Stars Hang Low Over the Wide Open Plains

Five days after my C-section, my husband Jason was summoned away again—this time by a call from his childhood friend, Angela. I stared at his message—*You handle the baby first, thanks for all your hard work*—and a wave of nausea heaved inside me. Later, when I saw the large, angry burn on our daughter Michelle’s calf from scalding water, he called it an “accidental slip.” But on his unlocked phone, I found Angela’s text: *Let the baby get a little burn. Then she won’t have the energy to bother you.* Beneath it, his immediate reply: *Okay.* So that was it. The child I’d risked my life to bring into the world was, in his eyes, nothing more than a tool to teach me a lesson. *** Alone in bed, I listened to our five-day-old daughter wail herself hoarse in her crib. The last of the anesthesia was wearing off, leaving my incision throbbing as if a thousand ants were gnawing at it. A cold sweat broke over my skin. Every movement threatened to tear my stitches, leaving me helpless—unable to get up, unable to hold her. My phone still glowed, open to my chat with Jason. My last message read: *Michelle won't stop crying. When are you coming home?* His reply: *Angela's place lost power. She's scared alone. I'm heading over to check. You soothe the baby first, thanks for all your hard work, honey.* Followed by a kissing emoji. That little icon made me sick. How laughable. The man who once vowed, “Just focus on giving birth, honey, I’ll handle the baby,” was now at another woman’s apartment, fixing appliances that never stayed fixed, right when I needed him most. And our daughter and I? We’d been reduced to a casual *thanks for all your hard work.* Despair and pain washed over me together. Finally, a sob tore from my throat, and the tears came—hot, helpless, unstoppable. I hated him. I hated that I’d been so blind, marrying this selfish, spineless man. But I hated myself more. Why did it take until now to finally see clearly? Before the wedding, Jason had doted on my every whim. He was the ambitious small-town boy who’d made it in the city. I was the only daughter of a well-off urban family. My parents gifted us a fully paid-off apartment, a decent car, and a substantial trust fund in my name. Everyone said I was marrying beneath me, but I was blinded by his drive and his endless consideration. He remembered all my likes and dislikes, made me ginger tea for my cramps, and picked me up no matter how late I worked. His most frequent promise: “Debra, you are my whole world. I’ll never let you suffer a single grievance in this lifetime.” I believed him. Then I got pregnant. He began using work as an excuse to come home less and less. Then came the delivery. As I lay writhing in the labor room, he got a call from Angela. Hesitating, he turned to me. “Debra, Angela... she just went through a bad breakup. She’s really unstable. I’m worried she might hurt herself...” If my mother hadn’t slapped him right then, he might have actually left me—in the throes of childbirth—to go comfort his “poor, helpless little sister.” After Michelle was born, I thought he’d finally pull himself together. I was wrong. The first day postpartum: Angela’s light bulb was out. Jason went. The second day: her sink was clogged. Jason went again. The third day, the fourth day... the excuses never stopped. Fixing her computer, helping her carry packages, even just accompanying her to take out the trash. I went from quietly enduring, to questioning him, to the numb resignation I felt now. Jason always had his reasons. “Debra, don’t overthink it. What we have is just a sibling bond. She’s struggling alone in the big city. What’s wrong with me helping her out? You never used to be this petty.” Petty?

Chapters

Chapter 3

In the dead of night, the children's hospital blazed with light, but the air held a cold that seeped into the bones.

After the examination, the doctor said we were lucky—just a minor scald, not too large an area. With ointment and proper care, there’d be no scar.

Holding Yoyo in my arms, the knot of anxiety in my chest finally loosened, just a little.

Jason trailed behind me like a scolded child, his voice a broken record. "Honey, I'm sorry, I really didn’t mean to. I'm just exhausted, I wasn't thinking straight…"

I said nothing. I didn’t even look at him.

By the time we got home, it was already three in the morning.

After the ointment was applied, Yoyo finally sank into sleep. I stayed by her crib, awake through the long, silent hours.

Just before dawn, Jason’s phone buzzed once in the living room—a text.

Almost against my will, I walked out.

The phone wasn’t locked. The screen glowed with his chat to Angela.

The latest message, from Angela, read: "Jason, did your wife give you a hard time again? Ugh, it's all my fault. I’m causing you trouble."

Jason had replied: "It's fine. Just postpartum stuff. She’ll be better in a couple of days."

My finger slid upward, driven by a dread I couldn’t name.

What I saw was a flood of messages: Angela’s various "emergencies," each met with Jason’s "on my way."

My heart sank lower and lower, until I reached their chat from yesterday afternoon—before I had threatened divorce.

Angela: "Jason, is your wife giving you trouble again? Does she not want you to help me?"

Jason: "Ignore her. She's just being dramatic."

