The air in the opulent Crofts mansion hung thick with unspoken accusations, a suffocating weight Elsie had carried for five years. Oswald, her husband, stood before her, his face a mask of chilling disdain. "Elsie, put away your mask of innocence, your lies have been exposed, and from this day you will be thrown out of this villa!"

Elsie’s heart constricted, a familiar ache blooming in her chest. "What do you mean, Oswald, I don't understand, I swear I have never lied to you about anything."

His gaze, cold enough to kill, sliced through her. She’d loved him, truly, for half a decade, yet he looked at her as if she were a stranger, a murderer. The buzzing in her ears was deafening as his next words shattered any remaining illusion. "Tess is awake, she has told me everything. Before her accident, someone sent her a text message anonymously saying that I was sleeping with a woman in a hotel. She was in too much of a hurry to wait for the light to turn green and was hit by a big truck when she rushed across the road."

Tess. Always Tess. The woman he loved, the woman she was supposed to replace. Elsie knew the truth: she had been drugged and thrown into Oswald's bed by her stepmother and stepsister. Her marriage was a calculated arrangement, born of scandal and family pressure. But to Oswald, she was the orchestrator, the villain.

Her voice, though trembling, held a bite of sarcasm. "So what are you going to do next? Report your wife as a murderer to the police?" His refusal to trust her, after everything, was a final, crushing blow. "I agree to the divorce, and I will bring you the divorce papers tomorrow."

Leaving the villa, Elsie felt a strange lightness, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. She pulled out her phone, sending a single message: "Come pick me up, I've decided to be myself."

Moments later, a sleek Maybach glided to a stop beside her. Freedom, she realized, had never tasted so sweet.