Chapter 1

After showering, I lit a cigarette.

Halfway through it, the hotel room door pushed open.

I looked at the man in the doorway, startled and panicked.

My twenty-eighth john was my husband.

I finished my cigarette, stubbed it out, and calmed down.

Getting up, I switched the mood lighting to purple. Then, a thought struck me, and I smiled, looking at my husband still standing in the doorway. "Maybe we should change the mood lights, since you're already here... indulging."

Brandon's face hardened with rage. He slammed the door shut, stormed over, and clamped his hands around my throat, pinning me to the bed before he slapped me hard.

"Chloe Peterson, how *dare* you!"

My head swam with stars, but I didn't resist his furious accusation. Instead, my whole body relaxed, and a laugh bubbled out of me.

For three years, they'd called me a shrew, a psycho. I'd almost forgotten.

I still had a name. Chloe Peterson.

I grew up in a small town. My parents, despite their modest incomes, barely scraped enough together to put me through college. The year I graduated, my parents set me up with Brandon.

Brandon was a good catch. Tall, handsome, fair-skinned. His family was well-off, owning a couple of properties, and he was their only child. My mom always said meeting Brandon was like hitting the jackpot – a cosmic gift I'd earned in a past life.

I was twenty-two then, Brandon was twenty-four. He was still the young man who'd brave the cold wind to bring me warm coffee and pastries. He'd never dated, and neither had I. Two clueless virgins crashing into each other, yet somehow, we ignited a fierce passion.

Soon after, we walked down the aisle.

I thought it was the beginning of a blissful life, but it was just the first step into hell.

The very night our wedding ended, his family not only confiscated the cash gifts my family had brought but then demanded a dowry from me. I stood my ground, refusing. His mother started wailing.

In the midst of the argument, Brandon slapped me.

The force of it sent me sprawling to the floor, my mind a blur.

That year, I was twenty-three, and two months pregnant.

Afterward, I insisted on a divorce. My parents pleaded with me, begging me to forgive Brandon, for the sake of the tiny life inside me. A two-month-old fetus might not be considered a 'person' by some, but I could feel its presence, so vividly real.

In the end, I softened. I didn't terminate that little life, and I went back home with Brandon.

*

"Chloe Peterson, I'll kill you!"

"Kill your cash cow? Would you really dare?"

Brandon's anger intensified, and his grip on my throat tightened. I didn't fight back, just stared coldly at his face. Under the purple mood lights, his furious face twisted, becoming grotesque, like a devil's.

No, Brandon *was* a devil.

"Chloe Peterson, you overestimate yourself! Without you, I'll find another!"

He wasn't falling for my taunts. He grabbed a pillow and pressed it down hard over my face.

The air was instantly sucked out of my lungs. I started to suffocate, a terrible, desperate struggle.

Just as I felt I was dying, I heard a rough kicking at the door, followed by chaotic footsteps.

"Police!"

"Get up! Hands on your head and down on the floor!"

The pressure on the pillow vanished, and it puffed back up. I pulled it away, the purple ambient light blurring my vision.

"Are you okay?"

The officer in uniform was young, looked about twenty-three or twenty-four, and spoke with a gentle voice. I glanced at her outstretched hand but didn't take it. Instead, I pushed myself up from the bed, tying my loosely opened bathrobe.

"Officer, I'm a sex worker. You don't have to be gentle with me."

Watching Officer Sarah's startled expression, I smiled, even as my eyes pricked with tears.