1 Brooks Montgomery’s assistant has a penchant for "pranks." She waited until I was in the shower, then planted a dead rat in the bathroom to send me bolting onto the penthouse balcony in a panic. The moment I stepped out, she slid the glass door shut and engaged the deadbolt. I was trapped out there for three days, wrapped in nothing but a damp bath towel. I screamed until my throat was raw, but the wind off the city skyline swallowed my voice. No one came. By the time the door finally clicked open on the third afternoon, I was delirious with hunger and shivering from the damp cold. I stumbled into the living room, my eyes landing on a half-eaten artisanal cake sitting on the marble coffee table. It was stale, but I didn't care. I shoved a handful into my mouth, the sugar hit feeling like a lightning bolt to my starved system. Brooks stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the light. He didn’t offer a blanket. He didn’t offer water. He just looked at me with a gaze so cold it felt like a physical slap. "I want a divorce," he said. I looked up at him, my eyelids swollen and my vision blurred. "Because... because I took a bite of this cake?" "Yes." He wasn't alone. He had brought a small circle of our social peers—the very people who used to envy us—to witness my degradation. He tossed a set of divorce papers onto the table, right next to the crumbs. He demanded I sign them then and there, leaving with absolutely nothing. No alimony. No assets. Just the towel on my back. Even among that cynical crowd, a few murmurs of protest broke out. "Brooks, for God’s sake," one of our neighbors, Sarah, whispered. "Your assistant locked her out there for seventy-two hours. She’s starving. It’s just a piece of cake." Brooks’s voice was like dry ice. "It wasn’t hers to touch. She has no right to things that don’t belong to her." He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. "Besides, isn't this exactly how she became Mrs. Montgomery in the first place? By taking things that weren't hers?" The room went quiet. People looked at me with a sickening mix of pity and judgment. I lowered my head, a ghostly, pathetic laugh escaping my cracked lips. "Fine," I whispered. "I’ll sign." I reached for the pen, but my hand was shaking so violently from hypoglycemia that I couldn't even grip the barrel. "Brooks... please," I rasped, looking at the remains of the cake. My stomach was cramping so hard it felt like it was folding in on itself. "Let me eat something first. Just a few more bites, so I can hold the pen." I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. Brooks didn't even blink. He reached down, picked up the plate, and dumped the cake into the trash can. I felt the last spark of life drain out of me. "Jesus, Brooks," someone muttered. "What did she do that was so unforgivable? She's been out there for three days without food." Brooks looked around the room, his expression terrifyingly serene. "She deserves it. I’ve always said I have zero tolerance for people who don't understand boundaries. She knew that cake belonged to Sienna. Even if Sienna was going to throw it away, it wasn't for her to touch." Sienna Hart. His "assistant." The girl who had been the ghost in our marriage from day one. The girl he protected with a ferocity he never showed me. He spoke as if he’d forgotten—or simply didn't care—that Sienna was the one who had orchestrated the "prank." She was the one who had trapped me. I had called Brooks seventy-two times from the balcony’s emergency intercom. Not once did he pick up. "I'll sign," I said, reaching out to clutch his sleeve. "But please... not like this. Not in front of everyone." I looked down at the pink towel, the only thing shielding me from the eyes of these strangers. "Let me go inside. Let me take a shower and put on a dress. Give me ten minutes of dignity." I could feel the greasy, leering stares of some of the men in the room. I wanted to crawl into the floorboards and disappear. "No," Brooks said, his voice a steel trap. "What if you try to run? No, Olivia. You’re signing these now, exactly like this. I want everyone to see. I want the world to know that Sienna isn't the 'other woman.' She's the victim here." He shoved my hand away. I stumbled, nearly hitting the floor. My face was the color of ash. I finally understood. This wasn't a divorce; it was an execution. This was his long-awaited revenge for the day I met Sienna. Sienna had been a charity case Brooks mentored back in college. At his graduation party, I’d caught her on the lawn, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss against his jaw. I hadn’t played the victim then. I had slapped her across the face and told her, "We gave you a scholarship to learn a career, not to learn how to hunt other women’s husbands. If you have this much energy, use it to get into the Fortune 500." That moment turned us into bitter enemies. Everyone knew we loathed each other. So, a year later, when Sienna got "accidentally" locked in a supply closet and missed a career-defining interview with a top-tier firm, she told Brooks I had sabotaged her. And Brooks, the man who