Betrayed by My Trash Husband, Surrender Myself to the Devil-Chapter 24: A Cage that He Built

Claudia POV

"C-cage?!"

At this point, I couldn’t control my expression. I must have looked delirious in front of Ray, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of being "caged."

"Y-you—do you think this is the 1700s? What makes you think that I’ll listen to an absurd demand like that?!"

Ray’s gaze darkened as he listened to my protest. He simply lifted the pet contract and showed my signature.

"You have already signed this pet contract. What makes you think we can’t go back to the 1700s for it? Besides, you don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll have a secretary stay here while I’m gone. You can tell her everything that you need," Ray stated as if he had rehearsed this speech, expecting me to refuse the arrangement. "I’ll allow you to leave the penthouse with me from time to time. You can buy anything you want. It doesn’t really matter to me."

"You are sick, Ray Gatlin!" I snapped at him. The more I listened to his nonsense, the more I realized there was something wrong with his mind.

"You can say anything you want, Claudia. But it’s already written in our contract. If you want to break the contract, then you’ll have to pay a hefty price," Ray said. He still looked calm, yet the rage in his eyes was far too obvious for me not to notice. "Also, didn’t you say that this penthouse coincides with your dream house? Then you should be comfortable here."

"I didn’t have any choice! I had to sign that contract to save my daughter!"

"And I will give your daughter freedom from Clarissa’s clutches—" Ray said, "—with your own freedom as the payment."

"Ray, you—"

Ray didn’t seem to listen anymore. He simply turned around while holding the contract. "I’ll be in my office. If you have something to say, then you can come and talk to me inside. Or else, you can go back to your room and sleep. It must have been a long day for you."

I couldn’t believe that he could just walk away like that after saying the most out-of-this-world thing I had ever heard in my entire life!

I was angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed at the same time. But I couldn’t just let him leave without saying a thing or two, just to get back at him.

So I took a deep breath and opened my mouth right when he was about to enter his home office.

"I broke up with you back then because I realized that you have no heart, and now you just made it clearer, Ray."

Ray halted his step. He looked over his shoulder, staring at me with his green eyes for a few seconds before scoffing.

"You told me that I am a cold-hearted bastard who will die alone and in agony. What makes you think I’ll change my ways now?"

With that, Ray walked into his home office and shut the door, leaving me feeling even more frustrated, as if I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Of course, I couldn’t just leave through that door, because I had already signed that contract. And when Ray said that he’d make me pay a hefty price, I believed he would really do something heinous.

I was mentally prepared when I signed that contract. I thought it would be more about humiliating me as revenge for what I did in the past.

But this man’s deranged behavior had already gone beyond what I could even imagine.

In the end, I could only grumble as I went to the bedroom he assigned to me. It was already late at night, and it would be unwise for someone like me to run away, especially when my car key was still with his bodyguard, or with him, since he hadn’t handed it back yet.

I scanned my surroundings and was relieved to see that it was just a regular bedroom. A very luxurious one, of course, complete with a big window overlooking downtown Los Angeles from above.

He didn’t lie when he said this penthouse coincided with the dream house I told him about back then—though I doubted he intentionally designed it based on my preference.

I could enjoy the view from above while sipping expensive wine in this penthouse—if I still had my freedom intact.

Now it felt more like a cage. As beautiful as it looked, it was still a cage in the end.

If only Aurora and I could live here without any worries. She would’ve liked the view...

That was the thought that crossed my mind as I unclasped my luggage and found my daughter’s elephant doll.

It was a doll that I made myself as her fourth birthday gift, and it had stayed her favorite toy ever since. She hugged this doll to sleep every single night, to the point that I had to fix it a few times so the elephant would stay an elephant and not turn into a bald monkey.

As I kept holding her doll, a drop of tear suddenly wet the doll’s ear, and I quickly wiped my eyes, not wanting to stain the doll that brought my daughter joy with the pathetic tears of a helpless woman.

"Aurora, Mommy is doing her best. I’m sorry that I can’t do much for now," I muttered to the doll. "But I promise it’ll get better, and we will be free from... everyone."

Yes, all I wanted was to be free from everyone’s chains—be it Miles, Clarissa, or even Ray.

To me, they were all the same bastards who hated my existence.

I wanted Aurora to have a happy childhood, so she wouldn’t have to suffer torment like I did growing up.

I hugged Aurora’s elephant doll as I lay on the bed. There was a hint of melancholy in my heart, followed by anxiety, as I wasn’t sure what I should do in the future.

Everything felt so bleak, and I couldn’t trust anyone right now.

I promised myself not to wet Aurora’s elephant doll with my tears, but it was just too hard, and I ended up using the doll to muffle my cries.