1 Two sets of divorce papers lay on the table between Jack and me. One was his. One was mine. My share was twenty percent of the assets and a villa. He would get the twins, the family estate, and everything else. My eyes scanned the page, and a calm settled over me. I signed. None of the hysteria from the weeks before. Jack’s hand slowed as he watched me, his gaze scorching. “No objections? Not even about visitation rights?” He pushed the papers back toward me. “Once this is signed, you can’t take it back.” I handed the documents to him, a faint smile playing on my lips. “I won’t need to.” Jack’s eyes narrowed, something left unsaid lingering in their depths. But it didn’t matter anymore. In a few hours, I would no longer be Mrs. Croft. I would no longer be the woman of the Croft manor. I would no longer even be the mother of two children. I would just be a body, burned beyond recognition. ... After the papers were signed, for the first time in years, Jack walked me to the door. His tone was polite, distant. “Do you need a ride home?” I shook my head. He seemed taken aback, clearly unaccustomed to this newfound coldness. His gaze lingered on my hair for a moment before he tore a page from a notepad, scribbled a series of numbers, and handed it to me. “My personal number.” A confident, knowing smirk touched his lips. He was certain I would come crawling back to him. I froze for only a second before taking the piece of paper, nodding my thanks. The moment I was in my car, I flicked open a lighter and held the flame to the corner of the note, watching it curl and turn to ash. The number I’d once begged and screamed for, now handed to me as a parting gift. The irony was bitter. I’d just started the engine when my phone rang. Chloe, his tournament assistant, sounded frantic. “Evelyn, the Captain has warm-up matches for the next few days, and about his dietary regimen…” “Come to my apartment. I’ll give it to you.” A few hours later, Chloe stared at a stack of binders that nearly reached her waist, her smile strained. “Evelyn… I know you’re angry, but you’re not really… getting a divorce, are you?” Ever since I’d brought it up, everyone—Jack, his mother, his teammates on the chess circuit—they all thought it was a game. A ploy. A desperate gambit to force the world’s youngest six-time consecutive chess champion to heel. But the truth was simpler. The spell Jack Croft had cast over me was broken. “He’s allergic to shellfish and cilantro, his sinuses act up in the winter, he only wears pure cotton, and he likes his bathwater at exactly 100 degrees with a few drops of peppermint oil.” I rattled off the list of instructions without taking a breath. The forced smile on Chloe’s face had melted away, replaced by a look of genuine pain. “Evelyn, are you really…” she stammered. I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled a small, framed document from under my pillow—the wedding vows Jack had written for me seven years ago. In front of her, I tore them to shreds. As the paper fragments drifted down like snow, my voice was a low whisper. “My father is gone. So are we.” A tear I hadn’t known I was holding finally broke free and traced a path down my cheek. Chloe stared, stunned for a moment. Then, her own eyes reddening, she rushed forward to wipe my tears away, apologizing as she did. “Evelyn… you two were childhood sweethearts… How did it come to this?” How, indeed. The most brilliant young chess prodigy of his generation had married his childhood sweetheart in a wedding fit for a storybook. He’d placed his dying mentor in a prohibitively expensive private clinic, and the following year, we were blessed with twin boys. Jack, terrified of ever shortchanging me, showered me with gifts. The napkins we used were embossed with a floral pattern he’d designed himself. When he was drunk, he would murmur my name, “Evie,” all night long. He even had my name tattooed on the palm of his hand. He had built a perfect image, earning both fame and public adoration. But in just seven short years, I, the childhood sweetheart, had become a stale crumb on his plate, while Ava, his manager with no official title, had become the very blood in his veins. Childhood sweethearts. What a joke. Once a man’s heart changes, even the daughter of the mentor who saved his life is discarded like trash. The Crofts were a dynasty of chess masters. But Jack was born with severe autism, the family outcast. It was my father who couldn’t bear to see such a talent wither away. He brought Jack into our home. From then on, there was a place for him at our table, a desk for him in our study, even a bed for him to sleep in. Mrs. Croft, his own mother, would only summon him once a year for a hollow Christmas dinner. He wasn't a champion then. He was just a stray dog no one wanted. The day he won his first world championship, he didn’t go back to the Croft estate. He came to our house and dropped to his knees before my father. “Sir,” he’d choked out, tears streaming down his face, “I swear I will spend my life repaying you and Evie.” My father had smiled, patting his shoulder with a mentor’s pride. “This is only the beginning, Jack. Stay humble. You have a long road ahead.” Jack nodded, his eyes darting toward me. Back then, I was his sparring partner in name, but his assistant in reality. His preferences, his allergies, his pre-match diet, his training schedules—I had filled entire