1

Mabel

"I want a divorce," my husband, Count David Matthias, told me as he tossed papers on the table next to me. "Sign that and pack up your belongings."

I blinked at the papers, shocked down to my core that he was finally willing to set me free after six years of misery… Except it wasn't freedom in the way most would think and could lead to more pain for me. "I must speak to my father first."

The slap came before I even finished what I was saying, knocking me out of the chair with a force firm enough that my neck instantly hurt. I landed hard on my already bruised knee and felt something very wrong with my wrist before I completely collapsed to the floor.

"You will do as you are told, Mabel," he bit out. "Since when have you been stupid enough to talk back to me? Do you want to be punished?"

"I will be sent back to my father when I leave here," I whispered, trying to breathe through the pain and not make him wait for an answer. He got annoyed if he had to spend more time with me because of my injuries.

Ignoring the fact that he'd given them to me.

"I cannot ignore his wishes in this. I must discuss it with him first." I cried out when he kicked me.

"Do as you are told, Mabel," he shouted as he unleashed his temper on my body. "I own you, you stupid bitch. Having you around here has been enough trouble all of this time when you are worthless. I will not stand for it anymore when it upsets Angie."

I pretended to pass out from the pain after several more hits, long since having learned that half the fun for him was my reaction. The moment that I was in enough pain and not so shocked at the beating that I could fake I was out, it was my best defense against more.

Angie, on the other hand… She seemed to enjoy it more. She was too chicken to do anything when it was just the two of us and I was staring at her, but when I was unconscious, she became even more foul.

I had also learned that the hard way.

David threw out some more insults and then wrote something before storming out of the room, ordering the nasty butler to handle me and the situation. It seemed that he accepted that I wouldn't sign without seeing my father first since one of the things he'd called me had been a "conditioned doll."

He actually wasn't even being unfair to me—for once—by saying that. I had been the ultimate docile and obedient daughter. No matter what my father had asked of me, I had done it. Always.

Even marrying a man who loved his mistress and made it clear I should live like I was dead in his house and would have no power. I'd been shocked when my father clearly knew about the situation, but it benefited the Sunde family and that was all he cared about.

Well, his sons it seemed. I was the disposable, well-trained doll that he sold off to make them wealthier while I lived in hell. Not once had any of them even contacted me.

I waited a suitable amount of time and pretended to come back around, swallowing down my hate for the butler who simply stared at me. The amusement in his eyes was disgusting. He'd made it clear that he'd long since figured out what I'd been doing, but when he'd suggested it to David once, my arrogant husband had brushed him off.

So now the butler simply watched my acting with condescending amusement instead of tending to me or like helping.

I went to use my now injured wrist to push up since I knew my servant standing there wouldn't help me even if I ordered him to, but at the last second I remembered and used the other one. I looked at the table and saw David had written a note to my father and left it on top of the papers. "Arrange a carriage to leave before lunch to head to my father's estate."

"Of course," he agreed, smirking at me. "Since the count allowed it."

Rage exploded from me and I backhanded the disgusting man. He couldn't even hide his shock and for once I didn't hide my venom.

"You might be a dog serving his master but remember, you are a dog and I am a noble, a countess. You might have thought you won something with the way you have treated me all of these years, but I am about to leave my husband's control, and you are still a commoner."

For the first time ever since I'd met the man, in the long six years of him looking down at me and making my hell worse, he finally had an ounce of fear in his eyes.

"Prepare it properly and without issue," I told him darkly before gathering up the papers and heading for my room to pack.

It would take three days to reach my family estate and I had to pack wisely. David wouldn't have a guard escort me, which was normal for nobles, or let me take one of the carriages with his crest. No, he'd have us take the carriage for errands or the staff used. That was fine, it would be less likely to be targeted.

Once I was back in my room, my mind raced about this new development… Which was difficult since my mind was sluggish from the beating. Everything hurt. I ached and wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath.

Except I had no maid to call to help me. Angie occupied all of the maids constantly and bullied any who had ever served me, so now none would. I didn't even blame them. I truly didn't.

The ones who bullied me and tortured me along with her and enjoyed my abuse should all rot in hell.

Painfully.

For once though, I was glad that I didn't have a maid watching over me that would report everything back to David. It made it easier to pack as if I was never coming back to this prison. If he'd thought I was leaving for good, he would have gone through everything and taken anything of value since he owned me.

Even the things I'd come with because he was that petty and vicious.

