The Ring I Sold For Freedom

The Ring I Sold For Freedom

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
294
View
11
Chapters

On the first anniversary of my daughter Maya's death, I went to her grave, feeling the chilling Chicago wind but nothing else. My husband, Ethan, was supposed to be with me, but he texted that "something urgent" came up. When I returned to our penthouse, the sound of a child' s laughter filled our home. It wasn't a memory. There, on our sofa, was Ethan, not alone. A woman with bleached blonde hair, Nicole, sat beside him with a toddler, Leo, on his lap. My breath hitched. The boy had Ethan' s eyes. Ethan, caught off guard, stumbled through introductions. "He's my son," he finally admitted. On the day Maya died, he brought his new family into our home, her home. Then his parents, cold and powerful, delivered their ultimatum: "You will not divorce him. You will forgive him, accept the situation, and give him another child. Or you will never see Maya's grave again." My daughter's final resting place, held hostage. The thought was suffocating. I felt trapped, betrayed, consumed by an injustice that left me numb, yet screaming internally. How could they do this? How could he do this? But a mother's love knows no bounds. I would not let them take Maya from me again. I began selling everything: my valuable art, heirlooms, even my wedding ring. I needed the money to buy Maya a new plot, a final resting place far away from the Scotts, a place that was just ours.

Introduction

On the first anniversary of my daughter Maya's death, I went to her grave, feeling the chilling Chicago wind but nothing else.

My husband, Ethan, was supposed to be with me, but he texted that "something urgent" came up.

When I returned to our penthouse, the sound of a child' s laughter filled our home. It wasn't a memory.

There, on our sofa, was Ethan, not alone. A woman with bleached blonde hair, Nicole, sat beside him with a toddler, Leo, on his lap. My breath hitched. The boy had Ethan' s eyes.

Ethan, caught off guard, stumbled through introductions.

"He's my son," he finally admitted. On the day Maya died, he brought his new family into our home, her home.

Then his parents, cold and powerful, delivered their ultimatum: "You will not divorce him. You will forgive him, accept the situation, and give him another child. Or you will never see Maya's grave again."

My daughter's final resting place, held hostage. The thought was suffocating. I felt trapped, betrayed, consumed by an injustice that left me numb, yet screaming internally. How could they do this? How could he do this?

But a mother's love knows no bounds. I would not let them take Maya from me again. I began selling everything: my valuable art, heirlooms, even my wedding ring.

I needed the money to buy Maya a new plot, a final resting place far away from the Scotts, a place that was just ours.

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
When Love Turns to Ash

When Love Turns to Ash

Short stories

4.2

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts

When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts

Short stories

5.0

On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news. He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city. The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.” For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets. My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me. So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts. He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked. He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree. He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.

You'll also like

Billionaire's Regret, Too Late!

Billionaire's Regret, Too Late!

Ela Osaretin
5.0

"Lucien, let's get a divorce," I said in a peremptory tone that was long overdue, the most decisive farewell to this absurd marriage. We had been married for exactly three years-three years that, for me, were filled with nothing but endless loneliness and torment. For three years, the husband who should have stood by my side through every storm, Lucien Sullivan, had completely disappeared from my life as if he had never existed. He vanished without a trace, leaving me alone to endure this empty, desolate marriage. Today, I finally received his message: "I'm back. Come pick me up at the airport." When I read his words, my heart leapt with joy, and I raced to the airport, thinking that he finally understood my love and was coming back to me. But his cruelty was far worse than I could have ever imagined-he was accompanied by a pregnant woman, and that woman was Carla, my closest and most trusted friend. In that moment, all of my previous excitement, all my hope, and all of our shared laughter and tears turned into the sharpest of daggers, stabbing into my heart and leaving me gasping for air. Now, all I want is to escape from this place that has left me so broken-to lick my wounds in solitude. Even if these wounds will remain with me for the rest of my life, I refuse to have anything to do with him ever again. He should know that it was his own hand that trampled our love underfoot, that his coldness and betrayal created this irreparable situation. But when he heard those words, he desperately clung to this broken, crumbling marriage, unwilling to let it end-almost as though doing so could rewind time and return everything to how it used to be. "Aurora, come back. I regret everything!" Regret? Those simple words stirred no emotion in me-only endless sadness and fury. My heart let out a frantic, desperate scream: It's too late for any of this!

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book