Chapter 2
Lying in the cold, my body soaked, I forced my mind away from the pain. I couldn’t focus on the storm, on the way my limbs trembled uncontrollably.
Jaxon was never mine to begin with. From the moment I met him, he had belonged to Nora.
Nora the girl with the soft, trembling voice and doe-like eyes. The delicate, perfect woman who Jaxon had sworn to love forever.
I had been nothing in comparison, I had only been his second choice.
Back then, I knew it. I had seen the way Jaxon’s entire world revolved around Nora. How he had worshipped her, protected her, adored her.
I was forced into an arranged marriage, one I never wanted. But I never expected the man standing at the altar to be the same one my best friend had been in love with for years.
Jaxon.
Guilt had twisted in my stomach that day, but there was no way out. My family had made a deal, and I was the payment. So, I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “I do.”
After the wedding, when I found Nora crying in front of my house, bags at her feet, I knew what I had to do. She had nowhere else to go, and I owed her everything.
So I let her stay.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
Then one night, I heard the sound of shattering glass. I ran into the living room and found Nora sitting on the floor, a knife at her side, blood dripping from her palm. Panic hit me. I rushed to grab the knife, my hands shaking.
That was the moment Jaxon walked in. His sharp gaze landed on me first—holding the knife—before snapping to Nora, her eyes wide and brimming with tears.
“She—she tried to hurt me,” Nora choked out.
My entire world shifted. Jaxon’s eyes darkened. He was in front of me in seconds, his fingers gripping my wrist so hard I thought it would snap.
“What the fuck did you do?” His voice was pure ice.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.
From that moment on, everything changed.
But then Nora left.
No one knew why. One day, she had been there—perched on Jaxon’s arm like she was made for him. The next, she was gone.
Jaxon had nearly burned the world down trying to find her. For months, he had searched for her, hunted for her, willing to tear apart every enemy, every ally, every single person who might have taken her from him.
Lightning flashed, pulling me back to the present. The storm was relentless, hammering against me, turning the pit into a rising pool of water.
I was drowning. Every breath I took felt shallower, weaker.
I tried to move, tried to crawl up, but my body was numb, my limbs heavy.
My baby.
I pressed a hand to my stomach. The rain blurred my vision, but in the distance, a figure appeared at the edge of the pit. Someone was there.
I forced my head up, gasping for air. “H-Help—”
A second later, the water rushed over my head.
Darkness swallowed me whole.
Jaxon was probably holding Nora right now.
Maybe he was tucking the blanket around her, brushing her hair back, whispering things to make her feel safe.
He wouldn’t even spare a thought for me.
I was nothing to him.
The cold was absolute, wrapping around me like a vice. My lungs burned as water flooded my nose, my throat, my chest. Panic clawed at me, but my limbs were useless—too weak. I tried to fight, tried to push against the weight dragging me under, but I was drowning.
The world above felt impossibly far away.
Jaxon.
Would he care if I died? Would he even notice?
A bitter laugh bubbled in my throat, but all that escaped were air bubbles slipping through the murky water. Of course, he wouldn’t. He had what he wanted. Nora was back.
Nora.
The woman he had loved before I was forced into his life. The woman whose tears he had wiped away with gentle hands, whose bruises he had kissed, whose voice had shaped the very way he breathed.
I thought I could live with that. I thought I could endure the way he never looked at me the way he looked at her. His touch was always careful. The way he never said my name the way he said hers—like it was a prayer, like she was his salvation.
A strangled sob tore from me, swallowed instantly by the water, by the silence of the world that didn’t care whether I lived or died.
Tears burned hot against my freezing skin, mixing with the rain, with the filth, with the ache of knowing I had never been wanted.
I was slipping away, my body too weak to fight it anymore.
But just before the darkness swallowed me whole, a whisper of memory surfaced.
Nora's Shaky, breathless voice full of fear. The one sentence that had landed me into this misery.
"She ordered the hit on me, Jaxon. Valerie wanted me dead.”