supposedly loved me, believed every word she said. "She’s just a girl from nothing, Olivia!" he had screamed at me during our first real fight. "She saw me as a brother, a mentor! That kiss was just her being grateful, and you crushed her for it. You ruined her career because you were jealous." I had been a rising star in the corporate world then, making seven figures, and I refused to let him gaspoint me. "Ruined her career? Brooks, look at her. She’s a mediocre girl with a victim complex. She’s not worth the effort it would take to sabotage her." He had looked at me then with a hatred I should have recognized. "You think you're so high and mighty because of your paycheck? Let’s see how long that pride lasts." The next day, he hired her as his personal assistant. Twenty thousand a month for a "low-stress" job that mostly involved getting him coffee and looking pretty. The office rumors were deafening—everyone assumed they were sleeping together. I fought with him constantly, but he always dismissed me with a "we have nothing to hide" shrug. But I knew. I knew since that kiss on the lawn. The breaking point came when I walked into his office and saw Sienna eating a cupcake with the same spoon Brooks had just used. It was so intimate, so domestic, it broke something in me. I fired her on the spot. I told Brooks if she stayed, I left. He folded. He signed the termination papers. But shortly after, I "voluntarily" stepped down from my company to become a stay-at-home wife—for reasons I couldn't even admit to myself yet. The moment I was out of the professional loop, he brought her back. Recalling it now, I closed my eyes against the stinging tears. "I’m sorry," I whispered. When you're broken and starving, pride is a luxury you can't afford. "Sorry? It’s a little late for that, don't you think?" Brooks pushed the papers closer. "Sign. If you're actually sorry, prove it by letting me go." The words "Zero Assets" felt like a knife in my eye. I gripped the pen. "Can you... can you just give me something? Just twenty thousand dollars? Just enough to get an apartment and a doctor?" I looked up at him, my voice trembling. "Brooks... I’m pregnant." His eyes didn't even flicker. "No." A man in the back, a former colleague of mine, stood up. "For God’s sake, Brooks! Are you a human being? She said she’s pregnant. That’s your wife. That’s your child." Brooks leaned back in his chair, his expression mocking. "She’s my wife. But the kid? That’s up for debate." The room went deathly silent. People traded uncomfortable glances. I felt the blood drain from my head. "What are you saying?" Brooks smirked. "Olivia, when you paid those men to 'harass' Sienna last year, what did you use to convince them? Money? Or did you offer them your body? Because I know for a fact you were 'working late' an awful lot." The accusation was so vile, so far from the truth, that my brain short-circuited. My vision went red. I grabbed the heavy crystal ashtray from the table and hurled it at his head with every ounce of strength I had left. "You soulless bastard!" He didn't move. The crystal caught him right at the temple. Blood began to leak down his forehead, staining his white shirt, but he just sat there, staring at me with a terrifying, triumphant coldness. "You’re a lunatic, Olivia," he whispered. "And lunatics have to pay the price." He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. "I’d like to report an assault. My wife just tried to kill me." He looked me in the eye. "I'm going to make sure you rot in a cell." I collapsed back into the chair, my head hanging low. The police arrived, and after a long, humiliating hour of being questioned while shivering in a towel, they gave me a "stern warning" because Brooks declined to press charges—provided I signed the papers and left immediately. "Fine," I said, my voice dead. "You win." If this marriage was a corpse, there was no point in trying to perform CPR anymore. I reached for the pen to sign my name, but a manicured hand slammed down on the paper. I looked up to see Sienna smiling at me. "Oh, Olivia. You’re giving up so easily? Where’s that 'titan of industry' I used to hear about? The woman who used to spend a million dollars on a weekend in Aspen without blinking?" She leaned in, her voice a poisonous honey. "Now you’re begging for twenty grand like a dog. How pathetic. You’re an embarrassment to women everywhere." I didn't fight back. I was a shell. "I'm signing, Sienna. You got what you wanted. What else is there?" She wasn't done. She wanted to play with her food. "I just think it's too easy. Where's the fun in a mouse that won't run?" Brooks waved his hand, dismissing the crowd. Once the room was empty of everyone but the three of us, he put his arm around Sienna’s waist. "What’s on your mind, babe?" he asked, his voice softening only for her. "I thought you wanted the divorce over with." Sienna traced a finger down Brooks’s cheek. "I just think seeing her walk away with her life intact is... boring. Especially since she’s claiming to be pregnant. She’s trapped, Brooks. She has nowhere to go." She looked at my stomach with a flash