Those were the final words my husband, Nathan Brooks, said to me before he lifted the riding crop that had been hanging like decoration in the main living room of our mansion in Beverly Hills.
The first strike landed across my back before my mind could fully understand that Nathan—the man I had married before God and in front of half of Los Angeles’s business elite—was truly willing to hurt me.
The second stole the air from my lungs.
By the tenth, my knees were pressed against the cold marble floor.
By the twentieth, bl00d had stained the very flooring I had chosen myself back when I still believed that house would be a home.
A few steps away, Madison was smiling.
Madison Blake, the woman Nathan introduced at corporate events as his “image consultant,” stood beside him in a champagne-colored dress I recognized immediately. I had paid for it with one of my own cards, though at the time I hadn’t known it was meant for her.
“Poor Sophia,” she said softly, her sweetness soaked in poison. “She still wants everyone to think she’s the victim.”
I lifted my head as much as I could. My back burned, my lips trembled, but the deepest pain wasn’t in my body.
It was watching my husband look at me like I was trash.
“She hum!liated me at dinner,” Nathan said, gripping the crop tighter. “In front of my partners.”
“Madison told everyone I was useless because I hadn’t given you children,” I answered, my voice breaking.
Madison gave a quiet little laugh.
“I only said what people already whisper about. After three years of marriage, it’s normal for people to wonder.”
“You also said I married Nathan for his money.”
Nathan tilted his head and smiled with disgust.
“Didn’t you?”
That strike didn’t draw bl00d, but it broke something deeper.
For three years, I had been the perfect wife.
Quiet.
Elegant.
Always standing just behind his shoulder at investor dinners in Manhattan, grand openings in Miami, and charity galas in Newport.
I smiled when he spoke.
I applauded when he won awards.
I never asked to be included on documents.
I never demanded shares.
I never used my family name.
Nathan loved telling people he had met me when I had “nothing,” that I was just a simple girl from Savannah whom he had turned into a society wife.
That story benefited him.
It made him look powerful.
He never asked why my mother’s last name didn’t appear online.
He never wondered why banks suddenly approved impossible loans after he married me.
