After His Mistress Faked a Baby, I Burned It All Down

When I surfaced again, the back of my hand throbbed in slow waves. The monitor beeped its steady rhythm. I dragged myself upright, and there was Luke.

He watched me with a flat calm. "You could have just signed and made this easy." He paused. "But you never did learn to behave."

I thought of how he'd destroyed my father's ashes for that woman, and a mouthful of blood rose in my throat.

He gripped my shoulder, suddenly tense. "Lie back down."

I stared at him with everything I had. "Keep your dirty hands off me — they've been all over other women. You're not worth the touch."

His face froze, then twisted ugly. "You'll never admit you're wrong, will you. Let's see how long you can keep this up."

"From now on, stop hurting Tonya. She saved my life, she's carrying my child. Treating her well is the most natural thing in the world." Impatience crept into his eyes.

Every word went in like glass.

I held the tears at the rim of my eyes and forced out a smile. "Fine."

His gaze went knife-cold. He'd just opened his mouth when a cry came from Tonya's room.

His eyes melted in an instant, and his voice rushed out soft. "Baby, I'm here."

On his way out he knocked the hand they were transfusing. The needle tore through my skin and I bit down hard against the pain. He didn't even notice.

"That's right. In two days I'm announcing the baby to everyone. You're not allowed at the party. I won't have you getting some twisted idea into your head and hurting her." He dropped the words at the door and was gone.

Good. In two days the evidence of his crimes would surface. In two days I would be gone too.

I picked up my phone and scrolled to Tonya's post on social media.

In the video, Luke kissed her belly with a face full of joy while her fingers stroked through his hair.

I set the phone down, listening to the laughter coming through the wall, and my mind drifted.

The night we married, he told me, righteous and certain, that for my happiness he refused to have children. He would even go to the hospital and get a vasectomy.

He pulled me close and kissed me again and again, telling me he couldn't bear to watch a baby ruin my body.

That was where the happiness ended. Then he changed, all at once, into something brutal and selfish.

The next day I pulled out every line and went to sign my discharge papers.

The nurse told me the payment had failed. Wrong password. I tried five times and got the same error every time, until they were looking at me like a woman trying to skip out on her bill.

The password was our wedding anniversary. There was no way I'd typed it wrong, but the truth was landing anyway, cold and undeniable.

I still remembered the day we married, going to the bank together to open a joint account, his hand over mine as we set our wedding date as the password.

"I want you to remember our wedding day forever, to love me every year just like you do today." At the VIP counter he'd tapped the tip of my nose, doting. "Every time we feel happy, we put money in. This is our happiness fund."

Now the system flagged me as a thief. I patted myself down. There wasn't a single thing of value left on me.

I was fumbling for some way to explain when Tonya came drifting out of the elevator.

She raised a hand to greet me, tugging her collar open as if by accident, and there on her neck was the purple diamond necklace, the one Luke had commissioned exclusively for me. Below it, the skin was scattered with kiss marks.

"Anne, Luke changed the password last night. He probably hadn't gotten around to telling you." Tonya smiled, pleased with herself. "He was a little rough with me last night, trying to make me happy. You're not upset, are you?"