The beeping of the monitors was the only sound in the room. They kept a rhythm which was calm and mechanical, as though measuring a life that barely clung to itself. I stood still, watching the man I had called my husband for seven years.
Seven long years.
Gideon Voss....
The name alone used to strike fear into the hearts of lesser men; into my heart. A legend in the underworld. He was a storm cloaked in a suit. He was everything everyone feared.
But now, he looked nothing like the devil who had ruled an empire with an iron fist. He looked old. Feeble. Hollow.
Tubes snaked from his nostrils and mouth as machines breathed for him, fed him, kept his heart ticking while his brain drifted in a dead or alive state. Comatose. That word didn't seem strong enough. He was a shell.
And I felt nothing.
No grief. No panic. Not even relief. Just... nothing.
I studied him carefully. The gray hair that had once been slicked back now clung to his wrinkled forehead in limp strands. His mouth hung open, slack and drooling at the corner. His skin sagged beneath the wires and hospital gown. The powerful hands that used to bruise my hips, my arms, my thighs, now lay motionless at his sides, limp and useless.
He looked pitiful, pathetic. But I didn't pity him, far from that. I hated him.
Memories swirled in my mind as I continued to stare at him, tons of them, but the memory of my wedding night found its way to the forefront.
I had been eighteen; A girl and a virgin. Just off the cusp of girlhood. And I had been dragged into a world that had no place for softness.
Our wedding had been held in the heart of Palermo, in the grand courtyard of the Voss estate, surrounded by men with cold eyes and loaded guns.
I had been given away like property; there had been no dowry, no affection, just a transaction.
And then came the night.
He had kissed me in front of everyone after the vows, pressing his thin, dry lips against mine. But when the guests had gone and the night had stretched thin, I learned what I had really signed up for.
I remember the smell of cigar smoke and whiskey as he leaned in, his mouth a twisted into a cruel smile.
"Time to make you a real wife," he had said.
I shook my head. I remember that clearly. I said no. I found him disgusting, I didn't want him anywhere near me. I had been scared and completely helpless.
"Please... not yet. I...I need time."
I needed time to adjust, time to get used to all of this. I had been crying.
But time was not something Gideon Voss gave.
His hand struck me so hard I fell off the edge of the bed. My vision had blurred. I could still hear the sound of my head hitting the wood floor, echoing like a gunshot.
"You're mine now. You're going to learn what that means."
He had climbed on top of me, he was heavy and sweaty. His body crushed me down into the mattress like a slab of concrete. I had screamed, cried, and kicked to no avail.
He hit had me again and again.
The pain tore through me as he ripped my panties and forced his way in. I felt my body rip. My blood had stained the sheets and I bled but he didn't stop.
His groan of satisfaction filled the room, louder than my sobs. His hands pinned mine above my head while he thrust into me like I was a thing, not a person.
"You'll get used to it," he grunted. "Wives always do."
I didn't get used to it.
The nights that followed were the same; brutal and repetitive. I learned to stop crying because it changed nothing. I learned to be quiet. To disappear inside myself.
Standing beside his hospital bed now, I stared down at the man who broke me in every way a woman could be broken. His chest rose and fell in slow, mechanical rhythm. His eyelids didn't flutter. There was no twitch, no groan, nothing at all.
Just a body.
I watched his chest as it continued to rise and fall slowly. So very slowly.
He wasn't supposed to survive the attack. That had been the plan. A hit by one of his enemies, likely a rival who finally got close enough. A bullet to the back in his own compound.
It had been a cowardly attack, yes. But it has been effective. I had come home that night to blood on marble floors, men scrambling, chaos like vultures circling a fresh corpse.
It seemed like there had been a shootout afterwards.
They had taken him to the hospital, kept him breathing. Everyone expected me to cry but I hadn't.
Why would I?
The doctors had said he was unresponsive, vegetative. And all I could think was: Good.
I moved closer to the bed, just enough to see his face clearly. He looked so different now. So... small, so insignificant and useless.
I pressed my hand to the edge of the bedframe. I didn't reach for him. I didn't touch him.
Instead, I whispered, "I hope it hurts everywhere."
My nails dug into my palm as I fought the tremble that crept up my spine. Not from sadness but from rage.
I remembered crying on the bathroom floor that night, blood between my thighs, my body shaking. I remembered calling for someone, anyone. But there was no one. Just me, a ruined bride, sobbing until dawn while he snored in the next room.
That version of me died that night. And something new was born. Something colder. Harder.
He had forged me in pain, and now, I was steel.
I took one last look at Gideon Voss.
He had taken everything from me: my youth, my choice, my body, my voice. But what he had built, the empire he had created, the power he had hoarded?
That was mine now. And I would keep it. No matter what it cost.
I stepped back from the bed. My heels echoed softly on the sterile floor. I didn't glance back as I walked toward the door. I already knew I would never see him the same way again.
He was no longer my husband,
he was just a memory. A dying man that couldn't impact my life anymore.
And I? I was the queen now.