Characters Introduced:
Damien Hale – A successful, charming businessman in public. Inside his home, he is cold, calculating, and cruel.
Ayla Hale – His quiet wife, soft-hearted and loyal, slowly unraveling beneath his invisible abuse.
Everyone admired Damien Hale.
The press called him "the perfect gentleman"—a man of elegance and intellect. He donated to orphanages, smiled warmly for cameras, and gave speeches about integrity.
And yet, within the Hale estate, behind white marble floors and glass chandeliers, the truth twisted itself into silence.
There, Damien Hale was not a gentleman.
He was a storm in a suit.
---
"Ayla," he called from his study, voice echoing down the hall like a summons.
She was already walking with his tea, careful not to spill a drop. Two green cardamom pods, just how he liked. Never one. Never three.
She placed the cup gently on his desk.
"Three minutes late," he said, without looking up.
"I'm sorry. I—"
"Excuses are for the weak." He sipped his tea. "It's lukewarm."
"I'll make it again."
"Don't bother. You'll just waste more time. Like you always do."
She didn't defend herself. She never did anymore. Her voice had long stopped fighting the war inside this house.
---
Ayla used to believe in love.
When she first met Damien, he had looked at her like she was rare. He'd read her poetry, remembered her coffee order, called her his softness in a sharp world.
That softness, now, was something he mocked.
"You're too sensitive."
"You can't survive in the real world."
"Do you know how lucky you are that I chose you?"
Words he whispered behind closed doors, like spells designed to erase her bit by bit.
And Ayla—she let it happen.
Because she didn't know how to leave a man everyone adored.
Who would believe her?
---
At brunches, Damien was the perfect husband. He smiled at her, held her hand, even wiped lipstick from the corner of her mouth with a chuckle.
"She's my world," he'd say, and people would sigh.
And Ayla would smile too—small, practiced.
Because if she didn't play along, the punishment would come later. Not with fists. Never fists.
With silence.
With long, suffocating stretches of isolation.
With words twisted until she believed she was always the one at fault.
---
That night, she overheard Damien on the phone with someone else.
A woman.
The tone of his voice—warm, teasing—was not a voice she had heard in months.
"I'd stay longer if I could," he said, chuckling. "You make me feel alive."
The laugh that followed did not belong to a man who loved his wife.
Ayla stood in the hallway, gripping the edge of the staircase, heart quiet but breaking.
---
The next morning, he left a dress on the bed for her.
"Wear this tonight," he said without looking at her. "We're attending a fundraiser."
She nodded.
As she dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror—expensive fabric wrapped around a fading soul.
Her lipstick was perfect. Her heels were tall.
But her eyes… her eyes no longer belonged to her.