Angela: "Don’t say that about your wife. Women are like that after giving birth. But if she keeps making a fuss, it’s not going to work. Maybe… you should teach her a lesson? Let her see how hard it is to take care of a baby. Then she won’t cling to you so much."

Jason: "What kind of--"

What followed was a voice message—one that sent me plunging into an icy abyss.

Hands trembling, I tapped to play it.

Angela’s saccharine voice oozed from the speaker, laced with malice. "Oh, I’m just joking! Like… accidentally knocking over a cup of hot water, letting the baby get a little scald. Once she panics, she won’t have time to bother you anymore, right?"

My breath caught.

In that instant, all the blood in my body seemed to freeze.

I stared at the screen, fingers frantically scrolling, heart hammering against my ribs. I prayed, desperately, that it wouldn’t be what I thought.

But reality shattered my last shred of hope.

Below that voice message, Jason’s reply was clear as day.

A single word.

"Okay."

With a deafening crash inside me, my last thread of restraint snapped.

That "Okay." was a knife dipped in poison, plunged into my heart and twisted, churning my insides to pulp.

So it wasn’t a slip. It wasn’t an accident.

It was deliberate. A plot.

My husband, following another woman’s suggestion, had used our five-day-old daughter to "teach me a lesson."

A tidal wave of hatred and revulsion rose in my throat, bitter and choking.

Clutching the phone, I staggered back to the bedroom, numb as a zombie.

Jason was fast asleep, snoring softly.

Looking at that face I had once loved, I felt nothing but a hollow, freezing disgust.

I raised the phone and smashed it against his head.

"Ah!" He jolted awake, clutching his bleeding forehead, staring at me in shock and fury. "Jesus, Debra! Have you lost your mind!"

I laughed, tears streaming down my face. "Lost my mind? Jason, I should have lost it a long time ago!" I threw the phone down in front of him. "Look at this! Take a good look! This is your ‘like a sister’! This is your ‘postpartum stuff’!"

He picked up the phone. When he saw the chat, his face turned deathly pale.

In a panic, he grabbed my hand. "Debra, listen, it’s a misunderstanding!"

"A misunderstanding? A joke?" I shook him off, screaming. "Your daughter’s leg is still wrapped in bandages! And you call it a joke? Jason, are you even human? That’s your own flesh and blood!"

"Of course I know she’s my daughter!" he shouted back, face flushed with shame and anger. "I told you it was an accident! Why won’t you believe me? Debra, can’t you stop overreacting? I’ve apologized! What more do you want? Do you have to blow up this family to be happy?"

Blow up this family?

Looking at his self-righteous expression, I suddenly couldn’t laugh anymore.

In that moment, something in me quietly died. A chilling calm settled over my bones.

I looked at him with a coldness I had never shown before. Word by word, I said, "Jason, I want a divorce."

Continue to next part

I spent three years building my husband, Axel Farrell, into Silicon Valley's ultimate "family man." As his lead PR strategist, I carefully managed his public image, making sure the world saw him as a perfect, devoted husband while I worked in the shadows of our estate. The illusion shattered when he came home one night smelling of sandalwood and roses, with three deep fingernail scratches carved into his back. When I tried to check his phone, the passcode we had used for years-our wedding anniversary-had been changed. The betrayal got worse the next morning when his mother called me a "defective product" and tried to force me into a fertility clinic. Axel didn't defend me; instead, he shoved me against a marble bar at a public gala to protect his mistress in front of the world's elite. By the time I tried to leave, Axel had frozen my bank accounts and filed a forged legal petition to have me declared mentally incompetent. He planned to have me legally kidnapped and locked in a private psychiatric ward just to stop me from filing for divorce. He even blocked every major law firm in the city from taking my case, leaving me with no money, no identity, and no one to turn to. I couldn't understand how the man who "saved" me from the mud years ago could be the same monster now trying to legally erase my existence. Was our entire marriage just a grooming process to exploit my genius for his billion-dollar empire? As the deadline for my forced commitment approached, I stopped crying and opened my laptop. I leaked the video of his affair to every tech journalist in the country, watching his stock price crash in real-time. "Axel thinks starving me out will make me crawl back to him," I whispered as I walked into the headquarters of his biggest rival. "But he forgot that the most valuable part of his company is in my head." I was no longer the abandoned wife; I was the one who was going to take his throne and burn it to the ground.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.1

Discarded Love, The Reaper's Regret

9.1

My husband, Dante Moretti, the feared Underboss, signed the divorce papers I slipped him without a glance. Too busy texting his true love, Sofia, he was blind to the annulment decree ending everything. The Reaper couldn't see the death of his own marriage. For three years, I was Elena, his silent wife, the "Caged Canary," cleaning his messes while meticulously planning my escape from our loveless world. He dismissed me for Sofia's every whim, publicly shaming me after a past love letter was read, then abandoning me again for her fake crisis. That night, he violently shoved me against a wall, leaving me bleeding and concussed, rushing instead to protect Sofia. Discarded and injured, my invisible love became a weapon against me. His crushing blindness, the cold realization I was a mere placeholder, fueled a profound injustice. How could he be so lethal, yet oblivious to his wife, favoring the one who betrayed him? With chilling resolve, I uploaded Sofia's confession, initiated a massive financial transfer dismantling his empire, and staged my own death. Under a new identity, I fled to San Francisco, ready to build my power, far from his bloody, deceitful world.

