After My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Our Son

The iron gates of Greystone Psychiatric Center groaned shut behind the van.

It didn't look like a hospital. It looked like a tomb made of cracked concrete. Rain streaked down the barred windows. The air inside smelled of stale bleach, cheap tobacco, and dried urine.

A heavy-set orderly shoved me toward a rusted metal desk.

"Pockets empty. Clothes off," she barked.

My body still burned from the hysterectomy. Every step pulled at my fresh stitches. I took off my coat with trembling hands. On my right wrist, my late grandmother’s vintage jade-and-gold bangle gleamed against the dingy lights.

The orderly reached for it.

"No, please," I whispered, pulling my arm back. "It’s my grandmother’s. It’s all I have left."

She twisted my wrist until the bone popped. "No jewelry. Hospital policy."

She wrenched the gold bangle off my skin, scraping the bone raw, and tossed it into a gray plastic bin.

They marched me into Ward 4. It was chaos. Women paced the hallways, screaming at the walls. Others sat on the floor, rocking back and forth.

That first night, sleep wouldn't come. My cot smelled like old sweat.

Around two in the morning, shadows blocked the light from the hall. Two women pulled me out of bed by my hair.

"New girl," one hissed. Her fist slammed into my jaw.

The other kicked me straight in my lower stomach. Pain exploded through my surgical wound. I curled into a ball, choking on my own blood.

Through the tears, I saw an orderly standing in the doorway. He leaned against the frame, picking his fingernails.

"Help me!" I gasped.

He didn't move. He just smiled, turned around, and walked away.

***

By morning, my face was swollen purple. Blood had soaked through the front of my paper gown.

Two guards dragged me into the head administrator's office. Dr. Arthur Kline sat behind a polished mahogany desk. He wore a crisp white coat and gold-rimmed glasses.

"I was assaulted," I said, spitting blood onto his linoleum. "I want my lawyer. You have to let me make a phone call."

Dr. Kline adjusted his glasses. He didn't even look at my bruises.

"Patient Natalie Edwards," he read from a file. "Displaying intense hostility. Paranoid ideations."

"Look at me!" I yelled, slamming my palms on his desk. "Your guards let them beat me! Call my lawyer, or I will burn this place to the ground!"

Kline didn't blink. He signed a yellow form with a flick of his wrist.

"Severe agitation," he said calmly. "Risk to self and staff. Administer forty milligrams of Thorazine. Put her in isolation."

"No!" I screamed.

Two burly men pinned me to the floor. A cold swab touched my hip. Then the sharp bite of a needle.

A thick, dark fog rushed into my brain.

When I opened my eyes, leather straps bound my wrists and ankles to an iron cot. The room was four windowless padded walls. My mouth felt like cotton. I couldn't move my tongue.

The heavy steel door creaked open. A young nurse walked in carrying a tray. Her name tag read *Maria*. She looked at my swollen eye, then checked the hallway behind her before stepping inside.

She soaked a cotton swab in water and gently pressed it to my cracked lips.

"Drink," she whispered.

"Help me," I croaked. "Silas... Silas Armstrong did this. He's my husband."

Maria’s hands trembled. She leaned down close to my ear.

"You can't fight them here, honey," she whispered. "Dr. Kline isn't treating you. He gets a wire transfer every month from an account named Armstrong Industries. You're not a patient to him. You're a paid contract."

Cold dread washed over my chest. Silas hadn't sent me here to hide from the press.

He sent me here to die.

***

Five days later, they threw me back into the communal ward.

My body had grown weak from the drugs. My stitches tore open during a second beating near the showers. Nobody helped. The staff looked the other way every single time.

The third beating came on a Tuesday afternoon.

Three women cornered me by the rusty radiators at the end of the hall. They took turns kicking my ribs until I couldn't draw breath. I collapsed onto the freezing concrete, coughing red foam onto the tiles.

My eyes closed. I felt the last thread of my spirit slipping away. *Let it end,* I thought. *Just let me see my baby.*

"Back off," a sharp voice cut through the shouting.

Heavy boots stepped onto the floor. The attackers hesitated, muttering under their breath, before scattering down the hallway.

A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me upright.

I blinked through swollen eyelids. The woman kneeling over me had sharp, feline features and graying hair pulled into a tight bun. Her prison-gray scrubs were spotless. On her pale wrists, I saw thick, faded scars from leather restraints.

"Breathe through your nose," she said. Her voice was firm, smooth, and laced with steel. "Don't choke on your own blood."

"Who... are you?" I gasped.

"Victoria Sterling," she replied. She wiped a smudge of red from my cheek with a clean rag. "Former senior partner at Sterling, Vance & Cole. Corporate litigation."

I stared at her. "Why are you in here?"

Victoria laughed without humor. "My billionaire ex-husband hid fifty million dollars offshore. I found the shell companies. Two weeks later, he paid off a judge and Dr. Kline to label me violently paranoid."

She looked at my torn clothes, then at the way I held my stomach. Her eyes narrowed with razor-sharp clarity.

"You're Silas Armstrong's wife," Victoria said quietly. "I read about the baby. Then the press suddenly went dark."

Tears pricked my eyes. "Silas bought Kline. He's going to let them kill me."

"He bought the administrator," Victoria corrected, helping me sit against the radiator. "He didn't buy the orderlies. They only care about money and contraband. I run the commissary trade on this floor. I have three guards in my pocket."

She looked straight into my eyes. Her grip on my arm was iron.

"I've watched women die in this ward, Natalie. You aren't going to be one of them. We're going to keep you alive. And then we're going to make those bastards bleed."