notebooks with the details of his life. Seeing those notebooks, he was no longer the withdrawn boy. He was a vulnerable soul, his eyes red and raw, clinging to my hand as if it were a lifeline. The teenage Jack would thank me on stage for my devotion. The Jack in his twenties took it for granted. During his fifth championship run, my father pushed Jack out of the way of a speeding car, suffering an injury that left him in a vegetative state. That same year, I became pregnant with the twins. He married me, and I became Evelyn Croft. Because of the children, even the ever-disapproving Mrs. Croft held her tongue. She did, however, hire an agent for him. Ava. That night, Jack stroked my swelling belly and swore an oath. “Ava Thorne is a top agent. She has years of tournament experience. She’s only here to lighten your load.” He kissed my forehead, his eyes full of what I thought was love. “Carrying twins is hard, Evie. I can’t bear to see you wear yourself out for me.” He wasn’t wrong. Just three months in, I was sick morning, noon, and night, wasting away to nothing. Jack, meanwhile, grew busier and busier. He was home less and less. When I asked, he was always “training.” I knew winning a seventh consecutive title was his life’s ambition, so I stopped asking. Instead, I poured my heart out to the coolly professional Ava. I brought her homemade food despite my growing belly. I sent her gifts. I begged her to take good care of Jack. And she did. She took very good care of him. The night I was in labor, hemorrhaging on the delivery table, the tabloids exploded with photos of Jack and Ava spending the night together in a hotel. My sons’ umbilical cords hadn’t even been cut. Mrs. Croft shoved a phone in my face, forcing me to give a statement to the press. My head was roaring. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. I couldn’t form a single word. Mrs. Croft dug her nails into my arm, her voice a venomous hiss in my ear. “Evelyn! If you ever want to see your sons again, you will speak. Now.” My hand trembling, I took the phone and, following her script, whispered that I trusted my husband completely. That night, my name trended for all the wrong reasons. The public branded me a possessive, delusional wife. The moment I was out of the operating room, Mrs. Croft took the twins. My marriage was a sham. My reputation was in tatters. My father was a living ghost, and my children were the last lifeline I had. When I later pleaded with Jack to let me see them, there was no guilt in his eyes, only irritation as he shoved my hand away. “With my mother, they’ll get a world-class education. What will they learn from you? How to be a parasite?” “You want to know why I cheated? Why don’t you look at the stretch marks on your stomach? Why don’t you ask yourself what you have that Ava doesn’t?” He threw a folder at my feet. “This is Ava’s tournament analysis. Maybe you should spend less time acting like a lunatic and more time learning something useful.” The contempt in his eyes cut me deeper than any knife. My mind snapped. I ran headfirst into a marble pillar in the hallway. That night, Jack knelt at my feet, his body wracked with sobs. He clutched my hand, his voice hoarse as he recounted one memory after another from our youth. He swore he’d move my father to a better clinic. He swore he’d talk to his mother about letting me see the boys. Finally, he slapped himself across the face, his eyes bloodshot. “Can we start over, Evie? Please?” For my father, and for my sons, I swallowed my grief and nodded. For the next few years, he seemed to change. He remembered anniversaries. He took me to see the children. No matter how late he trained, he came home. He even dismissed Ava and hired a new team. Just when I thought things were finally getting better, Ava walked into our home and slapped an ultrasound photo onto the table in front of me, a triumphant smirk on her face. “Sorry, Mrs. Croft. I’m pregnant.” “Jack told me your body went soft after the twins. He can only find release with me now. Only a fool like you would actually believe a man could change.” So the dismissal, the starting over… it was all a lie. I stared at the black-and-white image and let out a hollow laugh. “What do you want?” She tutted. “Jack made me get rid of the others, but this time…” She gave me a strange, twisted smile, then slammed her own body against the wall. A second later, Jack’s furious roar echoed from the doorway. “Evelyn, what did you do?!” He kicked me aside and rushed to Ava’s side. From behind him, two small voices cried out, “Mommy!” They weren’t calling for me. They were calling for Ava. My two sons scrambled past me, their small feet trampling my hand as they rushed to her side, fussing over her with worried whispers. Even then, Ava kept up the act. “Don’t blame her, Jack. It was my fault… I said the wrong thing and upset her…” Her ‘defense’ only fueled his rage. He whipped his head around, his eyes locking onto me with pure hatred. “If I’d known you were this vile, I should have let you die on that pillar years ago!” he snarled. “Ava has already sacrificed so much for you, and you still do this?” Before I could speak, my older son picked up a heavy glass ashtray and hurled it at me. “You hurt my mommy!” he shrieked. “You should die!” A warm, sticky liquid trickled down my face. “What… what did you call her?” