On my wedding night, I screamed so loudly my parents-in-law broke the heavy oak door down. I was backed into a corner, trembling in my crushed dress. “What did you do to her?!” his father demanded. My husband of 12 hours calmly adjusted his cuffs. He looked at me with cold hatred. “She had to pay,” he whispered. But what he didn’t know was that the real monster was watching us.

“Eleanor, I cannot remain this man’s wife for even a single second longer.”

Those were the exact words I forced out of my lungs while lying across the thick, woven Persian carpet of the primary suite. My elaborate, hand-stitched lace wedding gown—a garment that had cost more than my mother made in an entire year—was crushed beneath me like something utterly worthless. My breathing came in rough, shallow bursts, tearing at my throat, and my eyes were stretched wide with a terror I had never known. Just a few hours earlier, I had stood at an altar and vowed my entire life to the man standing over me.