After the Divorce, I Sent My Twin Husbands to Hell

It had been three days since I was kidnapped.

When a person is pushed to their absolute limit, the first thing they lose is any sense of time.

Those three days stretched on as though three years had passed. Finally, I couldn't hold on any longer and blacked out.

Just before I lost consciousness, I saw my husband Nolan Gray rushing toward me, his face full of worry. He held me tight, saying over and over, "It's okay now, Ella. Let's go home."

I seemed to be saved. I slipped into darkness.

When I woke again, I was in a car on the way back. Nolan and his secretary sat in the front.

Nolan's voice drifted back to me: "The reporters are all set, right?"

His secretary hesitated a moment before answering. "Yes... Are you sure you don't want to take Mrs. Gray to a private hospital? The medical care would be better there. Her condition right now is really bad."

Nolan let out a cold laugh. "No private hospital. I want this blown wide open. Whose side are you on, anyway? Why the sudden concern for her? You were plenty eager when you helped drag her into that car."

My mind snapped into sharp focus.

I kept my eyes closed. I couldn't let them know I was awake.

The secretary sighed. "Mr. Gray, this really did go too far. Miss Vivian is ruthless—she hasn't even come back yet and she's already stirred up this much trouble."

Vivian.

My stepsister.

A shadow I could never escape.

"Don't you dare criticize her!" Nolan's voice turned furious, cutting him off. "None of this has anything to do with her. This is something we chose to do."

He added, "I just wanted to make her happy."

The secretary mumbled something under his breath. "I wasn't trying to—"

My chest constricted violently. It felt like an invisible hand had clamped around my throat.

So that was it.

The kidnapping. The torture. The media setup. This grand spectacle of humiliation... all of it was an offering they'd willingly laid at Vivian's feet.

I was nothing but a lamb arranged on the altar, my life or death mattering only insofar as it pleased her.

The secretary seemed to remember something. "What if she wakes up and starts talking? If the media keeps digging and she doesn't cooperate..."

Nolan laughed softly. "No one will believe a word she says."

"She's been on antidepressants this whole time." His tone was casual. "Everyone will just assume she's lost her mind."

Lost her mind.

Yes. Ever since I married Nolan, I really had grown more and more sensitive, until I needed medication just to cope.

For two years, Nolan had sometimes been as tender as a savior, holding me close on stormy nights and telling me not to be afraid. Other times, he'd been as cold as a stranger, not even acknowledging me when I called his name.

When I asked what was wrong, he'd say: "You're too sensitive."

So I tried harder to be good. I stopped making requests, stopped crying, stopped complaining, molded myself into someone he might actually like. Until one night, I found myself staring at a bottle of pills, wondering if maybe I really was too fragile, too unworthy of being loved.

It turns out I wasn't.

The truth was he had never loved me.

The car jolted over a pothole. My forehead slammed against the seat in front of me. In the explosion of pain that followed, I heard the secretary speak again:

"Still, you two really outdid yourselves with this one. She still hasn't figured it out, has she? You and Eric, taking turns playing her husband for two years."

I forgot how to breathe.

Eric.

Nolan's twin brother.

Someone who supposedly lived abroad permanently. In two years, I'd only seen him once—at our wedding.

What was happening?

So the husband I'd been living with all this time was actually a pair of twins?

Suddenly everything made sense—

All those tiny inconsistencies that had made me blame myself, all those discordant notes that kept me awake night after night—suddenly they all had an answer.

Nolan's voice dripped with contempt. "She can't tell us apart."

He added dismissively, "She just thinks she's going crazy."

The secretary clicked his tongue. "Poor thing."

Poor thing.

Ella, you've been deceived for two whole years.