Eight Years Lost, Now Truly Free

I gave my boyfriend, Blake, eight years of my life. I was his loyal paralegal and devoted partner, sacrificing a promotion and even a child for the future he promised us.

Then I overheard the truth from outside his office. He called me "damaged goods," laughing with the woman he gave my job to.

His cruelty escalated. He publicly humiliated me, then banished me to the firm's basement archives. When intruders attacked me there, I called him, bleeding and begging for help.

"You're being dramatic," he said, and hung up.

He left me to die. The trauma caused me to miscarry the baby I never knew I was carrying.

Lying in a hospital bed, I saw his social media post: a smiling selfie with her, captioned #Blessed.

That was the moment I decided to disappear. He thought he had broken me. He was wrong. He had just set me free.

Chapter 1

Alena POV:

The words hit me like a physical blow, stripping away eight years of my life, leaving me hollowed out and gasping for air. "She's damaged goods, a free paralegal, nothing more than a convenient accessory." Blake's voice, usually so smooth and calming, was laced with a chilling disdain I'd never heard directed at me. Not at me, at least not directly. I stood frozen outside his office, the door ajar just enough for his cruel confession to spill out, twisting my world into something unrecognizable.

My junior partnership. Vanished.

Just this morning, my mother had called. "Alena, darling, your father and I are so proud. A junior partner at Molina & Associates. We always knew you'd make it." Her words, meant to be a comfort, now felt like a lead weight pressing down on my chest. I had rehearsed telling her about my "lost cause of a promotion" for weeks. Her disappointment, mixed with her usual "why don't you just settle down" refrain, was a familiar sting. But this? This was worse.

I'd accepted it, or so I thought. Blake had sat me down, his hand warm over mine, his eyes full of what I now knew was practiced sympathy. "Alena, sweetheart, the firm needs a fresh face. Someone with key connections. Brittany, her father… it's a huge deal for us." He' d said it so gently, almost apologetically. And I, fool that I was, had nodded, understanding. Believing.

But the words I heard now, cutting through the muffled office sounds, were a raw, festering wound. "And the abortion, Blake? Did she really go through with that just for you?" Brittany Ferguson's voice, sweet and venomous, dripped with amusement. I pictured her, perched on Blake' s desk, her glossy dark hair falling over her shoulder, her perfectly manicured hand playing with his pen.

"Of course," Blake chuckled, a sound that curdled my blood. "Said it would 'derail my ambitions.' Honestly, sometimes I think she believed we had a future." He paused, and I could almost feel his smirk. "Eight years, Brittany. Eight years of free labor,