After Every Beating, He Gives Me $10,000Chapter 1

My husband had what I thought was bipolar disorder.

Every time he hit me, he'd remorsefully transfer ten thousand dollars to my account.

I never fought back.

I just quietly accepted the money, covering the bruises with foundation.

My best friend called me pathetic, urging me to divorce him.

I counted the balance in my account, a cold, calculated smile playing on my lips.

"Not yet," I'd tell her. "I'm not done making a fortune!"

Until one day, he punched me in the stomach, and I had a miscarriage.

"Cha-ching! One thousand four hundred dollars received."

A mechanical female voice echoed through the empty living room, jarringly loud.

I spat out a mouthful of blood, metallic and coppery, like rust.

Damian sat across from me on the sofa, hands clasped over his head, despair clawing at him. His hair was a mess, tangled from when he'd been frantically raking his fingers through it during his fit.

"I'm so sorry… Cassie, I'm so sorry… I just couldn't control myself…"

His voice was choked with tears, trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.

I didn't say anything.

I just quietly picked myself up off the floor. My knee had hit the table earlier, and the pain was excruciating. It was probably already purple.

I walked to the mirror.

My left cheek was swollen.

Five distinct finger marks, angry red, almost purple.

Damian hadn't held back his strength in that slap. He genuinely wanted to kill me, or rather, his "episode-self" wanted to kill me.

I picked up the concealer, layering it on, coat after coat.

The liquid foundation was cold, a stark contrast against the burning wound. The temperature difference jolted me, pulling me back to a grim reality.

Damian's heavy footsteps sounded behind me.

He wrapped his arms around me from behind, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His tears streamed down, scalding my skin through my shirt, making me flinch.

"Cassie, hit me back, yell at me… I'm a monster…"

"It's okay."

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my lips curving into a perfectly composed, forgiving—almost saintly—smile.

"I know you're sick. I don't blame you."

Damian cried harder, like a child who had done something terribly wrong.

He pulled out his phone again.

"Cha-ching! One thousand four hundred dollars received."

With the previous one, that made twenty thousand.

One slap, twenty thousand dollars.

Pretty good deal.

My monthly salary was only two thousand, and I had to endure my boss's verbal assaults and demanding clients. Here, taking a beating for a few minutes of pain could earn me ten months of wages.

No matter how I crunched the numbers, it was a profitable trade.

Damian was born with a silver spoon, his family owned a chain of factories. Money was just a number to him.

To me, it was survival.