No Longer A Victim, Now I Rise
The fluorescent hum of the DMV was the soundtrack to my boring life, until I tried to replace my lost driver's license.
"Your marital status. It says you're divorced," the clerk said, shattering my five-year marriage to Jackson Parks with a single, flat sentence.
My husband, Jackson, the man who swore he loved me, had secretly divorced me three years ago. Not only that, he had remarried the very next day to Candida Camacho, the woman who had tried to murder me on my wedding day and left me infertile. And they had a two-year-old son, Joey.
I stumbled home, my world a blur, only to find Jackson and Candida in our living room, arguing. "I hate having to pretend for that pathetic woman!" Candida shrieked. Jackson, my husband, pleaded, "I love you. I've always loved you."
The man I sacrificed everything for, who swore to destroy her, was now playing house with my attempted murderer, and I was the fool living in his house, sleeping in his bed, believing his lies.
The pain in my abdomen, a phantom ache from five years ago, flared to life, mirroring the gaping wound in my soul. I would not be his victim anymore.
"Hamilton," I said into the phone, my voice clear and steady. "I need your help. I need you to help me die."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
"I want to disappear," I said into the phone, my voice a dead monotone. "Completely. I want the world, and especially Jackson Parks, to believe I'm dead."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Hamilton's voice, when it came, was low and serious. "Elena, what happened?"
"He lied," I said. "Everything was a lie."
I didn't need to say more. Hamilton knew what Jackson meant to me. He also knew what Jackson was capable of.
"Tell me what you need," he said, no judgment in his tone, only steel.
"A plane crash," I said, the words tasting like poison. "As soon as possible. Can you arrange that?"
"Consider it done," he said. "I'll handle everything. Where will you go?"
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "Just... away from here."
"I have a place in Provence," he offered. "It's quiet. No one will find you. I'll send the details. Just get yourself to the private airfield in Van Nuys tomorrow night. A jet will be waiting."
"Thank you, Hamilton."
"Always, Elena."
I hung up, a fresh wave of pain washing over me. Making that call made it real. The life I knew was over. The man I loved was a monster who had systematically destroyed me while pretending to cherish me.
He had cheated on me. He had lied to me. He had married another woman while I still wore his ring.
He deserved to be cheated. He deserved to be lied to.
He wanted me gone? Fine. I would vanish from his world so completely it would be as if I never existed.
A soft knock on my door made me jump.
"Mrs. Parks?" It was Maria, our housekeeper. "Mr. Parks is home. He's asking for you."
I took a deep breath, schooling my features into a mask of calm. I opened the door.
Jackson was standing in the hallway. When he saw me, a flicker of panic crossed his face before it was replaced by his usual, charming smile. It was a performance I now saw with horrifying clarity.
"Elena, darling," he said, striding toward me and wrapping his arms around my waist. He tried to kiss me, but I turned my head slightly, and his lips brushed my cheek. "I was worried. You were out for so long."
His concern felt like acid on my skin. I could smell Candida's perfume on his shirt.
"I just had some errands to run," I said, my voice carefully neutral. I pulled away from his embrace.
My eyes fell on the woman and child standing behind him. Candida and Joey.
"Who are they?" I asked, my voice flat, as if I didn't know.
Jackson visibly relaxed, a small sigh of relief escaping his lips. He thought I didn't know. He thought he could keep lying.
"Oh, this is a wonderful surprise," he said, his voice full of fake enthusiasm. "Elena, remember how we talked about wanting a child? How much we wanted to fill this big house with laughter?"
He gestured to the boy. "This is Joey. He's an orphan. I thought... I thought we could adopt him. Give him a home. A family."
He was using my infertility, the very wound he and his secret wife had caused, as a tool for his deception. The cruelty of it was breathtaking.
"And this," he said, indicating Candida, "is Miss Camacho. She's a caretaker from the orphanage who has grown very attached to Joey. I've hired her to be his nanny, to help him adjust."
He put his hand on Joey's head. "Joey, say hello to your new mommy."
My heart felt like a block of ice. New mommy. The irony was a bitter pill.
The boy, Joey, looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. But there was something cold in them, something that didn't match his cherubic face.
"Hello... Mommy," he said, his voice small and hesitant.
Jackson beamed, a proud father. "Isn't he wonderful, Elena?"
Candida stood silently, her eyes downcast, playing the part of a humble nanny perfectly. But I could see the faint smirk playing on her lips. She was enjoying this. She was enjoying my humiliation.
