24. Ethan
Ethan
I had imagined this moment differently.
For years, I had pictured Eliana finally discovering the truth and looking at me with the same softness she used to have when we were young. I had imagined relief on her face, perhaps even gratitude when she understood how much I had done to protect her from Adrian.
I had never imagined her looking at me like I was a stranger.
The gun remained steady in my hand as I stood in the middle of the room. Eliana had gone completely still beside her father, tears drying on her cheeks as she stared at me. Daniel looked at the weapon first, then at me, his expression hardening with disbelief.
Eliana was the only one I watched.
She was trembling.
I hated seeing her afraid of me, but I couldn't pretend I didn't understand why.
The person she thought she knew had disappeared in front of her.
The dependable childhood friend, the police officer who had always shown up when she needed someone, the man who had listened to her cry over Adrian and promised to keep her safe had all become impossible to separate from the person standing before her.
"You don't have to look at me like that," I said quietly.
Her lips parted, but no words came.
"I did all of this because I love you."
The expression on her face changed. Not relief. Disgust.
That hurt more than I expected.
"You..." Her voice shook. "You lied to me."
"I told you what you needed to hear."
"No. You destroyed everything."
I lowered the gun slightly, though I never let it leave my hand. "I didn't destroy anything that wasn't already falling apart."
Daniel stepped forward.
"Stay back."
My voice remained calm, but the warning was enough to make him stop.
I looked at Eliana again. "You want the truth? Fine. I'll give you all of it."
I had spent years keeping these things buried. I had carried them so long that admitting them no longer frightened me. In some strange way, it felt like finally putting down a weight I had been carrying alone.
"I loved you before Adrian ever existed in your life," I said. "You were the person I looked for when we were children. The person whose attention mattered to me more than anyone else's. I thought that when we grew up, you would eventually see me the way I saw you."
A bitter smile touched my mouth. "Then Adrian appeared."
Eliana closed her eyes briefly.
"Suddenly, I wasn't the person you called first. I wasn't the one you searched for in a room. You looked at him like he had become your entire world."
I had hated him for that.
Not because he had done something to me.
Because he had done nothing at all.
He had simply been the man she chose.
"At first, I told myself I could accept it. I thought you'd eventually realize he wasn't right for you. Then you lost the baby."
Eliana's face crumpled.
I watched her carefully. "That was when everything changed."
"You used my grief," she whispered.
"I used what was already there."
"That's not an answer."
"No," I admitted. "It isn't."
I took a slow breath. "You were drowning. You couldn't sleep. You blamed yourself for things that were never your fault. You were angry at Adrian, angry at yourself, angry at the world. All I had to do was give those feelings somewhere to go."
Her eyes filled with fresh tears.
"I reminded you of every little thing that could make you doubt him. If Adrian was late, I suggested he was hiding something. If he didn't answer immediately, I told you there might be someone else. If he tried to protect you, I made it sound like control."
"You made me believe he was hurting me."
"Because you were already afraid he was."
"No." Her voice cracked. "You made me afraid."
For a moment, I said nothing.
Maybe she was right. But fear had been useful. Fear made people listen.
"I spread rumors," I continued. "Nothing obvious. Nothing that could be traced back to me. Just enough for people to start asking questions about Adrian. His business. His temper. His relationships. His family."
"You made everyone think he was dangerous."
"I made people wonder."
"And when Adrian tried to keep you away from me," I said, "I let you believe he was proving everything I had told you."
Eliana stared at me as though she could barely breathe.
"You knew I trusted you."
"Of course I did."
"That's why you did it."
"Yes."
The answer seemed to break something inside her. I wished she could understand that I had never thought of myself as the villain. Villains knew they were villains. I had always believed I was correcting something that had gone terribly wrong.
Adrian had taken a place that should have been mine.
I was simply taking it back.
"Then came the cottage," I said.
Her eyes sharpened.
"I knew Adrian would eventually take you there. I knew he kept things hidden. I knew there were paintings. I knew there were pieces of your past he was desperate to protect."
"You knew about the studio."
"I knew enough."
I remembered the warehouse.
The fire had been simple to arrange. Fire was chaotic by nature. It didn't need much encouragement.
"I arranged the fire at Eleanor Ashford's warehouse."
Eliana stared at me.
"I knew Adrian would go there. I knew he would want to handle it himself. I knew he'd leave you behind."
Her face had gone pale. "You planned everything."
"Not everything."
I smiled faintly. "Just the important parts."
I watched the realization settle over her.
"The locked room. The paintings. The things you would see when you were already frightened and confused."
"You wanted me to find them."
"I knew exactly what you'd think when you did."
My voice softened. "I just gave you a little push."
Eliana covered her mouth with one trembling hand.
I could see her mind rebuilding the last few weeks piece by piece. Every suspicious moment. Every secret. Every time Adrian had hesitated before answering her.
She had believed me without realizing she was still following a story I had written years ago.
