Chapter 2: Shattered, But Not Defeated

After Tanya left, I hid in my room and cried so hard I could barely breathe.

I curled up on the edge of my twin bed, clutching a pillow to my chest. The cheap scent of detergent clung to the pillowcase, the kind they use in government-issue facilities. The world outside my window felt impossibly far away, the old oaks and maples of the base swaying gently in the Georgia wind.

I’d been the senator’s daughter for eighteen years—never knowing hardship.

Growing up in D.C., my world had been garden parties, piano recitals, security details. My biggest worry used to be whether my dress would pass the White House protocol check. Now, I wondered if I’d ever see home again.

But just three months ago, everything changed.

It was like a tornado tore through my life, flipping everything upside down. The phone call came at dawn, the voice on the other end hollow and official. My hands shook as I listened, barely understanding the words.

My parents disappeared while on a fact-finding trip in southern Georgia. No one searched for them. Instead, they accused my family of colluding with the enemy and treason.

The headlines were everywhere—CNN, Fox, even the local D.C. news. The anchors tossed around words like espionage and sabotage, but all I knew was my parents weren’t coming home. My childhood home was suddenly just another address on a list of seized properties.

The court order came down, our family estate was seized, and hundreds of people became prisoners.

I watched as men in suits cataloged our family photos, boxed up my mother’s heirlooms, and marched my father’s staff out to waiting vans. Neighbors I’d known since preschool averted their eyes, pretending not to see me on the street.

I was locked in a pitch-black cell.

That first night was the worst. The cell was damp, the air thick with mildew and fear. My only company was the drip-drip of a leaky pipe somewhere overhead. I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to remember the sound of my father’s laugh, my mother’s perfume. They felt like ghosts already.

That’s when Marcus Lee came.

He said my father had saved his life, and to repay the debt, he was willing to marry me.

His voice was steady, unreadable. I could barely look at him—this man in uniform, all sharp angles and rough edges, his eyes as cold as the handcuffs on my wrists. But his offer was the only lifeline I had.

After that, I became the captain’s wife.

But he didn’t like me at all.

The wedding was small, just the two of us and a preacher in a dusty church off some back road. The ceremony was over in ten minutes. He didn’t smile once. At home, he barely spoke except to issue orders. I spent most evenings wandering the hallways, listening to his boots echo on the tile, wondering if I’d ever feel safe again.

He was always cold as ice.

The air around him crackled with tension. He never raised his voice, but every word came out clipped and final. Sometimes, I caught him watching me from across the room, expression unreadable. I never knew what he was thinking—if he was thinking of me at all.

The only time we communicated was when he tormented me in bed.

And it was always the same few lines:

"Come here. Roll over. Yeah, just like that."

His hands were always gentle enough not to bruise, but the distance between us was a chasm I couldn’t cross. When it was over, he’d turn away without a word, leaving me alone in the silence.

But after all, I am his wife. How could he give me to someone else?

The thought churned in my stomach. Marriage, even a forced one, meant something. My mother always told me to fight for what’s mine—but how do you fight for a man who acts like you’re invisible?

I clenched my fists in distress, but then thought again.

Tanya is Marcus’s right-hand— they’ve been through hell together. What she says must be true.

She wore her medals like armor, her loyalty a knife. If Marcus trusted her, maybe I should too. But the words she spat at me kept echoing, twisting tighter and tighter inside my chest.

Thinking of this, I touched my swollen backside from the beatings.

My fingers grazed over the bruises, each one a silent accusation. I’d learned not to flinch—at least not where anyone could see. It was survival, pure and simple.

Marcus and I were married properly, by pastor and license. I could endure his torment. But if I had to be with another man… absolutely not.

I have to leave.

Anyway, I’ve long wanted to go to Georgia to find my parents.

The urge to run was a pulse in my veins. But the thought of facing the world alone—no money, no family, just a duffel bag and a bus ticket—made my stomach twist. Still, anything had to be better than this. I imagined myself on a Greyhound bus, watching the countryside blur past, my duffel at my feet. Georgia might have answers, or just more heartbreak. I had to try.

However, when I wiped away my tears and packed my duffel to leave, a flood of comments suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[LOL, the male lead practiced eighteen skills, does two hundred push-ups before sex, the script’s worn out, but to the female lead it’s just torture—some die of thirst, others drown in excess.]

[Who told him to listen to bad friends, saying if you want a woman’s heart, you have to show her your prowess.]

[No skill, all effort—the male lead in bed is like a blindfolded donkey at a county fair. If you don’t rein it in, can’t you see the female lead is being tormented to death?]

[Sigh, it’s because neither of them can communicate. Why does the female lead keep suffering? If she just called him 'babe,' he’d pull the stars down for her.]

The comments scrolled by faster than I could blink, little bursts of color and snarky emojis. It was like I’d slipped into someone else’s story, where my misery was just entertainment. Still, I couldn’t look away.