When Nikki falls in love, she believes she is building a life. What she does not see-until it is too late-is how quietly a life can become a trap.Set in the margins between intimacy and fear, this novel traces Nikki's descent into a relationship where control disguises itself as care and survival becomes a daily calculation. As the abuse escalates behind closed doors, Nikki learns how silence can feel safer than escape-and how endurance, mistaken for loyalty, can erase the self.One night, the careful balance collapses. A threat, a gun, and a moment that cannot be undone leave Nikki facing not only the aftermath of violence, but a justice system unequipped to understand the shape of fear. In court, her life is reduced to timelines and hypotheticals; her truth competes with a version of events she cannot disprove. Sentenced to decades in prison, she is told she could have left-a judgment that lands as its own kind of violence.Years later, when her sentence is reconsidered, Nikki steps back into a world that has already decided who she is.Written in restrained, haunting prose, this is not a story of easy redemption or clean answers. It is a story about survival after survival-about the cost of staying, the danger of leaving, and what remains when a woman outlives both love and punishment.