The Contracted Marriage Five-Years Lie

My marriage to Isabella Vance was a carefully constructed lie, a five-year contract to secure my family's legacy.

It looked perfect on the outside, a power couple united, but inside, it was a cold charade, a grim reminder of the love I'd lost.

The terms were clear: at the contract's end, freedom.

But Julian, Isabella' s obsessive adopted brother, saw my impending divorce as a threat to his stranglehold on her, escalating his petty torments into terrifying attempts on my life.

He ambushed me, kidnapped me, then doused me in gasoline within a desolate desert shack, ready to watch me burn.