My Killer Husband

Push me overboard, and your precious new girlfriend dies right along with me.

My husband's cold, flawless mask shattered. The color drained from his face.

A minute ago, he tossed my phone into the bottomless ocean, severing my only lifeline. The screen had flashed one final warning:

[He hired locals. Hes going to drown you.]

To get rid of me and run off with that pretentious little girl, he lured me onto his prized private yacht. For twelve years, he played the victim in our loveless marriage. Back then, I drugged him, locked him up, and forced him to put a ring on my finger. Now, he wanted to silence me in the middle of the equatorial sea.

He lunged, his hands clamping down on my throat like a vice.

Blood rushed to my face from the lack of oxygen, but I grabbed his collar, yanked him closer, and laughed like a maniac.

"I planted a receiver in her pacemaker. The second my heart stops beating, hers does too."

Holding his horrified gaze, I took a massive step back toward the railing. "Wanna test that theory?"

Chapter 1

Our marriage was a hollow shell from day one.

The night before we set sail, I handed Julian his pills and a glass of water. He took them in silence, swallowing the pills dry while staring at me with dark, brooding eyes. Then, he ripped off his tie and pinned me hard against the mattress. The heavy weight of his body pressed into me when it was over.

"Leighton."

"Yeah," I mumbled, exhaustion dragging me under.

"Let's go watch the sunrise on the water tomorrow." His breath brushed my skin. "We need to get up early."

"Okay."

It felt like Id just closed my eyes when he woke me. A little past three in the morning. He got up, washed, dressed, and then came over to handle me. Half-conscious, I let him maneuver my limbs.

He methodically slipped my clothes on, wrapped me in a heavy coat, and scooped me up into his arms.

By the time reality fully kicked in, we were already on the water. The sky stretched out like a massive dome over the endless, dark sea. A sliver of bloody red bled through the distant horizonthe first crack of dawn.

He stood facing the spectacular view, but his posture was rigid, void of any actual joy. That was when it hit me. Since when did Julian ever initiate anything? In our entire marriage, he was always the passive one, quietly and obediently enduring whatever I arranged for him.

To the rest of the world, we were the perfect high-society power couple. But behind closed bedroom doors, taking me was just a chore he needed to check off his list.

No foreplay. No tenderness. Just cold, clinical thrusts.

He held no expectations, no impulsive desires, and zero love for me. Naturally, he had zero urge to share a damn sunrise with me. So dragging me on a trip, sailing out before dawn, calling me to the edge of the deck to look at jellyfishit was all a setup.

He had an ulterior motive.

I should have caught the red flags earlier. The man who always kept his hands clean and his manners immaculate had finally been pushed past his breaking point. By me.

[Don't go out on the water. Your husband is going to kill you.]

The text had come from a guy I just met, an expat staying at the same resort. By the time I saw the message, it was already too late.

Three people on board. Me, Julian, and the captain. A local fishermanshirtless, his dark skin gleaming with sweat over knotted, imposing muscles. He worked the rigging with practiced ease, letting the wind carry the yacht further and further from the coastline.

The locals spoke Spanish. Julian was fluent. I couldn't understand a single word.

As they conversed, the captains eyes slid over to me, appraising me like livestock. Then, his lips stretched into a slow, chilling grin.

Chapter 2

The stark white of his teeth and eyes against his dark skin made his smirk look twisted, predatory. He looked at me the way a man looks at a prized catch thrashing in a net. Clearly, Julian had already bought him.

The phone screen went black in my hand. I was still frozen.

"What's wrong?" Julian stood up and walked toward me. "We came all this way for the view. Put the phone away."

He snatched the phone from my hand.

Reality snapped back. I lunged to grab it.

A sudden swell hit the hull. The yacht pitched. My foot slipped. Julians hand shot out, gripping my waist to steady me.

But the phone slipped from his fingers. A tiny splash, and it was gone, swallowed by the waves.

A scream tore from my throat. I bolted toward the railing to grab it, but my muscles locked up, slamming the brakes on my own body.

No. I couldn't go near the edge. I backed away, pressing myself into the dead center of the deck.

Julian crouched in front of me. His features were perfectly gentle. His eyes were dead. "Let it go," he murmured.

My phone was gone. We were in the middle of the ocean. No signal. No Coast Guard radar.

I was his prey.

Trapped on a tiny boat with two men who wanted me deadone of them being the husband I loved. That was my reality. I couldn't count on some movie plot twist to save me. There was nothing but open water and sky.

