Chapter 1Ten Days To Die And Leave My Cheating Husband

In the third year of Owen Maxwell’s affair, the long-dormant System reappeared, a forgotten voice promising that I could finally go home.

For the final ten days, I stopped fighting. I stopped the tearing arguments, the desperate attempts to make him see reason.

I let him spend the nights with his trophy girlfriend, Blakely, never once asking where he was.

I let him give her the things I cherished.

The day I left was my birthday.

He burst in, Blakely clinging to his arm, and they knocked over my cake. He shoved me against the window, his fingers digging into my jaw.

He demanded to know why I had hurt their child.

“When did you become so vicious, Sierra?”

I smiled, suddenly too tired to explain anything.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I am that vicious.”

“So, you and her? Go have your happy life.”

Then, under his horrified gaze, I arched my back and vaulted out of the nineteenth-floor window.

It was the only way to end everything in this world.

* * *

When the long-dormant System appeared and told me I could go home, I had just finished another explosive fight with Owen.

He had walked in minutes earlier, fresh from an encounter with Blakely Cole, his kept woman. When he saw me lying in bed, he pressed himself against my back, his lips warm and tracing slow, possessive lines on my neck.

I bolted upright and instinctively slapped him.

“Owen. If you don't find it disgusting, I certainly do.”

He froze for a moment, then gave a short, bitter laugh, rubbing his cheek. Then, he yanked me off the bed, dragging me to the bathroom.

He pinned me in front of the vanity mirror, one hand clamping my chin, his eyes toxic with contempt.

“You’re disgusted with me?

Sierra Reed, look at yourself! Do you see any trace of the woman I married?”

I stared at the reflection. My hair was tangled, the strap of my silk slip was falling off my shoulder, and I looked like a distraught mess. The eyes that he used to call the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen were dull and lifeless. Fine lines had crept up around them, stealing the vibrant energy of my youth.

In that instant, my mind flashed to Blakely’s face—her youthful, glowing skin, her sparkling eyes burning with naked ambition and a kind of triumphant provocation.

“So, what, Owen? That’s your justification for cheating?” I scoffed, leaning against the cool tile, my eyes stinging with unshed tears.

He slowly moved closer, his thumb gently wiping a tear that escaped my lash line.

“I told you more than once. It’s just a fling. I’m just playing around.

When I’m done with her, I’ll come home.

Sierra, I’ve always loved you.”

It was nauseating. Utterly, uncontrollably sickening.

I screamed, a primal sound of pain, and grabbed a hand lotion bottle, smashing it into the mirror. It splintered into a thousand jagged pieces.

“Get out! Just get out!”

After he left, I stood barefoot on the icy marble floor, looking out the window at the enormous LED billboard across the street. Owen had paid to run a giant photo of Blakely, her face splashed across the skyline.

I gave a bitter, dry laugh.

This kind of bitter confrontation had become a nightly occurrence over the last year. It started with soul-crushing agony, but now, only an exhausted despair remained.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

Eight years ago, I arrived in this world on a mission: to save a bitter, broken teenager named Owen Maxwell.

His father had cheated, his family business had collapsed, his mother had committed suicide, and he was buried under massive debt. His eyes were utterly dead.

I was the one who found him on a sunny morning and walked toward that desperate, miserable boy.

I moved in with him, first in a basement apartment, then in a tiny shared room, slowly working to help him pay back every debt.

He once asked me, confused, “Why are you so good to me?”

I smiled, taking his hand. “Maybe it’s fate. Or maybe it’s the Universe’s instruction.”

He lowered his head and murmured, “Then you must be the best gift the Universe has ever given me.”

The day the mission was supposed to end, he seemed to sense I would leave. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he held me tightly from behind, staying awake all night.

I caved. I wrapped my arms around him.

“Owen, I’m not going home.”

The System vanished entirely after that. For five full years, it was silent.

And it was in those five years that Owen cheated. It was three years after our wedding.

He found a younger, beautiful, ambitious model—Blakely Cole.