My husband slapped me eight times before he tied me to the terrace chair.

I remember the number because after the fourth slap, my mind stopped thinking like a wife and started counting like a witness.

One.

My left cheek exploded with heat.

Two.

My right ear rang so hard the thunder outside sounded far away.

Three.

The ivory silk of my gala dress twisted around my legs as I stumbled backward across the marble floor of our Wilshire penthouse.

Four.

Richard Foster, my husband of four years, the polished banking heir who smiled for charity photographers and kissed my hand in front of senators, stared at me like I was a disobedient servant.

Five.

“You embarrassed her,” he hissed.

Her.

Eleanor Foster.

His distant cousin.

His mistress.

The woman he had just spent twenty minutes whispering to on the moonlit terrace of the Sterling Children’s Hospital Gala while I stood inside pretending not to see my marriage bleeding out in public.

“I dropped my clutch,” I whispered, tasting blood. “The wind moved my dress. I didn’t even touch her.”

Six.

“You always have to make everything about you.”

Seven.

My ribs hit the glass door handle. Pain tore through me so sharply that my knees buckled.

Eight.

The last slap sent me into the door hard enough to crack the perfect silence of our perfect home.

Outside, Los Angeles was drowning in a storm. Rain lashed against the wraparound terrace. Lightning flashed over the city, lighting the glass towers like bones under skin. Richard grabbed my arm, dragged the door open, and cold rain blasted into the living room.

“You need time to reflect,” he said.

I thought he was going to shove me outside and lock the door.

Instead, he went to the storage bench.

When he came back with yacht rope in his hands, something inside me went very still.

“Richard,” I said. “No.”

But he was already moving.

He forced me into one of the heavy iron terrace chairs. The rain soaked through my gown in seconds. My wrists burned as he bound them to the arms. My ankles were next. Then my torso. He knew knots because he had sailed since childhood, because old-money boys collected hobbies the way they collected surnames.

His movements were calm.

That was the part that changed me.

Not the rage. Not the blows. The calm.

This was not a husband losing control. This was a man enforcing control.

“You’re going to remember who you are,” he said, leaning close enough for me to smell whiskey on his breath. “And more importantly, Jasmine, you’re going to remember who I am.”

Then he walked inside.

The glass door slid shut.

Through rain-streaked glass, I watched him pour another drink.

He did not look back.

For a while, I screamed.

Then I begged.

Then I stopped.

The storm swallowed every sound. The rain turned my couture gown into a freezing shroud. My wrists bled where the rope bit into my skin. Below me, Los Angeles glittered like a city that had never heard of mercy.