I kept my eyes on him, my voice breaking as I spoke. “Rafael… those are my parents.”
They were the ones who raised me alongside my brother, who sacrificed everything so we’d have a future. The only time I ever went against them was when I chose him. That choice… that was the worst mistake of my life.
For a second, something shifted in his expression—almost softness—but his phone rang before it could stay.
He answered with irritation. “What the fuck is it now?” Then his face changed. His eyes flicked to me, slower this time. “Fine. I’m on my way.”
He ended the call and turned to Nerissa. “It’s real.”
She sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes. “What terrible timing. Hmp!”
I forced myself upright, reaching for my crutch. “Then I can go.”
Without warning, he snatched it away. “I’m taking you. No one else touches you.” His tone wasn’t protective—it was a warning.
**
By the time we arrived at the hospital, my tears had already dried up. The corridors smelled like antiseptic and endings that couldn’t be reversed.
“That way, the emergency room,” a nurse directed.
I dragged myself forward, my heart hammering, then stopped completely.
A gurney. A white sheet. Motionless.
“No… no, please!” I grabbed a doctor’s sleeve. “Where are they? Where are my parents? Please tell me…”
He slowly removed his mask, pity already filling his face. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t save them. They kept calling your name until the very end.”
My legs gave out before I could think. I collapsed onto the cold floor and reached for the sheet with trembling hands.
Their faces were still. Too still. Pale like everything had already left them.
“Mom… Dad…” My fingers brushed their cold skin. “I’m sorry… I’m too late. I’m sorry…”
“What… were their last words?” I forced out.
The doctor hesitated. “They drifted in and out of consciousness. They kept repeating your name… Amara… and telling you to leave your husband.”
“Don’t you dare say that bullshit from dying people!” Rafael snapped instantly. “Show some respect!”
The doctor flinched, but I barely heard him anymore. Everything inside me was already sinking into something deeper than grief.
**
When we returned to the villa, I walked through it like something empty still learning how to move.
My parents were gone. Nothing Nerissa did after that could cut deeper. I was already ruined in a way that couldn’t be repeated.
For the funeral, Rafael allowed me to attend—but only with four guards shadowing me like I was dangerous. Rain soaked through my clothes as I knelt before their graves. My brother Marcus wasn’t there. Only silence, rain, and men watching me like a prisoner.
“Time’s up,” one of them said flatly.
I pressed my hand against the stone. “Mom… Dad… I’ll leave. I promise.”
Back at the villa, my silence seemed to irritate him more than anything else. Rafael began flaunting Nerissa openly—making me serve them wine, polish their shoes, scrub floors on my knees.
Nerissa smiled every time like she was playing with a toy.
She pressed her heel down on my fingers. “Look at you. Once a ballerina… now crawling like a stray.”
I didn’t react. Pain had stopped meaning anything. Only something heavy and dull remained inside me.
That night, a scream shattered the silence like a staged alarm.
Nerissa was outside my door, collapsed in perfect disarray—mascara streaked just enough to look tragic, her nightdress torn in all the right places, thin red marks drawn across her skin like careful props rather than injuries.
She lifted her head toward me, eyes glossy but controlled.
“Why are you doing this to me?!”
Her voice trembled, but her posture didn’t. It was rehearsed. Waiting.
Rafael came running from down the hall and dropped to his knees beside her immediately, like she was fragile glass.
“What happened? Who did this to you?”
She grabbed his wrist, shaking just enough to look convincing.
“She… your ex-wife… she attacked me.”
She pointed at me—not with fear, but precision.
“I only tried to talk to her… I wanted to help her… after everything she’s lost because of me. I know she blames me for her baby… for her parents… I just wanted to be kind…”
Her sobs came perfectly timed, like cues in a performance.
Rafael turned to me, anger already forming. “What the hell did you do?”
I met his eyes. Calm. Empty. “Nothing.”
Nerissa broke into another sob. “She cornered me… grabbed me… said if you didn’t come back to her, she’d finish what the fall started… I tried to run but she—”
Her voice cracked at exactly the right moment.
Rafael’s expression hardened into something final.
“You lost your child. Your family. Your career. I understand that,” he said coldly. “But I won’t let you hurt her.”
A quiet laugh slipped out of me—dry, broken. “You actually believe that.”
He stepped closer. “She’s trying to move on. You’re the one holding onto this hatred. Look at what you’ve become.”
My hand moved before I even decided to.
SLAP.
His head turned slightly, more from surprise than pain.
He looked at me—not angry, but like something in him had cracked.
“You used to be gentle.”
“And you used to be loyal,” I answered.
Before anything else could happen, Nerissa gasped louder than necessary. “Stef… I’m scared… don’t leave me. She hates our baby. She wants me gone.”
That was all it took.
He lifted her into his arms without hesitation and walked past me.
“Bring the car,” he ordered.
The guards followed immediately.
The hospital smelled of sterile air and controlled panic. I was dragged into a private ward where Nerissa already lay in bed, IV dripping into her arm, pale like porcelain meant for display.
Rafael ignored me until I stood directly in front of him.
When he finally spoke, his voice was completely cold.
“Kneel.”
I blinked, barely processing it. “What?”
