Kneel, Darling, Your Trophy Wife Is Gone Chapter 05
I clenched my fingers so hard my nails dug deep into my palms, forcing the humiliation clawing up my throat back down little by little.
When I turned around, my steps were perfectly steady.
Like none of this had affected me at all.
When I returned, there was a pair of slippers in my hands.
I placed them carefully at Hazel’s feet, then slowly bent my knees.
“Miss Hazel,” I said calmly, “your shoes.”
The second the words left my mouth, a violent force slammed into me.
I was shoved hard onto the ground, my arm scraping straight through the still-burning ashes of the rose garden.
Pain exploded instantly.
It felt like my skin was being peeled apart inch by inch.
I bit down hard enough to taste blood, refusing to make a sound.
Ethan stood nearby, his expression dark enough to terrify everyone in the room.
“Nora.” His voice was low with restrained fury. “Do you really hate giving in that much? Even now, you still have to keep pretending you’re fine?”
I pushed myself upright with one arm.
The pain made my entire body shake, but my face stayed pale and composed.
I even managed a smile.
“So you do know this is humiliating.”
The room went dead silent.
Ethan’s expression turned even colder.
“Take the Donna downstairs,” he ordered flatly.
“When she learns how to behave, let her out.”
I didn’t struggle.
Or maybe I just didn’t have the strength left to.
The bodyguards dragged me away while their footsteps echoed through the endless hallway.
Then the basement door slammed shut.
The lock clicked into place with a sharp metallic sound.
And the world fell completely silent.
I collapsed against the floor, my injured arm smashing into the wall hard enough to blacken my vision.
The wound had split open again. Blood and infection soaked through my sleeve, cold and sticky against my skin.
I wrapped it loosely with a handkerchief, my movements slow and numb.
Then suddenly, I laughed softly to myself, the sound faint and almost mocking.
And without warning, I remembered the first year after our wedding.
Back then, I’d tried cooking for Ethan myself.
I was terrible at it.
I nearly set the kitchen on fire and burned my hand badly in the process.
The moment Ethan saw the injury, he canceled an executive meeting on the spot and had a private jet prepared to fly me to a specialist hospital.
Even when I kept insisting it was minor, he held me tightly in his arms, his voice rough with anger and fear.
“Nora, I didn’t marry you so you could get hurt. Next time, let someone else do it.”
Back then, I really believed he loved me. The kind of love that would keep me protected forever.
Later, I realized he wasn’t protecting me. He was protecting the woman carrying the Moretti name.
I stayed locked in the basement for three days.
By the third day, I could barely tell whether it was morning or night anymore.
Every day, someone came downstairs to ask the same question.
“Has the Donna learned her lesson yet?”
I never answered.
So they cut off the food and water.
Eventually, even the doctors were forbidden from coming near me.
By the time the fever hit, my entire body felt trapped inside a furnace. My consciousness faded in and out until the basement door finally opened on the afternoon of the third day.
Hazel stood there with her arms crossed, smiling down at me with open contempt.
“Nora,” she said lazily, “did you ever imagine you’d end up like this?”
I didn’t waste energy responding.
I braced myself against the wall and tried to stand, but she suddenly grabbed my hair and yanked my head backward hard.
Slap.
The ringing in my ears exploded instantly.
I crashed back onto the floor.
Hazel planted her stiletto onto the back of my hand and slowly ground the heel down.
“So where’d all that pride go?” she sneered. “Why aren’t you acting superior anymore?”
It hurt.
But sharper than the pain was the icy clarity settling into my bones.
I bit the inside of my tongue hard enough to stay conscious. Then I grabbed her ankle and yanked with everything I had left.
Hazel lost her balance and slammed hard onto the floor.
“You bitch—!”
She didn’t even finish the sentence before I lunged on top of her.
Two slaps landed across her face in quick succession, clean and vicious. The sound echoed through the basement.
“What the hell do you think you are?”
I stared down at her, my voice cold enough to freeze blood.
“You think you’re worthy of stepping on me?”
Hazel’s expression twisted instantly.
“Ethan’s going to destroy you!”
I laughed softly.
Quiet.
Clear.
“You really think this is about you?”
I leaned closer, my fingers tightening slowly around her throat.
“Or do you actually believe…”
“That he’d throw me away for your sake?”
