Chapter 1 Chapter One

Nyra’s POV

Moisture burned behind my eyes as I read my husband's messages with a contact saved as “Cute bunny."

I dropped the Romantasy novel I had been reading for the past hour, carefully on the mantelpiece, the phone growing heavy in my hands.

I had planned to get a digital copy of our wedding picture from his phone, so I could frame it for our anniversary tomorrow, before an incoming text led me to his inbox, and I stumbled onto the very words that were now ripping my heart to shreds.

“She is a big bore,” Victor told whoever Cute bunny was. “Sometimes I am tempted to get rid of her so that I can be with you.”

I shut my eyes tight and fought back the cold sting of the betrayal. So that was what I had been to Victor all these years--a bore. One, he was tempted to kill.

I glanced back in the direction of the bathroom.

The shower was still pouring, though muted by the distance. He wasn't out yet.

I continued through the messages, and with each reply I read, the pain twisting my insides only flared hotter.

They were either a declaration of love from Victor to Cute Bunny, a trade of explicit photos, or more damning things about me.

I scrolled past fields of photos displaying Victor’s dick, or cute bunny's breasts, and her sex without her face. Seeing her round, full breasts almost made me glance down at my flat, sagging ones. I blinked hard to look away.

“I thought you planned to kill her once you gained control of her inheritance." Cute bunny said again. "When are you going to do that? What are you waiting for?”

A hand shot out from behind me and snatched the phone. I spun around to meet a face tight with a frown.

He’d always looked ravishingly handsome after each bath, with drops of water sliding down his sun-brown skin to the towel around his waist, his hair, a curly mop over his head.

But right now, I didn't see that beauty. I saw evil. I saw him for the bastard he really was.

“What were you doing, snooping through my phone?” he demanded.

Was that the question he should be asking? Shouldn't he care about what I had found out more than how I had found it out?

“I was going through your phone for our wedding pictures, when I—” my hollowed voice broke mid-explanation. I shut my eyes tight to keep back the tears. I sniffed as I opened my eyes back to the room, to him. “Who is Cute Bunny, and why were both of you exchanging those insulting and ugly messages about me, Victor?”

For a moment, he was speechless. Remorse tightened his brows first, then slowly guilt set in. He finally sighed, tightening the grip of the towel to his waist. “I didn't mean for you to find out this way, Nyra, believe me.”

“How then did you wish for me to find out?” I demanded. My voice went several octaves high now, contrasting heavily with the weightlessness with which I moved closer to him.

“Did you wish for me to find out with a knife to my throat, after you stabbed me, and get rid of the bore in your life so you can be with your cute bunny?” I demanded.

“That—” he struggled for a moment, holding my gaze. My hard stare seemed to affect him, and he turned around, cleaning himself with the towel, almost like we were having an ordinary argument, and not one about his infidelity and the plot to murder me. “That was just two people joking around, Nyra. I could never kill you.”

“Then why don't you look at me?” I barked, “Why don't you fucking say it to my face?”

He turned, forcing on a tight, nervous smile. “That message was just two people playing around. It means nothing, nothing to get you so worked up.”

He said it so calmly and loosely, like it doesn't matter. Like those lies covered for all the damning things he and his side piece had shared about me.

When I didn't say anything, he turned around and continued to dress, pretending nothing had happened, pretending I wasn't in the room.

Every bit of me urged me to yell, bark, scream, to do something, anything but freeze like a statue in a spot, watching him. I not only felt pain, but also breathed and tasted it as he moved around. Only the slight tension in his features hinted at his acknowledgement of the situation.

“I—” I said, stammering at first, the syllable heavy on my throat, as pain was heavy on my chest. “We are getting a divorce, and we are getting it immediately,” I said, refusing to think of what even that news would do to the company's stocks.

He shifted now, jaw clenching. “You can't do that, Nyra. You just signed all of your inheritance to joint ownership. I lose everything with a divorce.”

“I believe that is kind of the idea I hoped for.” I fired back. I had promised my father on his deathbed that I would look after his businesses and make them greater, and that included protecting them from falling into the hands of a golddigger like him.

He stepped forward. Whatever guilt had laced his face was quickly replaced by hate. “You can't do that, Nyra. What compensation do I get for putting up with your fat, ugly ass for seven years?”

His lips curled with disgust when they landed on my large hips and my big, plus-size body.

But he’d promised he’d love me regardless, promised he’d stay by me. I blinked back the tears stinging my eyes as realization slammed into me with a crumbling force. He never loved me. He only loved the wealth that came with marrying me.

My body inched to curl into itself and disappear, but I refused to cower beneath my insecurities. I tilted my chin up at him. “We are really getting a divorce, Victor. I don't want this marriage again.” I said, forcing my voice steady.

I picked up my book with trembling fingers, and I turned for the door.

Thick fingers snatched my wrist, and I was spun around. Pain radiated through every nerve in my back when it met the hard wall. My teeth rattled, and I gasped in pain.

“I can't let you divorce me, Nyra. Not with all my hard work. Do you have an idea how hard it was pretending to want your overbloated body?”

I tried to look past his insult, but it hurt so damn much. “Just let me go, Victor. Let me go.”

“I won’t, not until you promise to forget the divorce.”

“I won’t,” I snarled.

He glared at me for a moment, rage making his chin tremble. “Then you leave me no damn choice, Nyra.” He growled. His thick fingers tightened around my wrist again, and he dragged me further into the room, while I struggled.

I was plus-sized, but he was strong, so strong, his fingers were like bands to my skin.

He threw me against the wall near the mantlepiece. I bit back on the pain, jarring my teeth and knocking them about in my jaw.

He yanked open a drawer and pulled out a knife. "bastard," he really planned to kill me.

I didn't wait to find out if he was crazy enough to use it or not. I held tight to my book, and I slammed it against his hand.

That forced him back a couple of feet, but the knife didn't fall.

“You bitch.” He barked and swung the knife for my chest in a moment of blind rage.

I threw the hardcover book up, and the knife dug through the pages instead.

I was still trying to catch my wild breath, to steady my roaring heartbeat, when suddenly, a blast of white light evaporated from the book. It trembled in my hands and jarred my arm.

I dropped the book immediately and stepped back. So did Victor. He cursed as he followed the effervescent white glow erupting from the book like some spiral portal, and then at me.

“What the hell is this?” he growled through clenched teeth.

“I don't—” I had barely finished the statement when the light from the book suddenly blasted through the room. Then I saw nothing but a void of white, invisible hands pulling me into an abyss.