Chapter Thirty-nine #2
I stand frozen, her words ricocheting in my skull, my breath ragged. The house feels colder than it ever has. I need to talk to him. I need to tell him the truth. That it’s all a lie. That I never signed that paper.
That I will never marry Ian.
I don’t even remember grabbing my keys, only the sound of them clattering against the table as my trembling fingers snatched them up. I don’t lock the door. I don’t care. My whole body is shaking, my vision swimming through a veil of tears as I stumble toward my car.
This can’t be happening.
My chest feels like it’s being crushed in a vice, each breath jagged and shallow. I fumble to start the engine, and the moment it roars to life, I slam my foot down on the accelerator.
I’ll fix this. We’ll be okay. We love each other.
Streetlights blur into streaks as I race through the city. My thoughts are a frantic loop, Cursed, the letter, Lorenzo’s face when I tell him the truth. I’ll explain why I never told him about my parents’ plans. Why I kept it buried. Why I was stupid enough to think it would just… go away.
He’ll believe me. He has to.
The club’s neon sign glows ahead like some kind of cruel finish line. I jerk the wheel into the parking lot, barely slowing before I stop dead in the middle of it. The engine’s still running. I leave the door wide open, my bag on the seat, my phone somewhere under my leg. None of it matters.
All that matters is him.
I burst through the club’s doors, every head turning toward me. The bass thrums through the floor, but all I hear is the pounding of my heart. My make-up is gone, my face is a streaked mess of black and saltwater, but I push forward, scanning the room for him.
Clara spots me instantly. She’s already moving, her heels clicking fast against the floor. “Serena—” Her voice is tight, panicked. She grips my arms, her eyes darting over me like she’s checking for injuries. “What happened? Are you hurt? What’s—”
“Where is he?” My voice cracks, the desperation tearing through every syllable. “Where’s Lorenzo?” My gaze sweeps the club again, my throat aching with every frantic breath.
Clara hesitates, and my pulse spikes. “I… I haven’t seen him.” Her voice is uncertain now. “What’s going on?”
“I need to find him,” I choke, and then I see Andres striding toward us, his expression unreadable.
He stops in front of me, and for the briefest second, his eyes soften. “Serena… you need to go.” His voice is low, almost gentle.
“What? No! No, I can’t.” My words spiral into sobs, my whole body trembling. “I need to talk to him, he got something—” My voice breaks, the words catching in my throat. “It’s not true. I swear it’s not true.”
Andres exhales slowly, his jaw tightening. “He’s not himself right now,” he says quietly, almost like he’s trying to protect me. Clara glances between us, her face paling.
“I don’t care,” I whisper, the tears burning my cheeks. “Please… please, I just need to talk to him.” My voice crumbles into pleading, the kind that leaves you hollow afterward.
Clara pulls me into her arms, and I collapse against her. My sobs shake through both of us, the sound muffled against her shoulder. My head spins, my breathing uneven, until the air in the room seems to shift.
And then… I feel it.
I open my eyes.
He’s here.
Lorenzo is walking toward us, and the sight of him knocks the air out of my lungs. His face is blank, utterly void of warmth, of anything resembling the man who told me he loved me in the rain two days ago.
There’s fresh blood on his knuckles. Both hands.
His hair falls messily over his forehead, like he’s just run his hands through it again and again.
He’s in a black suit, but the shirt beneath hangs open, stained with dark, drying blood.
His steps are slow, deliberate, like every one of them is a warning.
The cold in his eyes freezes me where I stand.
My heart physically aches at the sight of him, at how distant, how unreachable he looks. It’s like staring at a stranger who’s wearing the face of the man I love.
Clara loosens her hold but doesn’t leave my side. Andres doesn’t move either, his presence like a silent barrier between us, though I can’t tell if it’s to protect me… or him.
And for the first time, I’m not sure which one of us needs it more.
“Lorenzo…” My voice barely escapes, trembling, but it’s all I can manage.
He doesn’t answer.
The only movement is in his hand, the envelope, crumpled and wet with streaks of blood. My stomach twists at the sight of it, knowing what’s inside.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say quickly, desperately. “I promise, please, let me explain.”
