I screamed with every ounce of breath I had.
Adrian didn’t even flinch.
Without hesitation, he yanked my arms behind me, wrapping thick rope around my wrists so tightly it dug into my skin. I kicked and writhed, the pain of my earlier injuries flaring up with every movement. I was too weak, still shattered from the fall, too worn down by everything he'd already done to me.
“Please, Adrian!” I cried out through sobs, my voice hoarse with fear. “I didn’t push her! We fell together—I didn’t mean for it to happen!”
But my words meant nothing to him.
He shoved me into the back of his car, my body slamming against the seat, the impact jarring every fragile bone. The door slammed shut behind me with terrifying finality.
“This is the justice you deserve,” he muttered, sliding into the driver’s seat, his tone unsettlingly calm.
I tugged against the restraints, my breath coming in frantic bursts. “Please—don’t do this!”
He didn’t even look at me. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “I should’ve done this long ago,” he said, voice flat, devoid of any emotion. “But I didn’t. I let pity stop me.”
A fresh sob tore from my throat. Pity. That’s all I’d ever been to him—a burden. A regret.
“And now,” he continued coldly, “after what you’ve done, there’s no pity left in me.”
I shook my head desperately, tears blinding me. “Adrian, I swear to you—”
“Enough,” he snapped. “You’re out of chances, Cassia.”
I cried harder, trembling violently as the city lights faded behind us, swallowed by an expanse of darkness. We were heading somewhere remote—far from roads, people, safety.
My heart raced as I struggled harder, twisting my wrists in vain. The rope bit deeper. Blood smeared against my skin. But he didn’t care.
Minutes passed in suffocating silence.
Then the car stopped.
My chest seized.
No lights. No houses. Just a desolate cliffside, the ocean crashing against jagged rocks below. The only sound was the wind and the distant, unforgiving roar of waves.
Terror rooted me in place. “No...” I breathed. “No, no, no...”
Adrian stepped out and opened the door on my side. I tried to crawl away, but he grabbed me without effort and dragged me out.
“Please, Adrian—listen to me!” I screamed. “Don’t do this! I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t!”
He wasn’t listening.
From the trunk, he retrieved a large sack. I froze, horror wrapping around my spine like ice. I kicked, screamed, begged.
“Stop! Adrian, don’t!”
But he forced me into the coarse fabric, ignoring my thrashing. The world went black, my screams muffled inside the sack.
His voice, low and final, was the last thing I heard before the wind swallowed me whole:
“I never want to lay eyes on you again. You were never worth the name ‘wife.’”
And then—
He threw me over the cliff.
---
At the hospital, the hallways were dim and hushed.
Adrian stepped into Talia’s room, his face still twisted with remnants of fury, though some of it had ebbed. Inside, she lay still as ever, her face pale, her body attached to beeping machines.
But seeing her like that—vulnerable, silent—calmed him. What he’d done was necessary. It was justice.
He ran a hand through his hair and walked toward her—
Then stopped dead in his tracks.
Her lips were moving.
At first, he assumed it was some kind of unconscious reflex, but then he heard it. Actual words. Quiet, slurred, but unmistakably real.
“The baby... it didn’t make it.”
His breath caught in his chest. His jaw tightened.
Then—
A soft, amused laugh.
“But that’s alright,” Talia murmured. “We’ll just make another one... and convince Adrian it’s his.”
Adrian froze.
What?
His stomach turned. Every nerve in his body tensed.
Then came a voice from her phone. A man’s voice.
“You’re ice cold, babe,” the man chuckled. “That’s what I love about you.”
Talia giggled, her tone dripping with fake sweetness. “Oh, please. Adrian’s not exactly hard to fool. I mean, I knew he’d fall for me the second I walked in as his secretary. This was all about the money. I don’t even like him.”
Adrian’s vision darkened.
The room tilted. The air grew thick.
She... she never loved him?
“And now that he got rid of that pathetic woman—what was her name? Cassia?—we have the empire all to ourselves.”
It hit him like a blade through the ribs.
Cassia had been telling the truth.
She hadn't pushed Talia. They’d fallen together. She was innocent.
And he had sentenced her to death.
Adrian stumbled backward from the doorway, his hands shaking. The blood in his veins turned to ice as the magnitude of what he had done consumed him.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no...”
He spun around and bolted out of the room, not stopping, not thinking, just moving.
He had to find her.
He had to make it right.
He drove faster than he ever had, tires screeching, hands trembling on the wheel. His breath came in panicked gasps as he reached the edge of the cliffs.
The place where he had left her. The place where he had let go of her for good.
But when he got there—
Nothing.
No body.
No sack.
No blood.
No sign of her at all.
As if she had never existed.
As if she had vanished from the world entirely.
