CHAPTER 1 — THE BLIND WIFE THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD BROKEN
Bleach exploded across my face.
For one horrifying second, I couldn't breathe.
Then the pain came.
It wasn't ordinary pain.
It felt as if thousands of burning needles were drilling into my eyes while acid melted through my skin.
I screamed.
The bottle crashed onto the marble floor beside me.
The hallway disappeared into a blinding white haze.
I dropped to my knees, clawing desperately at my face.
Everything smelled like bleach, blood, and expensive perfume.
Then I heard applause.
Slow.
Mocking.
Vanessa.
My sister-in-law.
"Oh no," she laughed. "Did I accidentally blind you?"
Her words echoed through the mansion.
I reached toward the wall, coughing violently.
Blood mixed with the cleaning chemicals dripping from my eyelashes.
My vision vanished completely.
Darkness swallowed everything.
For three years they had prepared me for this moment.
They had isolated me.
Controlled every dollar I spent.
Installed servants loyal only to Adrian's family.
Read my mail.
Intercepted my phone calls.
They called it protecting me.
It was imprisonment.
Adrian stood somewhere behind Vanessa.
I waited for him to help.
Instead...
I heard him sigh.
"You've made enough trouble, Claire."
Those words hurt far more than the bleach.
I had married him because I believed kindness still existed after my father's death.
Instead, I had married into a family of predators.
Vanessa tossed several documents onto the floor beside me.
"Last chance."
She crouched close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume.
"Sign away your father's coastal estate."
"I'll never sign."
She smiled.
"Oh... then we'll do this another way."
She grabbed my hair.
My head slammed into the marble.
Everything rang.
She dragged me across the hallway while Adrian watched silently.
The legal papers scattered behind us like white feathers.
Then she whispered something that made my blood freeze.
"If she disappears..."
"...who's going to ask questions?"
Adrian didn't answer.
That silence became his confession.
Vanessa laughed again.
"You always were the smart one."
I forced myself to breathe.
Twelve steps.
Six more to the oak front door.
Exactly where my mother insisted new security sensors had been installed only weeks earlier.
They thought I was crawling blindly.
They never realized...
I knew exactly where I was going.
Because the cameras weren't broken.
They were recording every word.
And one particular word...
...would summon help faster than anyone inside this mansion could imagine.
Vanessa leaned close.
Her voice became ice.
"We're taking you to the highway tonight."
Somewhere deep inside the walls...
A silent alarm activated.
None of them heard it.
May you like
But someone else did.
And they were already on the way.
