The Truth Set Her Free

The Truth Set Her Free

Gavin

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The long shadows of the late afternoon stretch across my perfectly curated living room, a silent testament to the lie my life has become. My husband, Liam, a rising star, values perfection-a facade we' ve painstakingly built. Our marriage is a stable, respectable union on paper, a performance, with me, a talented architect, as his willing partner. Then he died, swiftly, unexpectedly, at forty-five. Buried within his belongings, a locked box in his study, I found it: the truth. Letters, photographs-a hidden life with Chloe, his childhood sweetheart, his true love for decades. My entire marriage, my twenty years, was an elaborate charade for his reputation. The pain was a physical entity, suffocating, extinguishing my will to live. I died too, then woke up. Not in a hospital, not in an afterlife, but here, in this cold house, two years into my marriage, twenty-four again. The ghost of a twenty-year lie lived inside me, but it brought a cold, hard resolve. I would not let it happen again, not waste another two decades as a supporting character. I will live for myself this time. The key in the lock, Liam' s flat voice: "I'm home." This time, I remained seated. His brow furrowed, unused to my stillness. "Is something wrong?" "Just tired," I replied, my voice as level as his. He was a stranger now, every gesture filtered through future knowledge, every polite smile a calculation, every question a check on his investment. He funded Chloe' s art studies abroad, a fortune spent while I pinched pennies. That money, even now, was for her. The rage was cold, sharp. Then, he dropped the bombshell: "Chloe is coming back... she could stay with us for a while." My heart stilled. It was happening again. In my past life, I agreed, eager to please, starting my slow erasure. This time, I looked directly at him, seeing the feigned concern, the carefully constructed lie. "No," I said, the word a slammed door. His eyes, cold and dark, narrowed. "What did you say?" "I said no," I repeated, my voice gaining strength. "She can't stay here." A strange power surged. He was dealing with a different woman now, a woman who knew all his secrets.

Introduction

The long shadows of the late afternoon stretch across my perfectly curated living room, a silent testament to the lie my life has become.

My husband, Liam, a rising star, values perfection-a facade we' ve painstakingly built.

Our marriage is a stable, respectable union on paper, a performance, with me, a talented architect, as his willing partner.

Then he died, swiftly, unexpectedly, at forty-five.

Buried within his belongings, a locked box in his study, I found it: the truth.

Letters, photographs-a hidden life with Chloe, his childhood sweetheart, his true love for decades.

My entire marriage, my twenty years, was an elaborate charade for his reputation.

The pain was a physical entity, suffocating, extinguishing my will to live.

I died too, then woke up.

Not in a hospital, not in an afterlife, but here, in this cold house, two years into my marriage, twenty-four again.

The ghost of a twenty-year lie lived inside me, but it brought a cold, hard resolve.

I would not let it happen again, not waste another two decades as a supporting character.

I will live for myself this time.

The key in the lock, Liam' s flat voice: "I'm home."

This time, I remained seated.

His brow furrowed, unused to my stillness.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just tired," I replied, my voice as level as his.

He was a stranger now, every gesture filtered through future knowledge, every polite smile a calculation, every question a check on his investment.

He funded Chloe' s art studies abroad, a fortune spent while I pinched pennies.

That money, even now, was for her.

The rage was cold, sharp.

Then, he dropped the bombshell: "Chloe is coming back... she could stay with us for a while."

My heart stilled.

It was happening again.

In my past life, I agreed, eager to please, starting my slow erasure.

This time, I looked directly at him, seeing the feigned concern, the carefully constructed lie.

"No," I said, the word a slammed door.

His eyes, cold and dark, narrowed.

"What did you say?"

"I said no," I repeated, my voice gaining strength.

"She can't stay here."

A strange power surged.

He was dealing with a different woman now, a woman who knew all his secrets.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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4.5

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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