He Broke My Spirit, I Soared

I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history.

But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me.

He swam past me.

He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water.

When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl.

"You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home."

Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her.

I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife."

He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps.

He was wrong.

While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room.

I was packing his ring into a cardboard box.

I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead.

By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.