Action Modern Romance

9.5

I can't Love You In The Dark

9.5

Sienna Peterson had the whole "happily ever after" thing locked down... or so she thought. She married her college sweetheart, mastered the art of casserole-making, and dove headfirst into suburban adulthood. Twenty-one years later? Her husband's traded her in for someone who still gets carded, her kids are off to college, and Sienna is suddenly very single with a whole lot of free time. Cue the midlife plot twist. Who says your 40s can't be fabulous? Who says you can't date a ridiculously attractive and a billboard 26-year-old named Daniel Walter-who just so happens to be sweet, sexy, and seriously into her? Daniel may be younger, but he's got his life together and his heart in the right place. Sienna, on the other hand, has no idea how she ended up in a situationship with a man who knows how to properly fold fitted sheets. But hey-he makes her laugh, makes her blush, and makes her feel more alive than she has in years. It starts off as just fun... but what if it's more than that? What if age is just a number, and love is the surprise twist she never saw coming? One woman's fresh start. One unexpected romance. And a whole lot of awkwardly hot moments.

Modern Romance Young Adult

9.4

My Husband Saved His Mistress and Let Our Baby Die

9.4

The first thing I registered wasn’t pain. It was the white. Blinding, sterile, aggressive white. It saturated the ceiling tiles, the stiff sheets tucked too tightly around my legs, and the humming fluorescent tube overhead that flickered like a dying heartbeat. Then came the hollowness. A physical, gaping void in my lower abdomen that felt less like an injury and more like an eviction. I tried to sit up, but my body felt heavy, anchored by lead weights in my veins. A nurse materialized at my side—a woman with kind eyes and tired shoulders, smelling of antiseptic and cheap coffee. She adjusted the IV drip, her movements practiced and gentle, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. "Mrs.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.7

No Longer His Captive Surgeon Wife

9.7

I was a top cardiac surgeon, trapped in a dead marriage with a ruthless billionaire. One afternoon, he brought his mistress to my hospital, ordering me to perform her high-risk heart surgery. When I refused and handed him our divorce papers, he violently tore them up and threatened to erase my name from the medical community. Worse, I discovered they had a five-year-old surrogate son—bought and born the exact same year I bled out on an operating table, losing our baby. The mistress mocked my trauma, calling me a barren piece of trash who couldn't give him an heir. I slapped her across the face. The next morning, the NYPD publicly handcuffed me in my own hospital. She had framed me for attempted murder, claiming I injected her IV with a lethal dose of potassium. My husband cornered me in the interrogation room. "Just confess to me. I will throw enough money at the DA to make this entirely disappear." I looked into his dark eyes and saw nothing but raw, unfiltered suspicion. He actually believed I was a jealous murderer. I swore I would rather rot in a concrete cell for the rest of my life than bow down to them. Just as my childhood savior miraculously appeared to bail me out, my phone rang. The mistress had gone into full cardiac arrest. Only I had the surgical skill to save her. I turned around, deciding whether to let the woman who ruined my life die, or pick up my scalpel.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.6

Pampered By The Rival Mafia Boss

9.6

Ten years ago, I saved the life of New York’s most dangerous mob boss with a sewing kit. I gave Ethan Reed my youth, my loyalty, and my heart. But the moment his ex-girlfriend Chloe returned, I became disposable. It didn't matter that she had abandoned him. It didn't matter that she poisoned me, killing the unborn child Ethan didn't even know we had. When Chloe needed a kidney transplant due to her drug abuse, Ethan didn't protect me. He strapped me to a gurney. "It's just one kidney, Ava. You owe me." He harvested my organ to save the woman who murdered his heir. And when he was done, he decided I was a loose end. He dragged me to the edge of a bridge in the pouring rain. "This is how it ends," he said, his eyes devoid of love. "A tragic suicide." He pushed me into the freezing water, watching me drown to secure his happy ending. He thought I was dead. He thought the canary had sung its last song. But he forgot one thing. I was the chemist who built his empire. When his greatest rival pulled me out of the river, I didn't pray for salvation. I prayed for revenge. Three months later, I walked into his charity gala on the arm of his enemy, wearing a white suit and a smile sharp enough to cut glass. Ethan dropped to his knees when he saw me. But I wasn't there to forgive him. I was there to burn his house down.

Action Mafia Modern

Stars Hang Low Over the Wide Open Plains

Chapter 3

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