The black SUV glided through Beverly Hills like a shadow with tinted windows.
I sat in the back seat, my palm wrapped in a clean white handkerchief the driver had offered without a word. Blood bloomed through the fabric in a slow red circle. My cheek still burned from Andrew’s slap, but my mind had gone strangely calm.
There are moments when pain stops being pain.
It becomes a key.
It opens a room inside you that you were never supposed to enter.
For four years, I had lived in Andrew Sterling’s mansion as if I were a guest who might be asked to leave at any moment. I smiled at women who looked me up and down as if my worth could be measured by my accent. I lowered my voice at dinners where Andrew interrupted me. I allowed Mrs. Sterling to introduce me as “Andrew’s wife” without once mentioning my name.
