“I’m warning you—this is the last time I’m letting it slide, Mia.”

It wasn’t as though I lacked reasons.
The problem was that the moment I opened my mouth, it was painfully obvious he would slap me.

In short, the way Louis treated me had always followed the same pattern.
He would rage, then beg, then turn cold.
And it always ended the same way—with violence, followed by a warning not to make him do it again, and some hollow attempt at soothing me.

He’d already begged me earlier.
He’d already turned cold.

Which meant the only thing left now was for me to be beaten.

I’d been through it so many times that I had it memorized.
Ridiculous, really.

“I’ll warn you too, Louis. If you hit me this time, I won’t just endure it.”

“When have I ever done something like that?”
“I’m a refined man—do you think every word you spit out automatically becomes the truth?”

“Then why don’t you put that hand down before you keep talking?”

When I narrowed my eyes in warning, Louis lowered the hand he’d raised.

“Hmph. My back was just itching, that’s all.”

Honestly—those pathetic excuses of his came out at any time, anywhere.

“Louis. Listen carefully. I—”

The first time Louis ever hit me, he applied medicine to my wounds and begged, swearing he would never do it again.
Like a fool, I believed him.

But it was only the first time that had been difficult.

Once Louis raised his hand to me that first time, he never hesitated again.
On the contrary—he was relentless, stopping only when I begged him to spare me.

And it always ended the same way.

“Don’t do it again next time. You disappointed me, so I couldn’t help myself.”

That vile excuse.

I endured it.

“I’m tired of living as your wife.”

Simply because I was your wife.

“Let me go now.”

At my words, Louis looked at me as if he might burst into tears at any second.
I couldn’t tell what he was feeling—but this time, it didn’t seem like an act.

Then Louis stepped toward me.

I flinched without realizing it, fearing he might strike me again.

“No matter what you say to me, I can’t give you up.”

But contrary to my fear, he pulled me into his arms.

It was so sudden, so absurd, that my pupils shook on their own.

“I can’t live even a single day without you.”

It seemed this wretched man didn’t possess even the bare minimum of a conscience.

If I were the woman I used to be—the one who loved you so desperately—I would have fallen for that vile nonsense and apologized instead.
For even thinking about divorce.
I would have begged to take it back.

But I’m not that woman anymore.

“Get out of my life.”

I don’t want to be Mia Regie Simon anymore.
I’m going to reclaim the self I lost.

“Trash.”

I shoved Louis away roughly.

“W-wait—Mia!”

He stammered, clearly flustered by my words.

“Now that I finally know you never saw me as anything more than livestock you kept in a pen, don’t bother trying to manipulate me.”

I pointed toward the estate, my voice hardening as I stared him down.
When I looked at him like I meant to kill him, he flinched.

“Louis, all you have to do is agree to the divorce.”

But at my final words, Louis let out a short, mocking laugh.
It seemed he had given up on trying to coax me.

“Oh, Mia. Are you done talking?”

He even clapped his hands, bursting into loud laughter.

“You really think I’d just divorce you willingly?”
“For whose benefit, exactly?”

I pulled out what was inside the paper bag and thrust it in front of him.
With my index finger, I pointed to the spot that required his signature.

“What is this?”

“Divorce papers.”

It was written clearly at the very top—what was there to ask about now?

“Hah? Have you completely lost your mind?”

“Of course I have. How could anyone live with you and not go insane?”

Louis’s body trembled.

If I provoked him any further in this state, he would definitely explode.
But right now, Shasha was by my side.

She might not be some brilliant prosecutor—but she could protect me from Louis.

“Looks like you don’t want to sign?”

“Why ask something so obvious?”

As soon as he finished speaking, he grabbed the papers on the table and ripped them to shreds.

“That should be answer enough.”

The sneer on his face was just the cherry on top.
I knew he’d react like this.

“If you’re going to tear them up anyway, why not rip up the rest too?”

At my cue, Eric stepped forward, arms filled with identical documents.
So many that it would have taken four thick volumes—each the size of a five-hundred-page book—to match the stack.

Louis’s eyes widened at the sight.

He was already staring at me with those narrow eyes opened wide, and the pressure made me frown without realizing it.

“Let’s stop dragging this out so sordidly and end it cleanly here, Louis.”

In truth, Louis’s signature was something I could have provided myself if I wanted to.
But I didn’t.

Because these documents couldn’t be treated as mere divorce papers.
They weren’t only for the divorce—they were for reclaiming the copyrights I had lost.
And more than that, they were for my future.

To prove that the signatures used when the books were published were written in my hand, Louis’s original handwriting would become invaluable evidence.
The final judgment would be left to those who presided over the empire’s courts.

I might still be disadvantaged in many ways simply because I was a woman—but it was better than before.
After all, thanks to this incident, nearly everyone who once supported Louis had already fallen away.

Which meant that if I gathered the evidence properly, I had a real chance.

“You really prepared thoroughly.”

His face was flushed, yet he tried to act composed. It was laughable—but I didn’t bother seizing on it.

I stayed silent, waiting to hear what he would say next.
That mouth of his wouldn’t be of any use much longer anyway.
Until then, I was willing to let him spew whatever nonsense he liked.

Of course, it wasn’t something I could truly understand.
To begin with, that b*stard was neither beast nor human.

“Do you even have the assets to pay me alimony?”

He asked as though nothing were amiss.
I sighed, already tired of it.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you? That the one who demands the divorce is the one who has to prepare the alimony.”

What Louis was really saying was simple: You don’t have any money.

Because it was something I already knew—something I’d long since felt—it didn’t hit particularly hard.

As he said, in this empire, when a man and a woman divorced, the party who initiated it was required to pay alimony.
It didn’t matter whether they had assets or not.

Because the obligation always fell on the one who demanded the divorce, many people hesitated to pursue it at all—
which was why the divorce rate remained low.

And if the alimony wasn’t paid, the divorce procedure would be declared invalid.

That was this empire’s damned family law.

As long as I remained a member of this empire, I couldn’t dare ignore that absolute rule.
No—I had to abide by it.

“Did you really think I didn’t know that?”

From the very beginning, I had been aiming for the bigger picture.
I’d known early on that leaving the estate in some half-baked way would do me more harm than good.

That was why I hadn’t fled the estate immediately after my regression.
Instead, I waited for the right moment.

Honestly, wandering around without a single coin to my name would have been idiotic.
Did he really think that someone who’d thought that far ahead wouldn’t have considered alimony too?

“Mia. Even if you demand a divorce from me, I will never divorce you.”

To say something that grotesque with a smile.

“So don’t entertain any foolish ideas. You’ll never leave my side.”

At Louis’s declaration that I would never escape him, I smiled.

After stripping me of every last asset and growing so arrogantly confident—
the way he held his head high now was almost laughable.

“That’s such a tired line.”