"He's a lovely boy," I said, my voice hollow. I looked at Jackson, my gaze steady. "I'm a little tired. I think I'll go lie down."
Jackson's smile tightened. He saw something in my eyes, a coldness that wasn't there before.
"Are you feeling alright, darling?" he asked, his brow furrowed with fake concern. "You look pale."
"Just a headache," I lied. I turned and walked toward our bedroom, my back straight.
"Let me get you some soup," Jackson called after me, his voice dripping with the false tenderness that now made my stomach turn. "Maria makes the best chicken soup. It will make you feel better."
I didn't answer. I closed the bedroom door behind me and leaned against it, the facade of calm crumbling. I was shaking again, a deep, violent tremor that started in my soul.
Later, Joey brought the soup to my room, pushed by a smiling Jackson.
"Be a good boy and take care of your mommy," Jackson cooed, patting his head.
The boy carried the tray carefully. He set it on the nightstand, his small face serious. "I'll help you, Mommy."
For a moment, I felt a pang of something other than hatred. He was just a child, a pawn in his mother's sick game. I reached out to take the bowl from him.
As my fingers closed around the warm ceramic, he let go. Deliberately.
The bowl tipped, and scalding hot soup spilled all over my hand and wrist. I cried out, pulling my hand back. The skin was already turning an angry red.
Joey's eyes widened. He let out a piercing wail, clutching his own hand.
"Ow! My hand! You burned me!" he screamed, tears streaming down his face. "You did it on purpose! You hate me!"
You may also like
9.5
The disgraced daughter of the Patton family is back from the countryside.At the news, everyone spurned her with contempt!
A good-for-nothing young lady, a crude village wench, a vicious devil...
Until one day--The world-famous life-saving medical sovereign is her.The enigmatic top forensic specialist is her.The grandmaster hacker hunted across the globe is also her.
One hidden identity of the young miss came to light after another.Shocked and dumbfounded, the crowd fell to their knees to beg for forgiveness.
In an instant, Evie was cornered by the mysterious powerhouse.Hartwell's voice lured and mesmerized:"Darling, you have countless secret identities. Would you mind taking on one more, being my wife!"
8.3
Ayleen Ramirez sat in the sterile Hope Hill Fertility Clinic, her heart shattering as Dr. Finch delivered the crushing news: her third IVF cycle had failed.
Eavesdropping outside a supply closet, she overheard her husband Don on the phone, laughing cruelly. "She's a defective incubator," he sneered to his mistress Alessandra. "I never used my sperm—just cheap bank donation. No trailer trash carries a Bradley heir."
Betrayed, Ayleen confronted him, but her adoptive family ambushed her at home. Her parents and brother sided with Alessandra, now pregnant by Don, demanding Ayleen sign divorce papers to secure family investments. "You're an embarrassment," her mother snapped, threatening to cut her trust fund. Ayleen tossed back their heirloom necklace and walked out.
She stormed the Bradley mansion, slapped divorce papers on Don, packed her bags amid his aunt's insults, and fled into the night.
Drunk in a trendy bar, she stumbled into a powerful stranger—Burdette Guerrero—spilling whiskey on his crotch, then accidentally grabbed a napkin to his trousers. He shoved her away in rage.
Worse, she mistook his penthouse suite for her hotel room, bursting in on his shower, smashing a mirror in panic. He pinned her to the wall, snarling accusations.
How did this arrogant man know her name? Why demand she sign a mysterious contract at 9 a.m.? Devastated and clueless she's actually pregnant—with his stolen heir—Ayleen sobbed alone, the world crumbling.
The next morning, she straightened her spine in the Grand Guerrero lobby, ready to face him and demand answers—no matter the cost.
9.4
Six years ago, Breanna was shoved into a pitch-black hotel suite by her own uncle.
She was forced to endure a brutal night with a drugged stranger just to keep her grandmother's ventilator running.
Nine months later, she gave birth in a cold underground clinic.
But her uncle immediately snatched the crying newborn from her trembling hands, coldly announcing the baby had died.
For six years, Breanna lived in agonizing grief, working as a lowly hotel cleaner just to survive.
But a cruel setup threw her directly into the path of Elliot Finch, the arrogant billionaire from that dark night.
He did not recognize the woman whose life he had completely ruined.
Instead, he looked at her like she was rotting garbage, had his guards drag her into a wet alley, and mercilessly got her fired.
"If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you cannot get a job cleaning toilets."
Breanna was suffocating from the injustice, stripped of her dignity and her family's only lifeline.
