A sharp crack echoed through the room.
Vivienne struck with full force, her palm colliding against Rafael’s cheek. His head jerked to the side from the impact.
She had long accepted that he despised her. He could humiliate her, trample on her dignity, but there was one line he could never cross: her mother.
Her body trembled with fury; hands clenched into fists as she spat through gritted teeth, "Rafael, even killers have their limits. If you want my life, take it, but my mother? You are not allowed to speak a single word about her!"
Her eyes burned red, veins surfacing beneath the whites. Her mother had been Rafael’s father's trusted secretary.
She had met Rafael at seventeen. He was sixteen.
Back then, they were just high schoolers. She was a year ahead, and he trailed behind her like a shadow, calling her “sister” over and over again.
Vivienne had always been delicate, a quiet beauty who often received love letters from admirers.
Rafael had torn them all apart.
From that day forward, he never left her side. Even when she moved on to university, he followed.
For a time, their love had been untouchable, sweet, and reckless.
But happiness never lasted long.
Rafael’s mother died in a fire. A raging inferno had swallowed their home whole, reducing everything to ash.
His mother never made it out alive. Neither did hers.
But the most bewildering part was that, in her final moments, Vivienne's mother had thrown herself into the flames to save Rafael’s father.
The case was cloaked in mystery, tangled in rumors the media hungrily devoured. They claimed Vivienne’s mother had been Rafael’s father’s mistress, caught in a scandalous affair by his mother. Consumed by rage and humiliation, she had allegedly set the house ablaze, dragging them all into a tragic inferno.
Vivienne would never forget that night. The way Rafael had crumbled before her, his agony raw and unrestrained, his bloodshot eyes filled with a torment that cut straight to the soul.
He had stared at her in devastation while she, drowning in her own grief, had sobbed until her body could no longer take it, collapsing into unconsciousness over and over.
"Vivienne, I hate you."
"I will make you pay for this!"
He had caged her in his world, stripping her of any chance to grieve. Not even her mother’s funeral had been hers to arrange.
By the time he had let her go a week later, it had been too late; her mother’s ashes were already gone, taken by Rafael’s hands.
He had used them as a chain, locking her to him forever.
To suffer. To endure. To make amends for his mother’s death for the rest of her life.
To outsiders, despite the scandal that had tarnished the Moretti name, Rafael never abandoned Vivienne. Their love was seen as tragic yet unwavering, a story so moving that even the heavens seemed to mourn for them.
But only Vivienne knew the truth; these past years, she had lived worse than a stray dog.
Still, this torment, this humiliation, would all come to an end soon, wouldn't it?
Rafael hadn't expected the slap. By the time the sting registered, she had already turned on her heel, walking straight out of the villa.
The sky shifted in an instant, dark clouds gathering as the wind roared through the streets.
Vivienne pulled her coat tighter and braced against the cold.
A sharp gust sent a grain of sand into her eye, making her stop in her tracks. She rubbed at it with her fingers, but the sting only worsened.
And just like that, a memory surfaced.
A spring long ago. The wind had been just as cruel, the sand just as relentless.
That time, Rafael had lifted her face with the gentlest touch, carefully parting her eyelid.
Then, he had softly blown into her eye.
"It's okay, Vivienne. Don't be scared."
The warmth of that moment faded into the cold of the present.
Vivienne stopped in front of a hotel. She had no desire to go home. Tonight, this place would do
Not a single message came from Rafael.
Not a word of concern.
Instead, her phone lit up with an unexpected call.
Freya, seizing the chance while Rafael wasn’t paying attention, had dialed her, and all night long, Vivienne was forced to listen to gasps and moans that made her stomach turn.
