"So what if you're Mrs. Vance? The one standing beside him is still me."
I instinctively tried to fight back, but the bodyguards moved fast. They pinned me to the ground and struck me across the face, ten times, without mercy.
My cheeks swelled almost instantly. The pain blurred my vision, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't steady myself on my feet.
Through the haze, I watched Zoe loop her arm through Seth's, triumphant and glowing, as they went to toast the other guests.
I was thrown out of the gala like garbage. I struggled to my feet.
The manager hurled a handful of crumpled bills at my face, his voice cold and flat.
"You're fired. Don't bother coming back."
I clutched the bills in my fist and tried to wipe the sticky wine from my clothes. I hadn't gotten far before a group of thugs blocked my path.
They spat vulgar insults, rough hands already yanking at my blouse.
"The lady told us this one's a tramp. Said everything she does is to seduce men."
"Now that I'm seeing her up close, she wasn't wrong."
Instinctively, I thought of Seth.
Just one more time. I'd trust him one last time.
Clinging to that thought, I called him.
The call hadn't even connected before one of the thugs ripped the phone from my hand and smashed it against the pavement.
It wasn't until the ringtone on the other end died on its own that he finally deigned to send a text.
"Don't bother me unless it's important."
"Annoying."
The light in my eyes dimmed, word by word.
Seeing that, the thugs' gazes turned darker, their movements bolder. One of them tore open my blouse.
"Looks like whoever you called for help doesn't plan on saving you, sweetheart."
"I heard she used to go for a dollar a night. Now she's playing the virtuous maiden?"
When the coins hit my body again, the memories came flooding back, impossible to stop.
When Seth had spent a fortune tracking me down, I'd still been on my knees begging for a waitressing job.
After my birth parents took me home, the family love I'd craved shattered like a soap bubble at the first touch.
My father was a gambler. When he drank, he took a belt to me until my skin split open and bled.
My mother had cancer. She died not long after.
So I was passed around, sold from one person to the next. I never finished high school. I survived on odd jobs.