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I’m your mother…” My younger son spat on me. “You? You’re just a parasite! We’re going to be champions! Our mother is Ava!” The look of disdain on his childish face was a perfect copy of his grandmother’s. No wonder they were always so distant when I visited the estate. They refused to call me mom. They shrank from my touch. They were ashamed of me, just like Mrs. Croft. I stared blankly for a long moment, then burst into laughter—a wild, broken sound. Tears mixed with blood, dripping onto the floor. Jack’s brow furrowed. He took a step toward me, but a pained cry from Ava pulled him back. He shot me one last venomous glare, then scooped Ava into his arms and ran out the door, the twins trailing behind him. At that exact moment, my phone buzzed with a flood of videos. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Every night I thought he was with me, he was spending the second half with her. Listening to the sounds from those videos, my mind finally shattered. I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. When the housekeeper called Jack to tell him I was dying, he laughed into the phone. “If she dies, she dies. One less burden for me to carry.” I didn’t die. But the attempt drew a media frenzy. The Croft name was headline news once again. As I was wheeled out of the emergency room, Mrs. Croft was waiting. She slapped me, hard, across the face. “You pathetic waste! You can’t even keep your own husband, and now you have the nerve to pull a stunt like this!” She grabbed me by the throat, her voice low and menacing, while pointing a finger toward the ICU down the hall. “Your father’s life is in my hands. Tarnish the Croft name again, and he won’t live to see tomorrow.” Just then, I saw my two sons standing in the doorway, their faces etched with disappointment. “Damn, the parasite didn’t die.” “If she had, Mommy Ava could have finally moved in.” In that instant, I finally understood what it meant to be better off dead. After that, Jack never mentioned Ava or her baby again. The day I was discharged, he forced himself on me, over and over, all day long. His eyes were dark, terrifying, as if I were his mortal enemy. I didn’t understand why then. I understood three months later, when I was pregnant again. He drugged my food. Then he came into my room. He rode me all night, a storm of brutal, punishing thrusts. I screamed for my baby until my throat was raw. He ripped off his tie and stuffed it in my mouth. The tattoo on his palm was no longer my name. It was Ava’s. My baby was torn from my womb in a storm of violence, reduced to a pool of blood. Before I lost consciousness, I heard his voice, thick with rage. “Isn’t the title of Mrs. Croft enough to repay you for your father’s life?” “You killed Ava’s child. You had to know this was coming.” “Everything she suffered, I will make you suffer a thousand times over.” Jack was nothing if not stubborn. As a boy, he’d sworn he would conquer his autism, and he had, becoming a charismatic figure on the world stage. When my father was declared brain-dead, he knelt by my hospital bed and proposed, and I became the enviable Mrs. Croft. Now, he had personally murdered his own child. He was destroying me, trampling me, in the most humiliating way imaginable. Trapped in a prison of pain and despair, I was a living corpse, but I didn’t dare die. This was a torment worse than death. The day after I woke up in the hospital, a doctor delivered the final blow. “Mrs. Croft… I’m so sorry. Your father passed away last night.” “It was peaceful. He didn’t suffer.” I didn’t know if I should feel relief or grief. I dragged my broken body through the funeral arrangements. Every student my father had ever mentored came to pay their respects. Everyone except Jack. Swallowing my sorrow, I called him. He sneered into the phone. “He’s sleeping in a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-night clinic bed, better than I do. Why would he die?” “Look, I’m busy arranging a funeral for Ava’s dog. Don’t bother me.” The call was on speaker. The entire funeral hall fell silent. In the eyes of the man my father had saved with his own body, my father’s life was worth less than a dog’s. A kind friend asked, “Aren’t the twins coming to say goodbye to their grandfather?” I gave a bitter smile. I had called them. Their reply: “Good, the old bastard is finally gone. Now you can get lost too and stop clinging to our family!” Six months passed. Grass began to grow on my father’s grave. Jack never knew he had died. When I asked for a divorce, he signed the papers without hesitation. He thought he still had me under his thumb. He thought that in a few days, I would be on my knees, begging him to take me back. He even gave me his private number as a leash. But he was wrong. I would never beg him again. As I walked Chloe to her car, I pointed to the binders in her arms. “That’s over a decade of my life in there. Don’t lose it.” Chloe’s lips trembled. She wanted to say something, but all she could do was nod, her eyes red. She didn’t know what else to say. She just waved from the car—a farewell, and a wish for a better future. As the car drove away, she glanced back in the rearview mirror. What she saw made her entire body tremble. Forgetting that Jack was in a warm-up match, she dialed his number. “Captain… Evelyn… she set a fire… she burned herself alive…”
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