Chapter 3Beyond The Basement Walls

The nurse came back in to change my dressings. She had light hands and sympathetic eyes.

"Your... your wife. She isn't very kind to you," the young woman whispered, unable to hold her tongue.

I just smiled faintly. I didn't say a word.

Wasn't she?

There was a time when I had convinced myself she was. We had been married for three years. She was distant, yes, but she provided me with an incredibly lavish life. The cars I drove, the tailored suits I wore, the sprawling estate I lived in—all of it belonged to Crawford Enterprises. She allowed me to exist in her orbit. She let me play the role of "Victoria's Husband" at insignificant galas.

I used to believe that if I just tried hard enough, if I just loved her enough, I could eventually melt the glacier she kept around her heart.

I learned to cook her favorite meals. I learned massage therapy for her migraines. I learned corporate management just so I could help organize her lower-level files.

I was like a desperate, pathetic zealot, worshipping at the altar of a god who didn't even know my name.

Until three months ago. I had driven to a neighboring city to pick up an urgent contract she needed. On the winding mountain road back, a heavy-duty freight truck purposefully rammed my car off the cliff.

It wasn't an accident.

It was a meticulously planned kidnapping.

The people who took me were ruthless rivals of Victoria's company. They didn't want a ransom. They wanted to force Victoria Crawford to her knees.

They tossed a phone at my bleeding face and told me to call her.

I called.

The first ring went to voicemail.

The second ring went to voicemail.

...

On the one-hundredth call, she finally picked up.

There was loud, thumping bass in the background. The clinking of crystal champagne flutes. Laughter.

I screamed with everything I had left in my lungs. "Victoria, help! They've got me—"

Click.

She hung up.

Then, the fists started falling.

After that, I dialed that memorized number every single day.

Three hundred and seventy-four times.

Every single time, I got a cold, automated tone. Or the call was instantly rejected.

Until the third month, when I finally saw her on the cracked screen of a guard's discarded tablet.

She was the headline on the financial news. Crawford Enterprises CEO Victoria Crawford Spends $40 Million at Paris Auction on Antique Violin for Musical Prodigy Spencer Brooks.

In the photo, she had her arm linked elegantly through Spencer's. She was smiling—a rare, gentle, indulgent smile.

Spencer Brooks. The golden boy. The one who got away. The untouchable saint she kept locked in a glass box in her heart, whom no one was allowed to breathe on.

In that moment, everything snapped into crystal clarity.

It wasn't that she couldn't hear my cries for help.

It was that my survival simply did not register on her radar.

My life meant less to her than a single smile from her first love.

And so, I stopped calling.

I found a rusted nail on the damp basement floor. It took me seven days and seven nights of agonizing, bloody work to saw through the thick nylon ropes binding my wrists.

On a night when the rain was coming down in sheets, I broke out.

The sound of gunfire chased me through three blocks of mud and darkness.

I don't even know how I survived. When I finally regained consciousness, I was here.

A trucker passing through the industrial park had found me on the shoulder of the highway, brought me in, and even paid the admission deposit.

I pulled out my phone and stared at Victoria's name sitting quietly in my contacts.

I didn't call.

I pressed 'Block.' Then, 'Delete.'

From this second forward, Victoria Crawford was nothing but a stranger.

A stranger who was about to become my ex-wife.

The next morning, my hospital room became incredibly "crowded."

Victoria's chief of staff, along with two heavily armed bodyguards, stood outside my door like sentries, blocking anyone who tried to visit.

And sitting inside the room was someone I hadn't expected to see: Dr. Wallace, the Crawford family's private physician.

Dr. Wallace was in his sixties. He had watched Victoria grow up and held immense authority within her inner circle.