooming like blood in water. I think of the three miscarriages—each one followed by his rage rather than comfort, each one blamed on some failing of mine rather than a shared loss.

"Remember when I lost our baby?" I whisper, voice trembling. "It was your hands, Marco. Your hands that pushed me down those stairs when I told you I was scared."

His eyes widen with fury, veins standing out on his forehead. "You lying cunt," he snarls, spraying spittle across my face. "You tripped. You were drunk. Everyone knows what happened."

I want to scream, to shove him away, but he's already reaching for me, his grip like iron around my wrists, squeezing until the bones grind together. "You're my wife," he whispers, his voice low and sickeningly intimate. "You're here to do as I say, whether you like it or not. Until I decide otherwise. And when my son is born, when I finally have what I want, do you know what happens to you?

My heart pounds, panic flooding my veins as he drags me toward the bed we once shared as lovers, not predator and prey. I try to push him away, to scream, but he covers my mouth with a hand that smells of Claudia's skin. "Quiet," he murmurs. "We wouldn't want anyone to hear, would we? You know how Mother hates that."

He shoves me onto the bed, his grip bruising as he presses me down, his weight pinning me in place. I struggle to breathe through the terror, and a whimper slips out as I feel him rip at my dress, the tearing sound like a knife carving through the last of my dignity. My panties and bra follow, tossed aside leaving me trembling, exposed, utterly vulnerable beneath his merciless gaze.

For a second, he leans back, fumbling with his belt, his eyes glazed with lust and cruelty. I try to twist away, to move, to take any chance of escape, but his hand snaps out, catching me with a slap that burns my cheek and knocks me back into place. The sting throbs, leaving me dizzy, and I lie there, frozen, as he takes what he claims is his right.

"You should thank me," he grunts against my ear. "No one else would have you now. No one else would touch damaged goods."

He finally rolls off me his breath already slowing into that familiar rhythm of sleep. I stay where I am, staring up at the ceiling, numb as tears slide silently down my temples into my hair..

I look over at him, this man lying next to me, this cruel stranger who is supposed to be my husband. But has he ever really been the man I thought he was? Or have I been too blind, too desperate to believe in a version of him that existed only in my imagination? What happened to the man who once kissed my palm and promised me the world?

My phone buzzes, and I reach for it, my fingers trembling, my body aching from his assault.

"Hope you enjoyed your night alone. He deserves someone who can give him what he needs. We laughed about your pathetic livestream tonight. Everyone did."

Attached is a picture of her and Marco, cozy in that restaurant, Claudia's hand on his cheek, her smile smug, victorious. Another photo shows the two of them, barely dressed, tangled in each other, his face buried in her neck—taken earlier tonight, before he came home to use me. And a final one—a single used condom wrapper on her bedside table, as if to drive the point home. He's never used protection with me—another cruelty in his arsenal, another way to remind me of my failure to conceive.

My heart shatters, each beat a fresh agony, every lie I've told myself unraveling before me. I can hear his mother Helena's voice in my head.

"You think you've won something, marrying my son? You'll never be one of us.."

At last year's gala, he'd brought me only to ignore me all night, parading Claudia around instead, leaving me alone at the table, humiliated and fighting back tears as everyone else noticed his blatant disregard. "She's just needy," I'd overheard him tell his business partner. "Can't take her anywhere without her making a scene. But she's useful at home, if you know what I mean."

And then, after I'd dared to confront him, Marco had forced me to apologize to Claudia in front of everyone, framing me as the jealous, paranoid wife, thanking her for her "patience" with my insecurities. The words had tasted like acid, but I'd said them anyway, hoping he'd finally see me, finally defend me. Instead—and worst of all—he'd left me on the side of the road that night, claiming he needed a moment to cool off. He'd watched me stand there, in heels, dressed up for him, before he drove off, abandoning me to walk miles back, humiliated and shamed, with people glancing, whispering, some even recognizing me.

"You're lucky I came back for you at all," he'd said when he finally returned, finding me limping along the highway shoulder. "Most men would have left you for good. Next time, I might not be so generous.."

The rage that builds in me now is unlike anything I've ever felt. For years, I've made myself bend backward to fit his expectations, endured every slap, every insult, every betrayal, hoping someday he'd see me for who I was. But tonight, something in me snaps—not breaks, but releases.

I will no longer be his punching bag, his discarded, forgotten trophy wife. I let myself imagine a life free from his cruelty, free from his family's endless ridicule, a future where I reclaim the power he's stolen piece by piece, night by night, lie by lie.

Leaving won't be easy—the prenup he forced me to sign made sure of that. It will be a battle, one I haven't dared to face before. But as I stare at his sleeping form, at the hands that have both caressed and crushed me, I know one thing with bone-deep certainty:

I can't stay here anymore. And I won't.

Not even if it kills me.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Because staying surely will.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​