Chap 0 VIEW INTRO
“Please… don’t invite him here again,” I begged, tears finally breaking through my eyelashes.
Ryan didn’t even look up from counting the thick stack of cash on the table. He just laughed—a cold, empty sound. “Why? Derek paid a lot of money for tonight, Emily. You’re going to be a good wife and make us both very rich.”
The air vanished from my lungs. Every bruise I had hidden beneath heavy sweaters, every rehearsed lie to my coworkers, every night spent praying he would just pass out—all of it shattered. He wasn’t just breaking me anymore. He was selling me.
My name is Emily Carter, and for three years, I thought surviving his fists was my biggest battle. I was wrong.
He had systematically erased my life. He blocked my friends, controlled my bank account, and convinced me my parents—who lived just forty minutes away—hated me. Then came the slaps. Then the isolation.
And then came Derek.
Tonight, Derek sat on my living room couch, swirling his glass of whiskey, his eyes tracing me like I was a piece of property he had just purchased. When I whispered that I felt sick and tried to back away toward the hallway, Ryan’s hand clamped around my throat, slamming me against the wall.
“You aren’t going anywhere until Derek gets what he paid for.”
I looked at Derek, silent tears streaming down my bruised cheeks, begging for a single shred of humanity. He just smiled and loosened his tie.
When Ryan turned to grab another bottle from the kitchen, I risked my life. I pulled my hidden phone—an old burner I’d found in the basement—and sent one desperate text:
Mom. Dad. He’s selling me. Please hurry. Don’t knock.
I swallowed the SIM card the second the message sent.
Ten minutes later, the deadbolt rattled. Ryan froze. Before he could react, my father threw his weight against the wood, bursting through the entryway with my mother right behind him. The moment she saw my bleeding lip and Derek unbuttoning his shirt, she let out a visceral scream.
“Get out of my house!” Ryan roared, his face turning crimson.
My father didn’t flinch. He lunged between us.
That’s when Ryan calmly walked to the desk, slid open the bottom drawer, and pulled out something that made the entire room turn ice-cold—not a gun, but a stack of polaroids and a black ledger that revealed a horror none of us were prepared for. Within seconds, screaming neighbors were dialing 911…
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