Prologue!
The scent of iron clung to my skin.
I stared at my trembling hands, painted crimson, the color spreading down my wrists like bracelets made of blood. My breath came in shallow bursts, chest heaving, but no matter how much air I dragged in, it wasn’t enough. The room was spinning—walls leaning inward, shadows dancing in flames that licked the corners like hungry beasts.
He was lying there, so still.
For a moment, I couldn’t tell if the ringing in my ears was my own heartbeat or the echo of his last breath. The knife was still clutched in my fist, slick and heavy, like it belonged there. Like it had always been waiting for this moment.
“I never thought I’d be capable of this,” I whispered into the silence, my voice breaking on the words. They tasted like confession, like sin.
The floor beneath me was wet, sticky, whispering with each step as I backed away. I wanted to close my eyes, to disappear into darkness and pretend none of this had ever happened. But my gaze—traitorous and wild—kept returning to him. To the man I once swore I’d love until death parted us.
Trevon Mercer.
My husband. My high school sweetheart. My forever.
The flames from the fireplace—or maybe they were from something else, I couldn’t remember anymore—cast a warm glow across his face, mocking me. For a heartbeat, he looked like the boy I used to know, the boy who kissed me under the bleachers and whispered promises into my hair. But that illusion shattered when I saw the truth—the jagged reality of betrayal, lies, and the ruin he left behind.
And now, this.
The house groaned in the silence, every creak magnified. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed, distant but growing closer. I should have felt fear. I should have felt regret. But all I felt was the fire inside me, hotter and more consuming than the blaze devouring the curtains.
This wasn’t the woman I was supposed to be.
The world had painted me as devoted wife, doting mother, the one who smiled politely at dinner parties and pretended not to notice the lipstick smudges on his shirts. I was supposed to endure. To forgive. To play the role carved out for me.
But I didn’t.
And now blood coated my skin, and the taste of vengeance lingered on my tongue.
I crouched lower, my reflection glinting back at me from the slick pool spreading across the hardwood floor. My eyes—once soft, once full of love—looked foreign now. Darker. Wilder. Dangerous.
Maybe I had always carried this fire inside me. Maybe betrayal had only given it oxygen.
The sirens grew louder. Somewhere, the twins were sleeping, far away, safe from the storm I had unleashed. I told myself I did this for them—that I had to burn everything down so they’d never live under the shadow of his lies. But deep down, I knew the truth.
I did this for me.
Because love wasn’t enough anymore. Because forgiveness was a fairytale, and fairytales were nothing but lies dressed in white veils and champagne toasts. Because when the heart shatters, it leaves behind shards sharp enough to cut.
My hand tightened on the knife, and a laugh broke from me—low, trembling, half a sob. I couldn’t tell if it came from madness or liberation.
The sound of boots thudded in the hallway outside, closer now, a countdown ticking toward me. Soon the door would crash open. Soon the world would see what I had become.
And maybe they would call me monster. Murderess. Madwoman.
But no one would ever call me a fool again.
I stood straighter, shoulders back, chin high, as the smoke curled around me like a crown. My pulse slowed, steady now, like the calm after a storm.
I had crossed the line, and there was no going back.
“Before it all began,” I whispered to myself, voice steady now, almost cold.
Then the door shattered open.
And everything went black.