Still, I couldn't just pack a suitcase of everything of obvious value in case he opened it. I carefully put the expensive jewelry I still had from the last event he'd forced me to attend a few weeks ago in my normal shoes and then put stockings in them. That way nothing would shake about and draw attention.

I remembered where I'd stashed some other jewelry that I'd actually stolen. Well, it hadn't been for the jewelry, but to get a horrible maid fired. She was the evilest of the whole lot of demons, but I was afraid she would truly kill me one day with what she put in my food.

So I'd hid the jewelry in the library right after an event where no one would ever have looked… And placed the bracelet of the set in her room. The next morning when the butler came to collect the jewelry like normal, I told him I had left it out as always, but it was gone. I'd told him to search my room, but he better search the maids as well if he would accuse me.

It was a rare instance of David being useful and he had agreed with me and the bracelet was found with the maid. The rest was never recovered and she'd been executed. I'd thought she'd been thrown out, but apparently Angie had really liked that set and cried to David to have it replaced for her. He'd gotten so annoyed he'd killed the maid.

Which was why I'd never let the jewelry be found. I couldn't risk questions being asked about it.

The only reason I had the current jewelry I did was because I was supposed to go to an event and talk about the merits of my husband as he ordered. One of the women was a part of some business deal he wanted the support of her husband on or something. I wasn't worth explaining things to.

But it spoke to the whims and crazy of my husband that he'd ordered me to do this after the last event and I could even keep the jewelry, warning me not to mess this up for him… And now he was giving me divorce papers and beating me.

My life was hell.

I had to be careful to limit how much I took, ending up with two suitcases. I would be cold, but underskirts and shawls were cheap and easier to come by. What I brought had the most value.

Because I wasn't actually an idiot no matter what my husband and father thought. My father had overseen my education and should know best how intelligent I was, but his sexism blinded him to the truth.

I simply wished I had realized that much, much sooner.

As it was, I didn't until I'd traveled three long days painfully shaking around in the carriage. The time at the inns in between was the only reprieve I had, full meals and warm baths for once. It was honestly lovely even if I was riddled with anxiety knowing it was the calm before the next storm.

Sure enough, the moment I pulled up to my family's estate, it was obvious that I wasn't welcome there. No one came to greet me, and the butler came out to order the driver to not even unload the luggage.

And then he didn't even greet me. This was a man who had known me since I was born and didn't even bother to address me when I was a countess.

"I do not have time to deal with whatever you want," my father said the moment I was shown into his study, not even looking up from what he was doing.

"My husband wants a divorce," I told him anyways.

He froze in what he was writing before slowly raising his head, anger in his eyes. "Are you truly so useless that you cannot even handle something so simple as a marriage?"

He didn't give me a chance to answer—not that I was allowed to talk back to him—slamming his hands on the desk as he stood. He stormed over to me and didn't even blink an eye at the state I was in and simply added to the bruises by slapping the side of my face David had neglected.

"You go back there and do whatever you have to, you stupid girl. I do not care what you have to do, but you change his mind and save your marriage! If you cannot, then die. It would be better than disgracing this family with a divorced daughter that people would laugh at and talk about everywhere I go."

I stood there and listened to him spout complete bile at me that it was my fault—everything was my fault. How I was useless that I couldn't do what a woman should and keep my husband happy and entertained. That I couldn't control the house and manage the affairs. The list was endless.

And made him a bigger hypocrite since he hadn't allowed Mother to do any of that before she'd died. My mother had been a docile doll just as I was, and that was why I'd thought it was normal for women to behave that way. It was all I'd known before seeing more after being married. But I'd been lied to that those were ill-bred women.

Well, if this abuse and hell was what it meant to be a well-bred woman, then to hell with that.

And all of these monsters.

"I understand," I said as he was still ranting. I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm and spun me back.

"How dare you disrespect me, you bitch," he sneered.

"Count Sunde, I might be your daughter, but I am the same rank as you, as the countess of the Matthias family," I said coldly. "As my husband reminds me regularly, he owns me, and he does not like what is his to be misused. So if you do not release me and think to strike me, I will leave here and immediately visit the police."

He let me go, mostly out of shock, but at least he did.

"I came to inform you immediately as I thought you would want. My mistake and one I will not make again as you made it clear you would rather me dead and will consider me so if I am divorced," I told him. "I will handle my own affairs going forward." I glanced around and gave him a disgusted look. "How lovely for you to benefit from what others pay so much for."

I turned on my heel and left.

My eldest brother, Christopher, was coming in as I reached the foyer, doing a double take when he saw me. He curled up his lip at me. "How could you leave your home and dare to visit here looking so unsightly?"