His gaze locks on mine, sharp and glacial. “Did you fuck him?”
The question cuts through me like a blade, the ice in his tone sharper than the words themselves.
“What? No! Of course not!” My breath comes in shallow gasps. “How could you even say that? I never—”
“Is this what you’ve been doing all this time?” he interrupts, voice low but lethal. “While your father was trying to destroy me from the outside…” His knuckles whiten around the envelope. “…you were doing it from the inside?”
There’s hurt in his eyes, hidden under the steel, but it’s there. That’s what breaks me most.
“I could never hurt you!” I cry, my voice cracking so hard it physically hurts. “They lied! I could never marry Ian. I don’t feel anything for him! I only lo—”
“Don’t fucking dare finish that sentence.”
The words land like a punch to my ribs. My knees feel weak. He doesn’t believe me.
“You don’t believe me,” I whisper, the words trembling out of me as I stare into his deadened eyes.
“How could I?” he replies flatly. “You listened to me… were with me every night.” His voice hardens.
“You warmed my bed. I let you into my family. I told you things about me I’ve never told anyone,” He steps closer, and my body tenses like prey backed into a corner.
“…all while being engaged to another fucking man?”
“I’m not engaged to him,” I say, my voice so faint it barely exists.
“Stop fucking lying to me!” he roars, shoving the contract into my face, the paper shaking in his grip. “What the fuck is this, Serena? Hm?”
Andres shifts beside us, his voice low but firm. “Calm down, man.”
Lorenzo doesn’t hear him. Or maybe he does, but chooses not to.
“Did you fuck him as often as you fucked me?” His words are venom, spat between clenched teeth. “Did you moan his name like you did mine?”
My tears come harder, hotter. I can’t even find the words.
“Fucking answer me!” His shout rattles in my chest.
“Stop… please.” My voice is a breath, my body trembling. The tears blur my vision until I can barely see his face anymore. My heart feels like it’s splitting open, the sound of it deafening in my own ears.
“Don’t talk to her like that!” Clara’s voice cuts through the tension like a crack of lightning. Her hands are clenched, her jaw tight. “You have no right to treat her like this. Come on, Serena.”
But I can’t move.
My legs feel like they’re set in concrete. My eyes drop to the floor, because looking at him, at that face, feels like pressing on an open wound. My tears come harder, faster, until I can barely breathe. The edges of the room blur, the world turning into smears of light and shadow.
Then his hand is on my chin, tilting my face upward. Forcing me to meet the ice storm in his eyes.
“I love you,” I breathe, praying, begging, that he’ll believe me. “He never touched me.” My trembling hands cup his face, holding on as if I could keep him here by sheer force of will. “I only love you. I promise.”
For the briefest second, his eyes close. Hope flares in me like a fragile match.
And then he opens them, and snuffs it out.
“Is that what you told him too?” His voice is so calm it terrifies me. “Did you think of him while I was between your legs?”
The words feel like knives dragged through my chest. “Please… stop.” My voice cracks as I cling to him. “Please don’t push me away.”
“Get out.”
Two words. But they slice me open.
Before I can react, his hand clamps around my arm, hard. Not painful enough to bruise, but enough to make my heart jolt. His grip is unyielding, nothing like the way he’s always handled me before.
“Andres. Drive her home,” he says, still not looking at me. Like I’m nothing.
I go still.
I’ve always been his princess. The one thing he swore to protect from his darkness. The one he kept separate from the blood and the shadows of his world. He’s always handled me like I might shatter. Always shielded me.
Until now.
The tears spill faster, hot and unstoppable. My vision swims until I can’t even make out his face anymore. But I can still feel him, his absence, his rejection, pressing into my bones.
“I hate you!” The words tear out of me like glass. My chest burns, my lips tremble, my voice collapses under the weight of them.
And it’s a lie. God help me, it’s a lie. I love him so much it’s killing me.
He’s not just in my heart. He’s in my veins. My skin. My breath. Every beat of me has been his for so long I don’t know where I end and he begins.