No cruise ship was going to miraculously sail past. Not a single seagull in the sky meant no islands nearby. I didn't speak the captain's language, making it impossible to bribe him right under Julian's nose. I was physically outmatched; I couldn't overpower two grown men.

And I couldn't swim to save my life.

Every single survival route was blocked. If I couldn't figure a way out myself, today was the day I died. I would sink to the bottom of the ocean, leaving no trace behind.

But right then, a cold, crystal-clear focus snapped into place. Ive never been terrified of dying, but I refused to die like this.

Twelve years of marriage. Julian didn't love me, but he didn't hate me either. He felt nothing for me. That was why we had drifted so calmly to this exact moment.

He was in his early forties now. Time had barely touched him, leaving him as sharp and effortlessly handsome as ever.

I stared straight into his eyes. "I'm not dying today."

A slight frown tugged at Julian's brows.

"I knew a day like this might come, so I set up an insurance policy," I told him, keeping my voice dead steady. "You try to kill me, I pull the trigger on that policy. Itll change your mind real quick."

"Nothing is going to change my mind." Julians gaze remained flat and undisturbed. "When the sun fully rises, we say goodbye."

"Then, if these are my last moments, give me a little more time. I want to look back at our history." I let the desperation bleed into my voice.

He rested his head against his hand, studying me. A flicker of impatience crossed his face, but he nodded.

"Fine. But this isn't a fairytale. You can't talk your way out of this with a story."

In the fairytales, the clever, beautiful girl spun stories for a thousand and one nights until she finally melted the cruel king's heart and saved her own life. But fairytales are bullshit. Julian and I had been married for over a decade.

We had spent far more than a thousand and one nights together, and look where it got us.

Chapter 3

I let out a dry breath. Twelve years couldn't thaw the ice in him. What was a few borrowed minutes going to do?

"I just want to take a little walk down memory lane," I said, holding his deadpan stare. "And maybe fill you in on a few things you never knew."

Julian was six years older than me. The superstitious old money circles called it a cursed age gap. Even my father, a man of hard science and medicine, bought into the bad omens and warned me to walk away. Turns out, the omens were dead on.

My marriage with Julian was never going to have a happy ending.

But loving him? I never regretted a single second of it.

Let me make that crystal clear. He didn't love me. He strayed. He demanded a divorce.

Hell, he was literally about to murder me in the middle of the ocean, and my twisted devotion to him hadn't flinched.

Im a walking red flag. Once I lock onto a target, my jaws snap shut and I do not let go. I played dirty to get him, driven by a possessiveness I couldnt even begin to reel in. I know exactly what I am.

Maybe being spoiled rotten since day one bred this ruthless, paranoid streak in me. I was born into a top-tier medical conglomerate family. My entire life was a socialite fantasy built on a mountain of old money and power.

My closets were overflowing with haute couture, and endless lines of elites and trust fund boys would have killed to kiss my heels.

But to me, they were all just background noise. I only ever wanted Julian.

I didn't know how to love normally. I never opened up to him, only cornered him and forced his hand. To Julian, I was just a psychopath. But I couldn't help it.

I had the urge to love but zero capacity to do it right. Call it a personality defect.

Everything happening today was my own damn fault. But I still wasn't going to roll over. I'd be obsessed until they put me in the ground.

There was a reason my fixation on Julian ran so deep. I might be arrogant and stubborn, but I was never naive. I grew up way too fast. While other teenage girls were daydreaming about romance, I was cynical.

Growing up around my father's hospitals, I saw too much.

Hospitals strip humanity down to the bone. One terminal illness could shatter family bonds, let alone fragile romance. I saw countless marriages crash and burn the second someone got sick.

Its human nature. Everyone wants the good times; nobody wants to stick around for the rot. Love always looks flawless until the real test comes. I refused to gamble on those odds.

I hated the unknown, so I just kept my walls up.

Until I met Julian.

I was nineteen. He was twenty-five.

One morning, I happened to walk past one of the VIP suites. Through the observation glass, I saw Julian. He was leaning over a hospital bed, his eyes lowered, pressing a painfully tender kiss to the forehead of the girl lying there.

The morning sun poured through the blinds, casting a golden, picture-perfect halo over them.

His girlfriend was in the late stages of uremia. She was fading fast. Her skin was a terrifying, sallow gray, littered with sickly dark spots. She looked repulsive.

But the way Julian looked at her? It was pure, unfiltered devotion. I got drunk on that look in his eyes, even if it wasn't meant for me.

