"Call me a bitch.
Call me a whore.
A two-timer, a liar, a playgirl — whatever name helps you sleep at night."
The woman across the metal table slid a styrofoam cup towards me. Detective Sanchez, according to the nameplate on her desk. Her face was a mask of practiced neutrality, her eyes giving nothing away. "Coffee?" she asked, her voice flat.
I ignored the cup, the cheap, burnt smell of its contents doing nothing to cut through the sterile chill of the room. The overhead light hummed, faintly flickering, painting my face in uneven stripes of white and shadow.
My gaze drifted to the one-way mirror on the wall. I knew there were eyes behind it — lawyers, detectives, maybe even him. Let them watch. Let them judge.
"But before you decide what I am," I whispered, my voice barely disturbing the silence, "you should at least hear why."
The room faded, the hum of the light bulb swallowed by a different sound… the sound of rain drumming against glass, pulling me back to the night it all began.
(Flashback)
The sound of rain… it always takes me back. Back to the sterile silence of that mansion, a silence broken only by the storm raging outside and the one brewing inside me. It started, as most things did between us, with a fight.
"You're being unreasonable, Ysabela," Dwayne had said, his voice a calm, chilling counterpoint to the storm. He stood by the grand fireplace, a perfect portrait of power framed by american marble. Golden hair, tall, sculpted, with the kind of mestizo features that made magazine editors weep, and a mind forged at Harvard. He was the man every girl supposedly dreamed of, and every family wanted to own a piece of. My family sold me for the privilege.
"I want a life, Dwayne! Not this… this gilded cage!" My voice felt small, swallowed by the cavernous living room.
He simply adjusted his gold cufflinks, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond me. "You have everything. Given you everything, what more can you ask of me?" With that, he turned and walked away. The soft click of the front door closing was as final as a prison gate locking for the night. Another business meeting. Another charity gala. Another night alone. As I looked in the mirror, I saw a ghost—a ghost of me, from when I was still Ysabel.
She was daddy's little girl, with my mother's eyes, bright and unguarded. Her black hair was tied the way she wanted it to be. She was a cheerful girl that everybody loved. Not this…
This woman as I blinked, the girl vanished, replaced by the woman staring back.
Her eyes were different—armored, shadowed by expensive pigments that promised depth but delivered only emptiness. Her black hair was now a gleaming shell, each strand tortured into submission by the city's finest stylist. Her skin was a perfect, poreless canvas, her real self buried under layers of foundation. She was a mannequin draped in the cold weight of a designer gown and the heavier weight of diamonds at her throat.
They gave this creation a brand name—Ysabela Blackwood, wife of Dwayne Blackwood. A masterpiece of artifice, a walking brand built for display. All to fit the woman they wanted everybody to see. Who would question it, anyway?
This marriage wasn't a partnership; it was a transaction. They needed our family's ancestral claim, the last relic of our political power. We needed their limitless fortune to pay for the scandal that had sent my father into exile and dragged our name through the mud. From the pinnacle of politics to a whispered disgrace.
I didn't pack. I didn't think. I just grabbed my key for my car and ran.
The maids in the grand foyer saw me, their eyes sliding right past as if I were another piece of expensive art—to be observed but never engaged with. The security guards by the door didn't flinch, their faces impassive. They weren't there to protect me; they were there to protect the property. To them, I was just an ornament, and ornaments don't run.
My sports car roared to life, a caged beast just like me. But at the main gate, the heavy iron bars refused to move. A guard stepped out of his booth, phone pressed to his ear, his expression unreadable in the stormy darkness. He was probably calling Dwayne, or the head of security—I didn't care. Tears of frustration and rage welled in my eyes. I had to get out.
Then, the gates began to slide open. No confirmation crackled through the intercom. No parting, "Take care, ma'am." Just the silent, dismissive permission to leave. Get out, it seemed to say. We don't need you here.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator, the tires screaming on the wet asphalt. Tears blurred my vision, mixing with the rain that lashed against the windshield. I drove blind, fueled by a desperate need to escape, forgetting my phone, forgetting everything but the hollow ache in my chest. After what felt like an eternity of aimless turns, a familiar route emerged from the chaos of the city lights.
I took the corner, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. And through the downpour, I saw it.
Just as the memory solidified, I stopped the engine. Gas almost depleted, Weird? None of it mattered as I pushed the door open, scrambled out, my foot caught. My designer sandal was wedged tight against the pedal. I didn't care. I ripped my foot free, leaving the shoe behind.
I stumbled out onto the pavement, one foot protected, the other bare against the cold, gritty asphalt. The lopsided feeling was maddening. Through the sheets of rain, I could just make out the dark, familiar shape of the gate. A primal need surged through me. This single, useless sandal was an anchor; the heavy, waterlogged woven jacket a leaden weight.
With a grunt of frustration, I kicked off the remaining shoe, sending it skittering into the darkness. I tore the jacket from my shoulders and let it fall to the wet ground. Then, barefoot and unburdened, I made a desperate, ten-meter dash through the rain toward the gate.
