Your divorce was supposed to be your freedom, but every time you bring someone home, your ex-husband is already there, and by morning, they’re gone, leaving nothing behind but silence and him, taking his time proving you were never really his ex at all.
Gabriel Ross has been your husband for three years. You two were together since college, but he had dropped out early due to already having wealth; his parents just wanted him to go to have that university title. Even after he dropped out, you two were still together, building a life that seemed stable on the surface.
"You don’t even need this degree,"
he used to say with a small smirk, leaning back in his chair like the world already belonged to him.
"Still, it looks better on paper, doesn’t it?"
he’d add, voice light, careless.
You were a marketer, driven and independent, always working toward your own success, while he was a CEO of a company that created firearms and had numerous businesses across the state, his name carrying weight in rooms you had never even stepped into. At first, everything felt balanced, like the two of you complemented each other. He supported you, spoiled you, and made you feel chosen, like out of everyone, he picked you for a reason.
"Anything you want, it’s yours,"
he would murmur, brushing his thumb along your jaw.
"I don’t like seeing you stress. It’s unnecessary."
"Let me take care of everything,"
he’d say, like it was that simple.
Recently, his behavior changed in ways you couldn’t ignore. He wasn't the nice, kind, or sweet person you've known him to be; he became extremely possessive and controlling, questioning where you went, who you spoke to, what you wore, and even how long you stayed out. What once felt like love slowly turned into something suffocating, something that made you feel trapped in your own life.
"Who were you with?"
he asked one night, his tone low, sharp enough to cut through the room.
"You were out longer than you said you would be."
"I don’t like being ignored."
"Do you think this is funny?"
"Answer me,"
he snapped when silence stretched too long, his patience thinning into something dangerous.
You couldn't handle his toxic ways anymore, so you divorced him, choosing your peace over the version of love he was forcing on you.
"You’re not thinking straight,"
he said, voice tight when the word divorce first left your lips.
He didn't take it well; in fact, he didn't sign the papers, dragging things out in a way that only made everything more stressful.
"Why would I sign something that doesn’t benefit me?"
he said calmly during one of the meetings, legs crossed, completely unbothered.
"This is a waste of time. You’ll come back before that deadline even matters."
The court gave him a month to sign or else he'd be in trouble, and even then, it felt like he was playing a game, like he was waiting for something, like he knew something you didn’t. After 30 days passed, he was 'forced' to sign the papers, and now you were free to do what you wanted with whom you wanted, finally able to breathe without feeling watched.
"Thirty days,"
he muttered once, almost to himself, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"We’ll see how long that freedom lasts."
However, each time you met a guy, they would disappear hours after meeting them, leaving behind confusion, unanswered texts, and a growing sense of unease that you tried to ignore.
"Strange,"
he had said once before everything ended, his tone unreadable.
"People are unreliable. They disappear when you least expect it."
You told yourself it was coincidence, bad luck, anything but what your gut was starting to whisper.
"Coincidences happen all the time,"
his voice echoed in your memory.
"You just have to stop overthinking."
One day, you were home with another guy watching a movie, trying to move on, trying to prove to yourself that you weren’t still tied to him, trying to pretend everything was normal again. When suddenly your power went off, plunging the entire room into darkness, the screen cut to black mid-scene. Before you got up to check the generator, you heard something loud that erupted in the room, sharp and deafening, a sound that didn’t belong in a quiet night, a sound that shattered whatever sense of normal you were holding onto. It sounded like a gunshot, echoing off the walls in a way that made everything freeze. You turned around and saw the guy doubled over, his body collapsing as if something invisible had cut him down in an instant. He had blood dripping from his forehead and onto the floor, dark and spreading quickly, staining everything it touched. You screamed, the sound tearing out uncontrollably, and were about to call for help when all of a sudden, you heard a click from behind, cold, precise, and unmistakable.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, cara mía,"
a familiar voice spoke, smooth and terrifying all at once, as if nothing had changed for him at all.
"You always were a little too impulsive,"
he added quietly.
You felt something cold pressing against your waist. You looked down and saw it was the barrel of a gun, steady, unmoving, like it belonged there, like it had always been waiting.
"You were so naive to think I actually filed those papers, mm?"
Gabriel spoke as he lowered himself to your ear level, his breath warm against your skin in contrast to the weapon he held against you.
"Did you really think it would be that easy?"
he murmured.
"I’ve been patient,"
he continued softly, almost thoughtfully.
"Watching. Waiting. And every single time… you replaced me, you made it so easy to find them. They weren’t hard to deal with,"
he added, his voice dropping into something colder.*
"None of them were worth the trouble. You, on the other hand…"
he trailed off, a faint, dangerous smile in his tone.
"You’ve always been worth everything."