My second brother, who was right behind him with our youngest brother, simply snorted. "When have you ever seen her look any better?"

I lost the rest of my composure—and maybe sanity—and held my head high as I turned to face them. "How unsightly that you do not even properly show any manners, Viscount, when I am a countess." I turned and looked at my second brother and snorted. "And you do not even have a title and look down upon your betters? You are lucky that I am not petty and file charges."

Again, shock was the only reason they didn't react, but I took the advantage to take one more shot as I reached the door.

"You judge me, but you are nothing be leeches. Everything you enjoy is because I was sold to a monster. You have done nothing, earned nothing, and yet you show no remorse or concern for your own sibling, mocking her." I eyed them over with disgust. "From today forward, I will behave the same, and we are family no more. I will not suffer for you any longer."

I left and kept my head high as I tried my best not to walk with a limp back to the carriage. On top of everything else, I never received any medical care after my abuse and this time was no different.

So the insult the butler had given me by not letting my carriage stay out front—either on orders from my father on his own—was not only emotionally painful but physically. Tears were burning in my eyes by the time I reached the carriage, the driver not even opening the door for me since he worked for my husband.

That was the last straw. I could not keep being their victim and not fighting back.

"Take me to the police station." I swallowed shock when he flinched and hesitated. One of the ultimate laws of the kingdom was any driver of any carriage, public or private, could not deny someone if they were ordered to take a person to the police. Even on the street.

People also couldn't abuse it. They were checked into the station immediately and had to report a crime or issue so the drivers weren't taken advantage of. Most times they were even given some fee for the fare from the police or most paid later depending on the situation they'd aided in.

A duke had implemented the law in his region about ten years ago and after a few years saw crime drastically decrease. People were being held accountable more and the right people punished, and with such obvious success, the king had implemented the same policy. There had been some pushback initially, but for years now it had been a firm rule.

So to see someone hesitate shocked me.

Then again, I couldn't ever think of someone working for my husband as having scruples.

"Use your head, fool," I sighed. "My father asked me to drop off a report for him on the way. If I was to report my husband, I would need to do it at the capital if not his area." That was a blatant lie, but I was banking on the driver being ignorant.

My husband preferred those under him to be that way so they believed his lies more and he could fill their heads with nonsense.

Relief filled his eyes and he nodded, jumping up on the front to drive… Without opening the door for me or helping me on when he knew I was injured.

Was there truly not a decent person in my husband's employment?

Apparently not.

But he did drive me to the police station in town. I thought about my situation the whole drive there. I had been thinking about it the whole trip, finally at my limit with too much, but willing to still join hands with my family to limit the damage to my brothers. I didn't want them to suffer too much from my divorce because of what Father had plotted.

Now I didn't care about any of them.

I stared down at the note in my hand from my husband that Father hadn't even read. David was willing to pay my fatherseventy-five percent of what he was now even after the divorce to keep using the family companies. That meant David was making so much off of the deal to use my father's transport company that he was willing to pay that.

Why was my marriage even needed then? Why could they not have simply made that deal to start? Why had I needed to suffer for six years for this? I'd been stabbed, poisoned, whipped, and beaten so many times I couldn't remember and for… Twenty-five percent more?

And my father blamed me? Any of this was about me or my failings when they were both clearly lunatics?

Why should my family have any of this? That company was barely a pipe dream before I handled so much of the paperwork before I was sold off to make it into much. Father had lost almost everything investing in bogus mines that at fourteen I had worked tirelessly to pull us out of the brink of poverty. He told me to handle the finances and I had.

To thank me, he'd claimed it was all him, and then to expand, he'd sold me. I'd been shocked at how well the estate looked now with the wealth poured into it.

The wealth that had only come about because of me.

I crumpled up the note and made the decision to stop letting any of them get anything from me anymore. If David was willing to pay for me to be gone, he'd be paying it to me and for all he'd done.

The officer stationed outside to receive carriages for these instances was the first person to actually open the door for me the whole trip. The concern in his eyes was what gave me the strength to say what I did next.

"The driver was not going to bring me and only agreed when I lied about my reason for coming," I told him.

Rage filled the man's eyes and he called for help before jumping up to the front and yanking the driver down.

"How could you tell such a lie, miss?" the driver argued and moved towards me, probably planning to use his size to intimidate me.

Another of the officers who had come out to help at the call grabbed my wrist to move me out of range… Except it was my injured wrist. Pain shot through me and I felt something bad snap. It also threw me off balance with my swollen, damaged knee and hip.

I passed out from the pain before I even got the chance to reply.