The Man I Never Knew I Needed

The Scars She Hid From The World

REGINA MCBRIDE

The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab." My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle. When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener’s shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose—the man who had once been mine. They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber. I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone. At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on.

Modern Revenge Scheming Kickass Heroine Comeback Revenge

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My wife, Catalina, is a billionaire CEO. To me, she’s an angel. Three years ago, her stalker, Dixon Bright, shattered my hand with a hammer, ending my career as an architect. Catalina nursed me back from the brink, her love the only thing holding me together.

On our fifth anniversary, I went to the DMV. The clerk looked at me strangely. "Sir, our records show you were divorced three years ago. On October 12th."

The same day I was attacked.

The record also showed who Catalina married that very day: Dixon Bright.

My world tilted. Her tender care—feeding me, dressing me, encouraging me to draw with my left hand—was it all a lie? I found their secret house, a glass mansion she called an "investment." Inside, she wasn't punishing him. She was kissing him.

I pressed my ear to the glass and heard the words that destroyed me.

"It was your idea to cripple him," she cooed to Dixon, stroking his hair. "It was the only way to make sure he'd never leave me. You did a good thing, Dixon. You earned your reward. You earned me."

My loving wife hadn't just betrayed me. She had ordered my destruction to turn me into a pet she could keep in a cage.

My phone buzzed. A text from Catalina. "Happy anniversary, my love. Can't wait to celebrate tonight. <3"

She thinks I'm her broken treasure, safe in her grasp. She has no idea I just saw the warden with the key. She thinks she broke me.

But tonight, my escape begins.

Chapter 1

Today was my fifth wedding anniversary. I went to the DMV to update the address on my driver' s license. A simple task, something to do while my wife, Catalina, planned our evening.

The clerk, a woman with tired eyes, tapped at her keyboard.

"Eleazar Miller?"

"Yes, that' s me."

She looked at her screen, then back at me. A small frown formed on her lips. "Sir, I need you to confirm some information."

"Okay."

"Your marital status is listed here as divorced."

The air left my lungs. The busy noise of the DMV faded into a dull hum. "I' m sorry, what? That' s a mistake. I' m married."

The clerk didn' t look up. "The system shows your divorce was finalized on October 12th, three years ago."

My heart started to pound against my ribs. "Three years ago? Who… who did I divorce?"

She read from the screen in a flat voice. "Catalina Carter."

My own wife' s name. It felt like a punch to the gut. "And… does it say if she remarried?"

The clerk' s fingers tapped a few more times. "Yes. Same day. She married a Mr. Dixon Bright."

Dixon Bright.

The name was a scar. A physical one. I instinctively looked down at my right hand, the one that used to hold a pencil and sketch entire worlds. Now, it was a useless, twisted claw.

Dixon Bright was Catalina' s obsessed stalker. Three years ago, on October 12th, he cornered me in a parking garage. He said Catalina would never love me, that I was just a temporary distraction. Then he took a hammer to my hand, shattering the bones, my career, my entire life.

I remembered Catalina' s fury afterward. She had screamed, cried, promised to make him pay. She had held me, telling me she would take care of me forever. She said she loved me more than anything.

How could she marry the man who did that to me? How could she do it on the very same day?

My mind spun. It didn' t make sense. The last three years… Catalina had been my rock. She nursed me, fed me, dressed me. When I fell into a deep depression, unable to work, she built a state-of-the-art studio in our home, encouraging me to learn to draw with my left hand. She was my angel, my savior.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Catalina.

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