The Monster I Once Married And Loved

The Monster I Once Married And Loved

Gavin

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My life was a fairy tale. At twenty-five, I had it all: a loving husband, Liam, my childhood sweetheart, a beautiful home, massive success, and our two perfect children, Leo and Lily. They were our everything. The night before their third birthday, I tucked them in, their excited giggles filling the room. Just half an hour past bedtime. But when Liam walked in, his face was a mask of cold fury. He dragged Leo and Lily from their beds, out into the raging blizzard, for the sin of staying up late. "They need to be punished," he said, his voice flat, his eyes empty. I screamed, pleaded, grabbed his arm, but he flung me away, locking me in the basement while my babies wailed outside. Darkness enveloped me, and their terrified screams were swallowed by the storm. I pounded on the door, begging, promising anything, until his icy voice pierced the wood: "This isn' t about you, Ava. It' s about your parents." He unleashed a horrifying tale of my family supposedly destroying his, a twisted vendetta culminating in my children' s lives for his father' s death. It was a lie, a monstrous fabrication, but the next morning, as I pushed past his mother and burst outside, the silence was deafening. On the porch, curled together, lay Leo and Lily, pristine and still under a thin dusting of snow, their faces blue, their lips purple, like two broken dolls. They were gone. The world went black.

Introduction

My life was a fairy tale.

At twenty-five, I had it all: a loving husband, Liam, my childhood sweetheart, a beautiful home, massive success, and our two perfect children, Leo and Lily.

They were our everything.

The night before their third birthday, I tucked them in, their excited giggles filling the room.

Just half an hour past bedtime.

But when Liam walked in, his face was a mask of cold fury.

He dragged Leo and Lily from their beds, out into the raging blizzard, for the sin of staying up late.

"They need to be punished," he said, his voice flat, his eyes empty.

I screamed, pleaded, grabbed his arm, but he flung me away, locking me in the basement while my babies wailed outside.

Darkness enveloped me, and their terrified screams were swallowed by the storm.

I pounded on the door, begging, promising anything, until his icy voice pierced the wood: "This isn' t about you, Ava. It' s about your parents."

He unleashed a horrifying tale of my family supposedly destroying his, a twisted vendetta culminating in my children' s lives for his father' s death.

It was a lie, a monstrous fabrication, but the next morning, as I pushed past his mother and burst outside, the silence was deafening.

On the porch, curled together, lay Leo and Lily, pristine and still under a thin dusting of snow, their faces blue, their lips purple, like two broken dolls.

They were gone.

The world went black.

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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.

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