of pure, unadulterated venom. "Let’s increase the difficulty level." A cold dread settled in my chest. I thought of the dead rat. I thought of the three days on the balcony. I looked at Brooks, praying for a shred of the man I used to know. He just smiled at her. "Whatever you want. How do you want to play it?" I felt like I had been plunged into ice water. Sienna’s gaze moved back to my stomach. "Since she’s so proud of this 'pregnancy,' let's let her watch. Let’s let her watch as she loses it, step by step." She touched her own flat stomach, her eyes darkening. "Let her feel what it’s like to know you'll never, ever be a mother." At the mention of infertility, Brooks’s face hardened into stone. "Done. It’s a debt she owes you." I tried to beg, but the words died in my throat. I remembered then. The "accident" that happened after I fired Sienna. She had lost her high-paying job and, unable to maintain her lifestyle, had supposedly gone to a "networking dinner" that turned into a nightmare. She claimed she was drugged and assaulted by several men, leaving her with internal injuries that meant she could never conceive. It had nothing to do with me. But Brooks blamed me. He believed that if I hadn't fired her, she wouldn't have been at that dinner. Sienna had been waiting for this. For me to be broke, broken, and at her mercy. Brooks tore up the divorce papers. "We’re not divorcing yet," he sneered. "Sienna says you need to truly 'understand' your mistakes first." "Understanding" meant hell. When I tried to go to a clinic to check on the baby, Sienna forced me to go to a bar and entertain a group of "investors," telling me that if I didn't drink with them, I wouldn't get a cent for rent. He cut off my credit cards. He told me I had to earn my keep by doing "housework" for Sienna. The lowest point came when I had to scrub Sienna’s heels with a toothbrush just to get ten dollars for a breakfast sandwich. Sienna sat in Brooks’s leather office chair, watching me. "If you knew it would end like this, Olivia, would you still have been such a bitch?" She spat out that she had a "great career" before me. I looked up at her, my voice quiet. "Sienna, do you even know why I’m in this position?" She laughed. "Karma. You thought you could lock down a man like Brooks just by getting knocked up? Please." Everyone thought I chose to be a housewife. No one knew the truth. After the cupcake incident, Brooks had begged for my forgiveness. He had been so sweet. "Olivia, I don't want you working so hard. Let’s have a baby. Let’s start a real family." But Brooks had a low sperm count. Conception was nearly impossible. To get pregnant, I went through brutal rounds of hormone injections. The side effects were agonizing—I suffered from severe bladder control issues during the process. I had a humiliating accident during a board meeting. The whispers, the pitying looks... I couldn't face the office anymore. I crawled into the "safety" of home. I hadn't realized I was crawling into a trap they had set together. Brooks’s voice echoed in my head, a constant, dull ache: "It's your fault, Olivia. If you hadn't fired her, she wouldn't have been hurt. You owe her your life." A few days later, Sienna’s kite got stuck in a high branch of a tree on the estate. She insisted I climb up to get it. I was four months pregnant. I practically knelt at her feet. "Please, I'm dizzy, I can't climb a tree..." She called over the estate security guards. "Watch her. If she doesn't get the kite, she doesn't eat today." Halfway up, my palms were shredded. Two-thirds of the way up, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in my abdomen. My foot slipped. I hit the ground hard. I felt a warm, terrifying rush of heat between my legs. I grabbed Sienna’s ankle. "Please... call an ambulance... the baby..." "Oh, stop being so dramatic," Sienna said, kicking my hand away. "Weren't you the one complaining about how hard it is to be a mom anyway?" My head was spinning. "You did this on purpose... you wanted me to fall..." Sienna laughed. "You think a little fall is what's doing this? You really are as stupid as you look." She pulled out her phone and called Brooks, her voice turning into a sweet, chirping trill. "Brooks, honey? I think the game is over. Should we tell your wife our little secret? Should we tell her that the reason she’s losing the baby isn't the tree, but the 'special ingredient' I’ve been grinding into her breakfast every morning for a week? I wonder what her face looks like right now." Before she could finish, a car door slammed. Brooks appeared, his face pale and sweating. "What's happening?" he asked, his voice rough. Sienna faltered. "Brooks? What are you doing back so early?" He didn't answer her. He looked at me, sprawled on the grass, the white fabric of my sundress staining a deep, horrific crimson. Shock and something that looked like genuine grief flashed in his eyes. He ran toward me. "Olivia! Oh god, Olivia!" I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, my voice a whisper of pure venom. "I have a secret too, Brooks."
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