I stumbled out into the storm. A rusted gate, chained and padlocked, leaned wearily against a crumbling stone post. The house I remembered—the one filled with light, warm and my mother's laughter—was now a dark, skeletal shape being devoured by ivy, its windows like hollow eyes staring into the night. A faded wooden sign was nailed to the gate, the words a cruel punch to the gut: PROPERTY OF BLACKWOOD CORP. NO TRESPASSING.
Of course. Even my past was owned by them now.
A sob tore from my chest as I stumbled out into the rain, the cold shock of it doing nothing to numb the pain. I gripped the cold, rusty bars of the gate, my knuckles white. "No matter what happens, Ysabel," my mother's voice echoed in my head, a promise from a different lifetime, "I'll always be here, waiting for you."
The words were a ghost's promise, hollow and cruel.
"Liar," I choked out, the word a ragged whisper swallowed by the storm. My grip on the gate failed, and my legs gave way. "Liar…" I sank to my knees in the mud and wet leaves, the fight draining out of me completely, leaving only a vast, aching emptiness.
The cold seeped through my clothes, a familiar chill that wasn't just from the rain. It was the chill of the phone pressed to my ear years ago, a sterile voice on the other end talking about a "political meeting" and a "fatal incident," the moment I learned my mother had been shot. It was the chill of seeing my brother's face, pale and defiant, plastered across the news, the headlines like vultures picking over the bones of our family's reputation before he was imprisoned. And it was the final, bone-deep chill of watching my father, his shoulders slumped in defeat, board a private jet, exiled from the country he had dedicated her life to.
One. Two. Three. The pillars of my world kicked out from under me.
All that was left was the rain and the hollow space in my chest. A raw, guttural scream tore from my throat, a sound of pure agony that was lost in the roar of the downpour, as if the sky itself was weeping with me.
That's when I felt it. A presence in front of me.
A man emerged from the shadows and flashes of cars along the other side of the road, a figure carved from the night itself. He wore a black tuxedo that seemed to shed the rain like a second skin. He was lean, yet he moved with the fluid grace of a predator. And his eyes… in the dim light, they seemed to glitter like a wolf's.
He took a slow step forward, his voice cutting through the storm, hesitant but certain, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Ysabel? Is that you?"
My breath hitched in my throat. Not Ysabela, the formal, sterile name my husband forced me to use to avoid scandal, to bury my past. Ysabel. The name the people who truly knew me used. The name that was mine.
He stopped just before me and extended a hand. He didn't say a word, but the gesture was a clear, silent plea: Let's go home.
I didn't know who he was, or where he came from. A bodyguard sent by Dwayne? Security? Fathers loyal servant? Our servant? I didn't know. But despite his cold, dark aura and the blackness of his clothes, I felt something flicker within me. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, as my trembling fingers met his, I felt warm. Impossibly, wonderfully warm.
Boooom… Booom…
The moment our skin touched, the night behind me erupted.
A deafening explosion ripped through the air, turning my dead car into a fireball. The shockwave slammed into us, a physical blow that threw us violently to the muddy ground.
My ears screamed a high-pitched whine, and the world was a dizzying blur of orange flame and black, swirling rain. A wave of searing heat washed over us, but the front of me was pressed against something solid, a human shield that had taken the brunt of the blast. His arms were wrapped around me, a vise-like grip that was both crushing and impossibly safe.
He shifted, trying to pull me further under him. "Ysabel!" his voice, rough with concern, cut through the ringing. "Ysabel, are you okay?"
Something warm and thick dripped onto my cheek, tracing a path to the corner of my eye. It wasn't rain. I blinked, and my vision swam in a sickening crimson haze.
Headlights sliced through the smoke-filled darkness as sleek black cars screeched to a halt around us. More men in suits swarmed the area, their movements precise and urgent, guns drawn.
"Ivan!" one of them yelled, his voice tight with panic. "Boss, are you okay?"
Ivan?
The man—Ivan—ignored them, his focus entirely on me. He gently brushed the blood from my face with his thumb. "Ysabel…No… Ysabel"
The world began to tilt, the red in my vision darkening at the edges. The roar of the fire and the storm faded, as my consciousness faded, replaced by the sound of childish laughter and the warmth of a summer sun on my skin.
The image bloomed in my mind, vivid and sharp: a wide, green field under a brilliant blue sky. A much younger version of me, braids flying, was running effortlessly. A few paces behind, a frail-looking boy with scraped knees was panting, struggling to keep up.
I saw myself stop and turn, hands on my hips in a gesture of pure, childish arrogance.
"You're too slow, Ivan!" my younger self's voice chirped, bright and teasing. "How can you ever protect me if you're so weak?"
The memory dissolved into the encroaching darkness. My last coherent thought was a frantic, desperate question that had no answer.
What was that?
Who… is Ivan?