Yet, when she instinctively protected a traumatized little boy from bullies, she discovered he was Elliot's son.
The boy clung to her neck, crying and desperately begging his father to let her stay.
But Elliot just threw a massive check at her chest, violently accusing her of brainwashing a sick child for a meal ticket.
Looking at the toxic disgust in his eyes, something inside Breanna finally broke.
She picked up the check, ripped the millions into tiny shreds, and let them rain down on his expensive shoes.
"Keep your dirty money."
She turned her back on the crying boy and the stunned billionaire, deciding she would no longer be their victim.
8.0
After fifteen years of marriage and a brutal battle with infertility, I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test. This baby was my victory, the heir that would finally secure my place as the wife of mob capo Marco Vitiello. I planned to announce it at his mother's party, a triumph over the matriarch who saw me as nothing but a barren field.
But before I could celebrate, my friend sent me a video. The headline read: "MOB CAPO MARCO VITIELLO'S PASSIONATE NIGHTCLUB KISS!" It was him, my husband, devouring a woman who looked like a younger, fresher version of me.
Hours later, Marco stumbled home, drunk and reeking of another woman's perfume. He complained about his mother begging him for an heir, completely unaware of the secret I held. Then my phone lit up with a text from an unknown number.
"Your husband slept with my girl. We need to talk."
It was signed by Dante Moretti, the ruthless Don of our rival family.
The meeting with Dante was a nightmare. He showed me another video. This time, I heard my husband's voice, telling the other woman, "I love you. Elara... that's just business." My fifteen years of loyalty, of building his empire, of taking a bullet for him-all dismissed as "just business."
Dante didn't just reveal the affair; he showed me proof that Marco was already stealing our shared assets to build a new life with his mistress. Then, he made me an offer.
"Divorce him," he said, his eyes cold and calculating. "Join me. We'll build an empire together and destroy him."
9.7
For three years, I was the dutiful wife of billionaire Ervin Valdez.
On our third wedding anniversary, he came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, pinned me down, and brutally mocked me.
His mistress, Sylvia, had even sent me a fake ultrasound report to force me out of the picture.
In Ervin's eyes, I was just a vicious, calculating liar who used a pregnancy to trap him into marriage.
He didn't care that I had actually lost that baby, nor did he know the trauma of my gambling father selling me to a dark club where I was assaulted by a stranger.
When I finally handed him the signed divorce papers, giving up all assets, and left the penthouse with nothing but an old suitcase, he just sneered.
"She is playing a game of hard to get. She won't last three days before she comes crying back."
He froze all my bank accounts, let his mistress humiliate me in public, and waited coldly for me to starve and beg.
He thought my entire existence relied on his wealth, completely confident that I would inevitably surrender to his control.
But he was wrong.
I calmly opened my old laptop, bypassed the complex encryptions, and looked at the dozens of unread emails from top-tier global brands begging for my return.
I resurrected my hidden identity as the legendary jewelry designer "R," and walked straight into the top design firm in Manhattan.
"It is time to find myself again."
8.9
For seven years, I hid my MIT Ph.D. and my identity as a top haute couture designer to be the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Cornelius Lambert.
But on our anniversary, while I waited at home with a cold dinner, I found him at a Michelin restaurant with his childhood sweetheart, Halle.
My seven-year-old son sat between them, laughing loudly.
"Mom is too boring. I wish Aunt Halle was my real mom."
Cornelius didn't defend me. He just smiled and affectionately ruffled the boy's hair.
When I finally packed my bags and left, I accidentally triggered an old AI robot prototype Cornelius had given me years ago.
A hidden recording played his voice from the very night he proposed.
"Why marry her? Because she's easy to control. Halle doesn't want to settle down yet, so Cassidy is just a perfect, temporary shield."
Later, when I caught them being intimate in a dark parking garage and snapped a photo, Cornelius watched with cold, dead eyes as his massive bodyguard shoved me against a concrete pillar.
My arm was torn open, blood dripping onto the floor, as they forced me to delete the evidence of his affair.
For seven years, I filed down every sharp edge of my brilliance for a man who saw me as nothing but a pathetic, disposable placeholder.
My heart turned to absolute ice. He thought I was just a weak, powerless housewife.
But he forgot who he was dealing with.
As his luxury car drove away, I pulled up the hidden command terminal on my phone and recovered the encrypted cloud backup of the photos.
I looked at my lawyer with a bleeding arm and a cold smile.
"Let's go. Now, we have a weapon."