Page 16 of Broken Doll

Sue me, I like nice things —and nice things are expensive.

I remember our third date, some overpriced French place where he kept mispronouncing the wine. He'd reached acrossthe table, his fingers brushing mine, eyes earnest as a golden retriever. "I think I'm falling for you," he'd said, and I'd smiled, letting him see exactly what he wanted to see. Not the real me—Christ, he'd run screaming—but the carefully curated version. Landry Lite™. All the looks, none of the danger.

I'd been twenty-six, flat broke after my latest reinvention, and exhausted from the endless hustle of staying afloat in L.A. without a trust fund. Isaac was... safe. Boring as beige wallpaper, but safe. A human security blanket with an 800 credit score and a five-year plan that included a mortgage and 2.5 sticky children I had zero intention of pushing out.

The crazy part? I almost convinced myself I wanted it. The Sunday brunches. The dinner parties with his tedious colleagues. The mind-numbing routine of missionary sex every Tuesday and Friday because that's when his schedule allowed for "intimacy time." His words, not mine. Who the fuck schedules sex like a dental cleaning?

One time I brought home the girthiest butt plug I could find just to watch the blood drain from Isaac’s face when I suggested we have a little fun. I’m pretty sure his asshole puckered so tight a beam of light couldn’t penetrate that chocolate starfish.

He never saw the real me. Not once. Not when I faked orgasms with Oscar-worthy conviction. Not when I slipped out at 2 a.m. to meet strangers in hotel bars. Not even when I came home with bruises I couldn't explain—he'd just assume I'd been "clumsy again," his concerned expression never quite connecting the dots.

That's why I married him. Because hecouldn'tsee me.Wouldn'tsee me. And there's no safer place to hide than in plain sight beside someone with carefully calibrated blind spots.

The worst nights weren't the fights—we rarely had those. The worst were the quiet moments when he'd look at me with such fucking tenderness I wanted to scream. Like the night hefound me on the balcony at 3 a.m., shaking from a nightmare I couldn't shake.An explosion, excruciating pain, total chaos erupting all around me like the devil himself was running a training exercise.

He'd wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, kissed my temple, and whispered, "Whatever it is, we'll get through it together."

Together. As if we'd ever been in the same reality. In that moment, I’d been overwhelmed by the insane urge to punch him in the throat.

God, I was such a bitch.

I scratch at a scab on my hip—souvenir from Killion slamming me into a training mat—and laugh into the steamy air.

The truth? A part of me had wanted Isaac to wake up and leave me. Call me names that I deserved and kick me out of that cozy nest of security so I could feel alive again.

The more fucked-up truth? Being kidnapped, imprisoned, and brutalized by Killion feels more honest than five years of marriage to Isaac ever did. At least here, the cage has visible bars. The pain comes with purpose. The rules, however savage, are crystal clear.

With Isaac, I suffocated in beige comfort, dying by degrees in Egyptian cotton sheets and Sunday farmers' markets, my soul calcifying under the crushing weight of normalcy. Every day was just another brick in a mausoleum I built myself, entombed in a life that looked perfect on Instagram but felt like slow-motion suicide.

No wonder I spent three nights a week letting strangers bruise me in club bathrooms. Pain was the only thing that felt real anymore.

I wrap the towel around me, pressing my forehead against the foggy mirror. Maybe Isaac was the first man I truly betrayed.Not with my body—that was just flesh, meaningless as currency—but by making him believe in someone who never existed. By letting him build a life with my ghost.

"Sorry, Isaac," I whisper to no one, not sorry at all. "Some women aren't meant to be wives."

I turn away from the mirror, from thoughts of the man who never knew me, and focus on tomorrow. On Sienna. On becoming whatever lethal thing Killion sees in me.

Isaac was the past—safe harbor in a life I was drowning in. This steel cage, these brutal handlers, this dangerous new existence?

This is the fucking oxygen I've been gasping for all along.

I check the dresser, and sure enough, there are clothes—simple, practical, nothing like the flashy shit I'd wear to the club, but not prison-issue either. I pull on a plain black tank, loose pants that sit low on my hips, and crawl into bed, the sheets cool against my clean skin.

The ceiling's blank, white, offering nothing to focus on as I stare up, waiting for sleep to claim me. My body's wrecked, but my brain's still wired, spinning like a hamster wheel—Killion's voice echoing, his hands, his eyes burning into me, breaking me down piece by piece just to see what I'm made of.

And Sienna. Whoever the fuck that is.

My eyes drift shut, the exhaustion finally dragging me under, and my last coherent thought is this: I'm in too deep to swim back now. Whatever comes next—whoever Sienna is, whatever hell Killion's got lined up—I'm all in. Not because I don't have a choice, but because the sick, twisted part of me wants to see how it ends.

God help me, I want to break him back.

Killion woke me by slamming my door against the wall hard enough to wake the dead. I bolted upright, heart jackhammering against my ribs, disoriented and raw.

"Get up." His voice sliced through the fog of sleep like a blade. "Time to meet your new trainer."

I blinked, clawing my way back to consciousness, my muscles still shrieking from yesterday's torture session. Killion stood in the doorway—a mountain of hard angles and cold eyes—wearing the same black-on-black ensemble, like a fucking cartoon villain with a limited wardrobe.

"You know, a gentle knock would've sufficed." I stretched, wincing as my shoulders protested, every fiber screaming. "Or maybe a 'good morning, sunshine' to ease the transition."

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