After that, I went back to that door every single day. I stood in the shadows and watched them for six entire months.

Chapter 4

I eavesdropped on them. I stood in the shadows and listened to Julian encourage her, sharing every mundane little detail of his day.

"The stray tabby by the apartment had her litter. The flowers down by the river are in full bloom We'll go see them together once you're out of here."

I listened to her dying confessions.

"I love how you look in a white button-down. I love the way your eyes light up. I love the messiness of your hair"

"I'll remember it forever, even after I'm gone. But you have to forget me. You have to love the next girl."

Standing out in that hallway, my nails biting into my palms, I couldn't help but wondercould I be the next girl?

His ex never got the kidney transplant she needed. She died. She was so sickeningly sweet that shed signed an organ donor card. Nobody stepped up to save her, but her heart ended up saving someone else.

After she flatlined, I went to work. I dug up every piece of data on Julian, systematically infiltrating his social circles and cultivating mutual friends. It wasn't until I turned twenty-two, at some upscale mixer, that we officially met.

For him, it was just another Friday night. For me, it was the culmination of a three-year chess game. I walked in dripping with confidence, convinced my charm was a lethal weapon that would have him eating out of the palm of my hand in seconds.

The irony? The very loyalty I obsessed over was the exact thing locking me out. He was still anchored to a ghost, dead to the idea of a new relationship. He didn't feel a spark.

To him, I was just a kid sister.

He was teaching at a university back then, freshly promoted to associate professor and buried in his work. But I kept dragging him out, draining his energy until he looked dead on his feet. I could fake my way through family ties and friendships perfectly fine.

But when it came to romance, my wiring was thoroughly screwed up.

It was a trainwreck of a beginning.

When I was twenty-four, I caught him walking another girl home. The jealousy tore through my chest like battery acid. So, the very next night, I pulled the same stunt. I demanded he walk me to my door.

I slipped a little extra into his bourbon.

I hauled him up to my penthouse, took a silk tie, and bound him spread-eagle to my velvet mattress.

I kept him locked away for an entire week.

I played God with his body. I took what I wanted, dominating his every breath like a queen claiming her territory.

But even in the heat of it, with his chest heaving and his pulse hammering under my skin, Julian never looked at me with an ounce of tenderness. His eyes stayed dark and empty.

A month after that week, two pink lines showed up on a test. Julian married me. We lost the baby anyway.

I genuinely thought it wouldn't matter how dirty my tactics were. I thought the ring on his finger meant I finally owned him. I never factored in that for every single time after that, we'd need to rely on pills just to get him hard.

We couldn't even function like a normal couple in bed, let alone share those sickeningly sweet gazes I craved. I bent over backward, twisting myself into knots trying to please him, begging the universe to make him love me. But when he looked at me, he saw straight through me.

I didn't exist.

I dropped bugs in his phone. I slapped GPS trackers on his car. I wired his campus office with hidden cameras. I kept my eyes on him 24/7, using every sick, suffocating method in the book to choke out his freedom.

And he just took it. He didn't care enough to fight back.

Because Julian felt nothing for me. No love. No hate. No twisted desires.

He couldn't care less what I did to him.

We dragged this toxic marriage out for over a decade, but the ghost of his ex never left the room. I swallowed my pride. I obsessed over her every micro-expression.

I mimicked her voice, the cadence of her laugh. I even starved myself down to the bone, just to replicate that pathetic, sickly pallor she had in her final days. I hallucinated that I could actually replace her.

Julian didn't flinch.

He was a stone wall. Ever since she flatlined, his eyes had been dead, devoid of a single ripple of emotion. You can never beat a dead first love.

But Im the villain in this story. And I hold control over the one piece of her that stayed behindthat beating heart.

Chapter 5

Maisie was the girl who received her heart. Julian didn't actually come back to life until he met Maisie. He's pushing forty now; she's barely in her twenties.

They say organ recipients take on the traits of the donor. Maybe soulmates really are a thing. Maisie could seamlessly replace his dead ex and play house with him.

I spent years twisting myself into a pathetic knock-off, but I couldn't compete with the actual, beating heart inside her chest. Even in my own twisted understudy trope, I was just a background character.

Julian tracked Maisie down, and suddenly the lights came back on in his dead eyes. He scrubbed me from the narrative. He told her he was already divorced.

But the truth? He was never getting away. I kept him chained to my side.

He dragged himself through this marriage like a zombie for years, and now he had finally hit his breaking point. He was going to murder me for Maisie. I laid all this history out for him