Chapter 1
My name is Asher. My fiancée, Skylar, and I had known each other for over a decade, practically growing up together.
My second year of college, I confessed my feelings to her, promising to marry her, to love her, to make her happy for the rest of her life.
At twenty-four, after a beautiful engagement ceremony, we officially tied the knot. That night, she gave me everything.
I just held her close, listening to her murmur “I love you” over and over again.
At twenty-five, she went on a trip with her friends, while I was buried under work, scrambling to get a company plan off the ground.
That was the biggest regret of my life.
A week after she left, I lost contact.
Soon, more than forty-eight hours passed. Frantic, I contacted the local police department. I sent them the little information I had, and they told me to wait for news.
Three days later, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I bought a flight to where she’d been traveling.
I had barely stepped off the plane when my phone rang. It was the police.
My eyes were fixed, unseeing, on the computer screen.
In the surveillance footage, she was being dragged into a van by several men. That had been five full days ago.
The officer tried to calm me, telling me not to worry, that they were investigating the matter thoroughly and had already identified the van.
His words offered a small flicker of relief.
A week passed. I received a message from her phone.
It was a video.
She was naked, violated by a group of men, trapped in a dimly lit room, her body and face a canvas of wounds.
A deafening roar filled my head, and my legs gave out, sending me crashing to the floor. My face contorted in agony, but my eyes remained glued to the heartbreaking scene. Passersby recoiled from my distraught state, hurrying away.
I burned their faces into my memory, etching them deeper than my own name.
I didn’t go back to the police.
Nor did I contact anyone else.
I spent a fortune, but finally bought the information I craved.
I quit my job, leaving my family and friends without a word.
Alone, I headed for the borderlands.