And now he’s tearing himself out of me. And I can feel the ripping.
He steps closer, slow, deliberate. His hand brushes my cheek. I flinch at the tenderness, it feels wrong. Another tear slips free, landing on his fingers.
Those cold blue eyes hold mine, steady, unblinking. His breath ghosts against my skin, warm where his words are ice.
“We’re over, princess.”
It’s soft. Too soft. Like he wants the cruelty to linger. “Now get the fuck out and never come back. Unless…”
His mouth curves into a smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. “…unless you want to stay and entertain me. Otherwise, I have no use for you. And I doubt your husband will approve of the way I’d choose to entertain myself with you.”
The kiss he presses to my cheek is slow, deliberate, mocking. He’s tasting my tears like they’re some victory.
Is this the same man who once told me I was his world?
Something inside me snaps. My hand flies up before I can think. The slap cracks through the air, my palm stinging instantly, the ache racing up my arm. I put everything into it, every drop of pain, rage, betrayal.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch.
For a moment, I almost wish he’d hit me back. At least then I’d know I’d touched him, hurt him the way he’s hurting me. But he just looks at me like I’m nothing.
And then he turns and walks away.
No last look. No hesitation.
Just gone.
I stand there, frozen, the sound of my own breathing loud and broken in my ears. My tears hit the floor, one after another, until I realize my whole body is shaking.
The man I love, the man who owns every part of me, just left me in pieces on the floor. And I don’t know if I’ll ever find them all again.
“Let’s go, Serena,” Andres says softly, his voice low, almost careful, like I might break apart right here on the floor.
But I can’t move.
My knees give out before I realize what’s happening, and I curl in on myself, pulling my legs to my chest as though I can physically hold myself together. My arms lock around me, but they can’t keep the shaking out.
I try to breathe, but every inhale is shallow, jagged, as though the air itself is too heavy to pull into my lungs. Panic spreads like fire through my veins, each heartbeat pounding harder and faster until it feels like my ribs might crack from the inside.
“Breathe, you’re not alone.”
I don’t know if it’s the lack of oxygen or the unfamiliar gentleness in Andres’s voice that pulls my head up, but suddenly he’s there beside me. He kneels, his presence grounding, his arms coming around me in a way I never expected.
“Please, help her!” Clara’s voice cuts through the air. I swear she sounds far away, like she’s calling to me from the end of a long tunnel. But she’s right here, I can see her. Why does it feel so distant?
“Name five things you can see,” Andres says, his voice steady but low, pulling me back from the edge.
My throat is tight, but I force the words out. “Clara… my hands… you… the floor… the door.”
“Good,” he whispers. “Now four things you can touch.”
“I—uh… myself… the floor…” My voice falters, because that’s when it hits me again. The words that shattered me minutes ago slam into me like a fresh wound.
We’re over.
My breath hitches. I taste salt. My chest burns. “He never loved me,” I whisper, my voice shaking apart as I clutch at Andres like I might drown without something to hold on to.
“He loves you,” Andres says quietly, so certain it almost breaks me more. He keeps his arms around me, but I can’t stop shaking.
“It’s destroyed,” I sob into his shoulder. “Everything’s destroyed.” My voice is raw, scraped bare. “What am I going to do?” I choke on the words, as though admitting them makes the ruin more real.
“Let’s go home,” Andres murmurs, his tone like a lifeline.
“It hurts,” I whisper. The pain is too much, it’s everywhere. “It hurts so much.” I press a hand to my chest, but it doesn’t dull the ache. “I’m in so much pain.”
The edges of my vision start to fade, the sounds around me growing muffled and far away.
“Hey! Hey! Wake up!” Andres’s voice is urgent now, cutting through the fog.
“Someone help!” Clara’s voice is shaking, and I can hear her crying.
But the darkness is so tempting, so quiet. My eyelids grow heavier.
The last time I wished I wouldn’t wake up was when my mother hit me for the first time.
Now, it’s different. My heart feels shattered into so many pieces I don’t even want to try to put them back together.
I just want it to stop.
I just want to rest.
And then the world goes black.