Chapter 1 - The Iron Cage
The cold concrete of the kennel floor sent violent shivers through my eight-month pregnant body.
Damon stood outside the steel bars, his eyes filled with nothing but cruel amusement.
"Disloyal wives sleep with dogs," he sneered, adjusting the cuffs of his tailored shirt.
I curled my arms protectively around my swollen belly, fighting back tears of humiliation.
Just a few feet away, his mistress Lacey watched me while wearing my favorite silk robe.
She took a sip of champagne and smiled as if my suffering was the evening's entertainment.
Then the heavy oak doors of the mansion crashed open.
My father dropped his leather travel bag the second he saw me locked behind the iron bars.
"Dad," I sobbed, my voice cracking under the weight of my despair.
"Damon gave her my room," I managed to whisper.
Lacey laughed, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder.
"The dogs never complained about the new arrangement," she mocked.
My father moved faster than I had ever seen a man his age move.
He crossed the room and slapped Damon so hard that the sound echoed through the entire estate.
Damon stumbled backward, crashing heavily against the steel frame of the kennel.
My father did not waste a single second.
He ripped the keys from Damon's trembling hands and unlocked the heavy iron gate.
He pulled me out gently, then grabbed Damon by the collar and shoved him brutally inside.
The lock clicked shut, trapping my abusive husband in the very cage he had built for me.
The police arrived minutes later, responding to the silent alarm my father had triggered on his way inside.
They dragged Damon away in handcuffs while he screamed threats at us through the bars.
Lacey was thrown out onto the freezing street wearing nothing but my stolen robe.
My father wrapped his warm coat around my shoulders and held me close.
"No one will ever cage you again, Clara," he promised with tears in his eyes.
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But as we arrived at the hospital for a checkup, the doctor looked at my blood test results with absolute horror.
"Clara, someone has been giving you a lethal dose of rat poison for the last six months," the doctor whispered.
