The slap snapped my head to the side. My cheek burned, but it was nothing compared to the tearing emptiness in my chest. This was the same man who once held me like I was breakable. Now he broke me with no hesitation.
“Floryn, stop pretending. I know exactly what you want!”
My voice shook. “What am I trying to get? A man who shoved his pregnant wife down the stairs? A killer I stupidly loved?”
‘I am not crawling back to you, Stefano. I am done being pathetic.’ I wanted to shout that.
His jaw tightened. He pulled Vexanna close and nodded toward the door. “We are leaving.”
They walked out together. And me, I crawled back to the storage room that used to be a closet and cried until I could not breathe. No screams. No sobs. Just quiet shaking, like a ghost grieving itself.
…
Three days passed. Every attempt I made to step outside the villa, Stefano’s voice came through my phone like a sentence.
“You are not leaving. You will stay in the cooling off period without stepping outside. Try it and I will handle you myself.”
I curled up on the narrow bed when my phone rang.
“Ms. Stewart,” a woman said. “This is Horizon Hospital. Your parents were caught in a residential fire. Both sustained critical burns and need immediate surgical intervention. You must come and sign the consent forms now.”
My blood froze. I could barely breathe.
“I… I will go right away.”
Except I was locked inside a villa like a captive wife of a mafia boss who lost everything that made him human.
I forced myself downstairs on crutches, pain cutting through my bones.
Stefano and Vexanna were curled together on the sofa watching a movie like a radiant couple who didn’t have ash and blood caked beneath their fingernails.
He looked up. His expression dropped.
“Who said you could leave your room?”
“My parents are in emergency surgery!” I cried. “They might not survive. I have to sign the papers. Please let me go.”
Vexanna snorted. “What a dramatic coincidence. After precisely three days of silence, they suddenly burst into flames?”
Stefano’s eyes hardened into stone. “Floryn, do you truly think this lie will save you?”
“I am not lying,” I shouted, reaching for his phone. “Call the hospital. Ask them. Horizon Burn Unit, emergency desk, the number is—”
He snatched it before my fingers touched it. “Enough! I will not fall for your little theatre.”
I dropped to my knees because there was nothing left to lose. My vision blurred. “For our five years. Let me go, please! If I’m lying, you can do anything you want to me when I come back. I swear.”
Vexanna’s smile unfurled, slow and venomous.
“Stefano, if she wants to go play rescuer so badly, we should enjoy the show.”
She whispered into his ear. I watched his jaw tighten, then the smirk bloom.
“She is right,” he said. “If you want to leave, get on your knees and beg her. Make her happy. Then I will think about it.”
My hands shook so violently the crutches slipped.
The same man who once walked me home in the rain, who waited after every rehearsal just to carry my bag, now stared while I collapsed before another woman.
“Hurry,” Vexanna sang, crossing her legs. “If you take too long, your parents might be charcoal by now.”
She dragged a finger across her throat and laughed. I lowered myself until my forehead touched the cold marble.
“Please,” I whispered. “Let me see them.”
“I did not hear you,” she chimed. “Louder.”
“Please,” I gasped. “I am begging you! Let me go.”
My injured leg screamed beneath me. My pride lay scattered like broken glass.
Vexanna clapped, delighted. “Look at her, Stef. She kneels perfectly. A trained pet.”
Stefano didn’t smile. His voice, when it emerged, was colder than extinguished embers.
“To escape me, you kneel for someone else. Fascinating.”
He stepped forward, eyes as empty as scorched houses at dawn. “You fucking want out this badly? Who is waiting for you? Another fucking damn man? Huh?”
