He took a step closer, delivering a sentence that dropped the room’s temperature to freezing. “A stubborn wife needs to be strictly ‘disciplined’ so she learns how to bow her head.”
He expected tears. He expected me to drop to my knees and beg. Instead, a bizarre, absolute tranquility—a reflex forged by thousands of grueling hours in my past—washed over me.
I slowly bent down and picked up a razor-sharp shard of a broken plate. Twirling the porcelain casually between my fingers, i locked my gaze dead into his furious eyes. A slow, glacial smile crept across my face.
“You just said a wife needs to be disciplined,” i whispered, my voice echoing with an unnatural calm. “Tell me, Julian… exactly how do you plan to do that?”
Deeply unsettled but blinded by ego, Julian grunted an ugly curse. He planted his feet, raised his large right hand high into the air, and swung it down with all his might to assert his dominance.
