“What?” he muttered under his breath.
The assistant lowered his voice slightly.
“She’s saying… Miss Marianne pushed her.”
The room went still.
Darius turned his head slowly toward me.
“What did you do?!” he asked.
I blinked. “What are you talking about?”
But he was already moving before I could finish.
“Bring her up,” he ordered sharply. “Now.”
I was pulled out of the room again before I could even process what was happening.
The rooftop was already crowded when we arrived.
Doctors. Security. Voices shouting over each other.
And at the center of it all stood Verona.
She was near the edge, crying in perfect timing, holding Lara’s music box like it was something precious she was barely keeping together.
“Darius,” she cried the moment she saw him. “She forced me to take it. She said if I didn’t, she’d destroy me. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared.”
Her voice broke exactly where it needed to.
Darius moved toward her immediately.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay. I’m here.” His entire tone changed in a second. “Nothing is going to happen to you,” he added. “I’ve got you.”
Something inside me went completely still.
I watched him.
Watched the way he looked at her.
Then my eyes dropped to the music box again.
Lara’s music box.
In her hand.
I pushed forward despite the pain tearing through me.
“Give it back,” I said hoarsely.
Verona flinched on cue, then stepped back and it slipped.
The music box fell from her hand, hit the edge, and dropped out of sight.
The sound it made was almost nothing.
But inside me, something shattered completely.
“No…” My voice broke as I leaned forward instinctively. “No, no, no!”
I tried to move, tried to run, tried to reach anything that might undo it, but a hand grabbed me hard.
“Marianne, Veronica was literally about to jump off a building and you still pushed her like that. Do you even care if someone dies?”
Darius’s voice cut through the rooftop like something final, something already decided before I could even speak.
I turned slowly. My body was shaking, but not from fear. It felt worse than that, like something inside me had already been worn down past breaking.
“Let me go!”
For half a second, his grip loosened. Just enough for me to feel it, just enough to think he might actually hear me. But then Veronica’s crying pulled his attention back like a string tied around him.
“Darius…” Veronica sobbed, stepping closer while wiping her face. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I told you I wouldn’t touch her, and I didn’t. So why is she still doing this to me?”
She shook her head like she could barely stand. “I just want a normal life. I just want an apology. Is that really too much to ask? Or is it just because I came from nothing that I don’t deserve basic respect?”
Her voice trembled exactly where it needed to, every pause placed too perfectly to feel real.
I stared at her through blurred vision, trying to understand if she was truly like this or if I was the only one seeing it clearly.
Darius’s expression changed immediately. It always did when she cried.
“Don’t move,” he said to her first, voice sharp but controlled. “I’ve got this.” Then his attention snapped to me, colder now, harder. “You hear that? This is exactly what I’m talking about.”
My chest tightened.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, barely able to breathe properly.
Veronica stepped back slightly, still crying, still performing like every reaction had been rehearsed.
“Darius…” she whispered again. “I don’t feel safe. She hates me. I can feel it.”
Darius cursed under his breath, frustration flashing across his face as he looked at me like I had become a problem he needed to contain.
“Marianne! You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
My voice came out low. “Let what go? The truth or whatever you’ve already decided to believe?”
Veronica moved again, closer to the edge this time, just enough to make everyone tense.
“Don’t,” Darius snapped instantly, his tone breaking for the first time. “Veronica, stop. I’ve got you. I said I’ve got you.”
He turned back to me, fully changed now, completely focused.
“Apologize,” he ordered.
I blinked once. “What?”
“Apologize,” he repeated, louder this time. “Right now.”
The air around us tightened. Everyone was watching now, waiting for me to bend. I gave a short laugh, more disbelief than anything else.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said slowly.
Darius stepped forward and kicked the back of my leg. Pain exploded through me and I dropped instantly, my injured body hitting the ground hard enough to steal my breath.
“Fuck…” I gasped, trying to steady myself.
Before I could move, he forced me down again, pressing me into the ground like my resistance meant nothing.
“Apologize,” he said again.
My vision blurred, not just from pain but from shock.
“Are you serious right now?” I whispered. “Have you forgotten I’m your wife?”
For a second, something flickered in his eyes. Not softness, not warmth, just hesitation. It was brief.
Then Veronica screamed again.
She stepped closer to the edge, crying harder.
“Darius, I’m scared…”
That was all it took. Everything in him shifted back.
“Marianne,” he said coldly, “this is a human life. Are you really going to be this stubborn right now?”
Then he turned to his men.
“Make her apologize.”
Two bodyguards grabbed me immediately. I struggled, but my body was already too weak, too damaged.
His attention stayed on Veronica, his tone completely different now.
“It’s okay,” he kept saying to her. “Come down. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen.”
She kept crying, shaking her head, playing fragile while I was being forced down into the ground.
They pushed my shoulders, forcing me lower until my knees hit the concrete and my head was dragged down after.
“Say it,” one of the men said.
“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t do anything…”
They shoved me again.
“Say it.”
My breath shook as I fought to stay upright.
Darius finally looked at me again, but there was nothing left in his expression.
“No more games,” he said. “Just apologize.”
I stared at him. At the man I had once trusted completely. At the man I had loved until there was nothing left of me. And I understood there was no version of this where I was believed.
“I won’t,” I said quietly.
Silence.
Veronica gasped again, stumbling slightly, and that was enough.
“Enough!” Darius snapped.
He moved instantly toward her. He caught her before she even reached the edge properly, holding her like she was something fragile and irreplaceable.
“Hold her,” he ordered without looking back. “Don’t let her fall.”
I stayed on my knees as they released me slowly, like I was no longer important enough to restrain.
Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me up.
“Take her back to the ward,” Darius said coldly, still focused entirely on Veronica.
His voice didn’t change when he said it. It didn’t soften. It didn’t hesitate.
It sounded like I was something to be removed.
I looked back once as they dragged me away.
Veronica in his arms, still crying softly.
And Darius not looking at me at all.
...
In the ward, I lay still for a long time, staring at nothing. The silence felt heavier than pain, heavier than anything that had happened before.
Then I stood up.
Every movement hurt, but I kept going until I reached the rooftop again. My daughter’s music box lay shattered below.
I stared at it for a long time without moving.
Then I pulled out my phone.
“Mrs. Davenport,” I said when she answered.
“I want the fake death plan now. Move it up.”
“Finally,” she said.
Ten minutes later, a black car stopped outside the hospital.
Twenty minutes after that, the world behind me was gone in fire and smoke on a road no one would trace back to me.
And I didn’t look back.
