Hannah’s POV
The crystal chandelier above the Martinez dining table cast prisms of light across the white linen tablecloth, and I watched them dance while my husband of three years signed the papers that would end my entire world.
“Just here, Mrs.
Martinez.” The lawyer’s voice was gentle, like he was handing me a prescription for a terminal illness instead of a divorce decree.
“And here.
And your initial here, please.”
My hand trembled.
The pen felt foreign between my fingers, heavy with the weight of everything I had given this family.
My blood.
My youth.
My dignity.
Three years of being invisible, of being nothing more than a walking blood bag for Isabella, of sitting in the corner while she wore Elijah’s grandmother’s ring and smiled at him like she was the one who had earned that right.
But I was still Hannah Martinez.
The unwanted wife.
The donor.
The ghost in the mansion.
Across the table, Elijah Martinez sat like a marble statue.
His jaw was carved from the same cold stone as the Greek pillars in the foyer.
His eyes, those dark pools that had once held a flicker of something I’d mistaken for tenderness, were fixed somewhere above my head, probably counting the crystals in the chandelier.
He hadn’t looked at me once since Victoria made the announcement.
“Hannah, dear, we’re waiting.”
Victoria’s voice sliced through the fog in my head.
She sat at the head of the table like a queen dismissing a servant, her silver hair coiffed to perfection, her diamond necklace glinting with every shallow breath she took.
She had orchestrated this entire dinner.
The roast duck.
The expensive wine.
The lawyer seated to her right like a vulture waiting for the kill.
I looked down at the papers.
Divorce Petition.
Dissolution of Marriage.
I had signed my name so many times over the years.
Marriage certificate.
Blood donation forms.
Hospital admission papers when I collapsed from giving too much.
And now this.
The final signature that would erase me from the Martinez family history like I had never existed.
“Hannah.” Victoria’s voice hardened.
“We don’t have all night.
Isabella needs her rest.”
Of course.
Isabella needed her rest.
Isabella always needed something.
More blood.
More attention.
More of my husband’s time, my husband’s devotion, my husband’s ring that should have been on my finger.
I lifted my head and looked at Elijah.
Really looked at him.
I searched his face for something, anything, that would tell me this was hard for him too.
That somewhere underneath that perfectly tailored Armani suit and that cold, indifferent expression, there was a man who had once held my face in his hands and promised to love me.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
Not a flicker of regret.
Not a trace of guilt.
He looked like he was waiting for a business transaction to conclude.
I suppose that was what our marriage had always been to him.
A transaction.
I gave him my rare blood for his dying mistress, and he gave me his name in return.
A fair exchange.
“Of course,” I heard myself say.
My voice was steady, which surprised me.
Inside, I was screaming.
Breaking apart.
Shattering into a million pieces that no one in this room would ever bother to pick up.
I pressed the pen to the paper.
The first signature felt like a knife through my chest.
The second felt like I was bleeding out.
The third was the final blow, the one that made everything go black around the edges.
When I finished, I slid the papers across the table to the lawyer.
He took them with a professional nod, not bothering to hide his relief that this unpleasant task was almost over.
“Thank you, Mrs.
Martinez.” He placed the documents in his leather briefcase and snapped it shut.
The sound echoed in the dining room like a coffin closing.
“Was that so hard?” Victoria smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
It never reached her eyes.
She had hated me from the moment Elijah brought me home, a nobody from nowhere with nothing to offer but my blood.
“Now we can all move on with our lives.”
I wondered if she meant her life, with her precious son and her precious Isabella and her precious Martinez legacy.
Or if she meant my life, the one she had just destroyed with a few signatures and a smug smile.
“There’s no need for you to stay for dessert,” Victoria continued, waving her hand dismissively.
“I’m sure you have things to pack.
The staff will help you.
You can take whatever you came with.”
Three years.
Three years I had lived in this mansion, and I could take whatever I came with.
A suitcase.
A few dresses.
The blood I had drained from my veins for a woman who had never even thanked me.
I pushed back my chair.
The legs scraped against the marble floor, a harsh sound that made the lawyer wince.
Elijah still didn’t look at me.
He was studying his wine glass like it held the secrets of the universe.
I stood up, and for a moment, I felt dizzy.
The chandelier spun above me.
The candles flickered.
Victoria’s face blurred into a smear of cold disapproval.
And still, Elijah said nothing.
Still, he didn’t look at me.
Still, he let me leave like I was nothing.
I walked toward the door.
My heels clicked against the marble floor.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Each one carrying me farther away from the life I had thought I was building.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Farther from the man I had loved with every broken piece of my heart.
At the doorway, I stopped.
I didn’t know why.
Some stupid, pathetic part of me still hoped he would call my name.
Still hoped he would come after me and tell me this was all a terrible mistake.
I waited.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three.
Behind me, I heard Victoria laugh at something the lawyer said.
I heard the clink of a wine glass being set down.
I heard the shuffle of papers.
I didn’t hear Elijah.
I walked out.
The hallway stretched before me like a tunnel, endless and dark and cold.
The portraits of Martinez ancestors lined the walls, judging me, condemning me, glad to see the unwanted wife finally gone.
I had never belonged here.
