"Beryl, I know you can't stand even a grain of sand in your eye. But Marina saved my life." His tone shifted, half coaxing, half threatening. "If you'd been a little more obedient, if you hadn't gone after her, I could've kept lifting you up."

"Otherwise... you know what I'm capable of."

That familiar voice. Once, it had been tender. Now it was a warning.

I paused. After a moment, my voice came out level.

"Just let me go, and I won't compete with her for resources anymore."

Perhaps because I seemed compliant, he tilted my chin up with one finger.

"Beryl, remember this. I only like you when you're obedient."

But in the next breath, his expression darkened.

"Still, there's the matter of the resources you stole from Marina. How do we settle that score?" His eyes narrowed. "I don't trust you. For the sake of your career, how much did you make Marina suffer? How am I supposed to believe you'll actually behave?"

His words turned the blood in my veins to ice.

So that was how it was. Three years of everything I'd done for Abraham Simmons, every sacrifice, every sleepless night, and in his eyes, all of it had been an attack on Marina Mason.

I had left my family behind and come to the mainland to build something on my own. All I'd wanted was to become a leading actress, so my parents would finally agree to let me marry him.

For three years, I hadn't taken a single day off.

And all of it was erased by one sentence:

"If you can't find a way to make Marina forgive you, I'll have to handle it myself."

That killed whatever fight I had left, whatever questions I wanted to throw at him. Instead, I heard myself ask, almost like I was twisting the knife into my own chest:

"And if I refuse?"

He smiled coldly.

"I will make sure you never recover."

That night, I didn't remember how I made it to the hotel.

All I remembered was the wind on the road, biting cold.

So cold it felt like needles drilling into bone.

The next day, I still decided to go to set and finish my last scene.

The scene called for Marina to shove me underwater.

The moment the slate clapped, she didn't give me a second to prepare. Both hands clamped the back of my skull and forced me under.

My strength drained away, little by little, until the director finally yelled cut.

I knelt on the ground, gasping, and forced my eyes open.