When Love Becomes Torture

“My decorated PMC team leader wife, Sarah, asked the impossible: be a live target for her protégé Dylan's shooting qualification. I agreed, suppressing my own combat medic skills and hidden past as my CIA father's son, all for her, trusting she'd ensure safety with "non-lethal" rounds. The instant the first bullet tore into my thigh, searing pain exploding through me, I knew Dylan had swapped live ammunition. As he systematically shot me, shattering my hand and destroying my fertility, Sarah stood by, dismissing my screams as "dramatic" and her "savior" Dylan's cruel acts as mere training. She tightened my restraints, praised his accuracy, and accused my loyal teammate Maria of jealousy and faking when she tried to intervene, even after Dylan shot Maria too. How could the woman I'd secretly saved, the hero firefighter who once rescued my sister and me, be so utterly blind and complicit in my torture, believing every poisonous lie from her manipulative golden boy? Only when my sister Emily burst in, interrupting Dylan's final kill shot, and security footage exposed his monstrous deception, did Sarah's delusion shatter. But by then, I was already rebuilt, untethered from her, ready to finally choose myself. I donated every cent Sarah left, facing her ultimate end with a profound, unburdened peace.”