I had always been a guest, a visitor, an interloper who had somehow stumbled into their perfect world.
But I had tried.
God, I had tried.
I had learned their rules.
Their etiquette.
Their secrets.
I had smiled through Victoria’s insults and Elijah’s indifference.
I had given blood until I passed out.
I had sat in the corner at every family dinner while Isabella took my place.
I had done everything they asked, and it still wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
Not for them.
Not for him.
My vision blurred with tears, but I refused to let them fall.
Not here.
Not in this house that had never been my home.
I would cry on the train.
I would cry in my hotel room.
I would cry in the shower where no one could hear me.
But I would not cry in front of them.
I reached the foyer.
The grand staircase spiraled up to the second floor, where our bedroom waited.
Where his side of the closet had been empty for months.
Where the sheets still smelled like him, even though he hadn’t slept in that room in over a year.
I wondered if he would sleep there tonight.
Now that I was gone.
Now that the transaction was complete.
Now that he could finally be with Isabella without the inconvenience of a wife in the way.
Probably.
He would probably move her in by the end of the week.
Maybe sooner.
Victoria would bring out the good china.
They would have a celebration dinner.
Isabella would wear the ring she had been wearing for the past two years.
The one that should have been mine.
I grabbed my coat from the hook by the door.
A cheap thing, compared to the designer pieces Victoria insisted I wear.
I had never felt comfortable in those clothes.
They were costumes.
Performances.
Masks I put on every morning so I could pretend I belonged in their world.
I didn’t belong.
I never had.
And now I was finally leaving.
The front door was heavy.
It took both hands to pull it open.
The cold February air hit my face, sharp and bitter, and I welcomed it.
I welcomed the pain because it was real.
Because it was the only thing I could feel that didn’t feel like I was dying.
I stepped outside.
The Martinez mansion loomed behind me, all grandeur and emptiness.
I had spent three years inside those walls, and I had never felt more alone than I did standing on the front steps with the wind whipping my hair across my face.
“Mrs.
Martinez?”
I turned.
One of the maids, Maria, stood in the doorway.
She was holding a small bag, the one I had packed earlier.
The one that contained everything I owned.
“Your things,” Maria said softly.
Her eyes were kind.
They always had been.
She was the only person in that house who had ever treated me like a human being instead of a parasite.
“Thank you, Maria.” I took the bag from her.
It was light.
Pathetically light.
Three years, and my entire life fit into a single canvas tote bag.
“Where will you go?” Maria asked.
I didn’t have an answer.
I had no family.
No friends.
No money of my own.
Elijah had given me an allowance, but I had never touched it.
I had saved every penny, because some part of me knew this day would come.
Knew I would need something to fall back on.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
Maria looked like she wanted to say something else.
Something important.
But she just nodded and stepped back inside.
The door closed.
The lock clicked.
And I was alone.
I walked down the long driveway, past the manicured hedges and the marble fountains and the imported trees.
I walked until my heels hurt and my feet blistered and my legs ached.
I walked until I reached the gates, those massive iron things that had always felt more like prison bars than an entrance.
I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t.
If I looked back, I would break.
I would run back to that house and beg Elijah to love me, and I had too much pride for that.
Not much.
But enough.
The train station was a twenty minute walk through the cold winter night.
I didn’t feel the cold.
I was already numb.
Numb from the inside out.
I bought a ticket with cash.
I didn’t look at the destination.
I just needed to be somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
The train was nearly empty.
I found a seat by the window, pressed my forehead against the cold glass, and waited.
When the train started moving, I finally let the tears fall.
Silent.
Streams of them running down my cheeks and dripping onto my coat.
I didn’t wipe them away.
I didn’t care.
“Hey.”
I looked up.
A woman across the aisle was watching me.
She was older, maybe fifty, with kind eyes and gray streaked hair.
She didn’t ask what was wrong.
She just reached into her bag and handed me a tissue.
“Whatever it is,” she said softly, “you’ll survive it.
You look like a survivor.”
I took the tissue.
Thank you, I tried to say.
But my voice was gone.
The woman nodded.
She didn’t say anything else.
She just went back to her book, giving me my privacy, letting me grieve in peace.
I pressed the tissue to my eyes and watched the city lights blur past the window.
The Martinez mansion.
The Martinez empire.
The Martinez family.
All of it receding into the distance, getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely.
I thought about Elijah.
About the way he had looked at me in the beginning.
That brief, shining moment when I thought he might actually love me.
He had proposed to me in a hospital room.
Not out of love.
Out of desperation.
Isabella needed my blood.
My blood type was so rare that only a handful of people in the country matched it.
And I was one of them.
“Marry me,” he had said.
“I’ll give you everything.
Just help her.
Just please help her.”
And I had said yes.
Because he was beautiful.
Because he was desperate.
Because I thought that maybe, just maybe, he would learn to love me if I saved the woman he loved.
I had been such a fool.
The train carried me away from the city.
Away from the mansion.
Away from Elijah Martinez.
I didn’t know where I was going.
I didn’t know what I would do when I got there.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I would never let anyone make me feel invisible again.
The tears kept falling.
The train kept moving.
And the unwanted wife finally, finally left.