Chapter 2Beyond The Basement Walls

"Your face... your arms... who did this to you?" The anger in her eyes dissolved into shock, and perhaps, a fleeting trace of panic.

Only noticing now, Victoria? What exactly do you use those eyes for?

I didn't answer her. Instead, I looked past her toward the doorway and spoke softly. "Nurse? Could you please call security?"

"This woman is severely disrupting my recovery."

Victoria went totally rigid. She stared at me in absolute disbelief, as if she were looking at a madman.

"Harry! Have you lost your mind?!"

"I'm perfectly sane." I looked right through her. No anger. No resentment. Just an endless, echoing void. "I just finally saw things clearly."

"I want a divorce."

Three words. I said them as casually as if I were commenting on the weather, but they detonated like a live grenade in the dead silence of the room.

Victoria was utterly paralyzed. She opened her mouth, but not a single sound came out. That beautiful, calculated face—the one that maintained absolute rationality in the face of billion-dollar losses—finally fractured.

For three years, I had loved her loudly, publicly, and pathetically. I was the biggest joke in our social circle—a man who had thrown away his own ambitions and pride to marry into the Crawford family, playing the role of the docile, obedient trophy husband to a woman who couldn't stand him.

Everyone was just waiting for the day she finally kicked me to the curb.

And I had never once thought of giving up.

Not until those three hundred and seventy-four unanswered calls. Not until I saw the news headline from Paris.

What broke me wasn't the fists of the men who beat me. It was the realization that, while I was bleeding out on a concrete floor, the woman I loved more than breathing had actively chosen to look the other way.

"You want... a divorce?" Victoria finally found her voice. She let out a sharp, incredulous breath, treating it like a spectacular joke. "Is this your new strategy, Harry? Throwing a tantrum to get my attention? I don't have the time or the patience for these pathetic little games."

A game. Right. To you, my entire existence is just a game.

I closed my eyes. I was so exhausted I didn't even have the energy to look at her anymore.

"If you don't have a divorce attorney on retainer, I can give you a few names," I said, my voice flat. "I'll cover your legal fees."

Without another word, I pressed the call button on the side of the bed.

Within seconds, a nurse and two security guards hurried into the room.

"Sir, is everything alright?"

I opened my eyes, looked at Victoria, and gave a faint nod toward the door.

"Please escort this woman out."

Watching the security guards awkwardly approach her, watching Victoria’s face cycle through shock, fury, and utter humiliation—I felt an unprecedented wave of relief wash over me.

So this was what it felt like when your heart finally stopped beating for someone.

The sky could fall, and I wouldn't even blink.

Victoria was essentially forced out by security. For a woman of her pride and status, it was the ultimate indignity.

Through the thin door, I could hear her furiously barking orders at her chief of staff in the hallway, her voice trembling with suppressed rage.

"Investigate this! I want to know exactly where he’s been for the last three months!"

"Pull the hospital security footage. I want a list of everyone he's spoken to!"

"And get my legal team on the phone, tell them to—"

She cut herself off.

I knew what she had been about to say. Tell them to draft the divorce papers. But the words had died in her throat.

Go ahead, Victoria. Dig. Dig until you hit the bottom. See exactly what your precious, high-and-mighty indifference almost cost me.

I lay back against the pillows, numbly cataloging the sharp, stabbing pain radiating from my fractured ribs.