Then came the question I had known would eventually surface.
"The accident," she whispered.
I looked at her.
"The day I left Adrian."
I said nothing.
Her eyes widened. "What did you do?"
I could have lied.
I had lied for years.
But there was no reason anymore.
"The day of your accident," I said quietly, "I wanted you dead."
Daniel moved toward her, but I raised the gun again.
Eliana didn't move.
She simply stared at me.
"I couldn't stand watching you choose him," I continued. "I had spent years waiting for you. Years watching Adrian have everything I wanted. Your love. Your trust. Your future."
My voice remained steady.
"I thought if I couldn't have you, neither of you deserved a happy ending."
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
"But you survived."
Something almost tender entered my voice as I remembered it. "You survived when I was certain you wouldn't."
I had thought that was the end.
Instead, fate had done something far more beautiful.
"You forgot him."
Eliana shook her head slowly.
"No."
"Yes."
"You took him from me."
"I gave you a chance to start again."
"You stole my life."
"I gave you a life without him."
Her expression twisted with pain. "And you call that love?"
I looked at her for a long moment.
"I call it the only chance I have left."
She began crying harder.
I remembered the woman she had been before the accident. Broken by grief. Terrified of Adrian. Lost inside memories she couldn't trust. I remembered how easily she had accepted my hand when everyone else had become frightening to her.
Then she forgot. She forgot Adrian. She forgot their relationship. She forgot the child. She forgot the years they had shared.
And I remained.
"I thought it was fate," I said. "You survived, and then you forgot him. Do you understand what that felt like?"
Eliana stared at me in horror.
"It felt like the universe had finally chosen me."
Daniel's voice was filled with disgust. "You call this love?"
I looked at him. "You wouldn't understand."
"No," he said. "I understand perfectly. You didn't love my daughter. You wanted to own her."
Something inside me recoiled at the word.
Own.
It sounded ugly when he said it.
But when I looked at Eliana, I couldn't deny the truth anymore.
I had wanted her to choose me. I had wanted her to need me. I had wanted Adrian erased from every part of her life.
And when that wasn't possible, I had decided that destroying him was easier than accepting that she belonged to someone else.
Eliana's tears continued falling as she stared at me.
Five years.
Five years of lost memories.
Five years of Adrian loving a woman who no longer remembered him.
Five years of me believing I had finally won.
And now she knew.
Everything she had lost had a name.
Everything Adrian had suffered had a reason.
And every lie she had believed had begun with me.
* * *
Eliana
My father lunged toward Ethan before I could stop him, anger overriding whatever fear had held him still. Ethan reacted instantly. The gun swung toward my father, and his expression turned cold. “Don't.”
My father froze.
“Dad, please,” I cried, but Ethan had already grabbed him and shoved him toward the small storeroom beside the kitchen. Dad fought back, trying to wrench himself free, but Ethan forced him inside and slammed the door shut.
I rushed forward. “Ethan, stop!”
He put the latch down from the outside.
“Dad!” I threw myself against the door, gripping the handle and pulling desperately, but it wouldn't open. My father struck the other side with his palm.
“Eliana!” His voice came through the wood. “Run!”
I turned around.
Ethan was standing behind me with the gun still in his hand. For one horrible second, neither of us moved. Then he reached for my wrist.
I jerked away. “Don't touch me.”
His fingers closed around me anyway, his grip painfully tight as he pulled me toward the back door.
“We're leaving,” he said. “This city has taken enough from us.”
“There is no us,” I whispered through my tears.
He stopped.
For the first time since revealing himself, something in Ethan's expression cracked. The calmness disappeared for only a moment, replaced by something wounded and almost desperate.
“I've spent my whole life loving you,” he said quietly. “I'm done watching you choose someone else.”
“I never chose you.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
His jaw clenched, but he didn't answer. He simply tightened his hold on my wrist and dragged me outside.
“Ethan, let me go!”
He ignored me.
The night air hit my face as he pulled me across the yard toward his car. I struggled against him, but the gun in his other hand reminded me how little control I had.
“Please,” I begged. “My father is in there.”
“He'll be fine.”
“You're lying.”
“I'm not going to hurt him.”
“You already hurt me.”
He opened the passenger door and forced me inside. I tried to climb back out, but he slammed the door before I could move. A second later, he was behind the wheel, and the engine roared to life.
I looked toward the house. My father was still trapped inside.
“Dad!”
Ethan accelerated down the road.
I reached for the door handle, but the car was already moving too fast. He kept one hand on the steering wheel while the other remained close to the gun resting beside him.
“Stop the car!”
“Eliana, calm down.”
“Stop!”
He glanced at me, almost irritated by my panic. “We're going somewhere safe.”
“Safe?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You pulled a gun on my father and dragged me out of my home.”
“I saved you from Adrian.”
“You destroyed my life.”
His eyes returned to the road. “No,” he said softly. “I gave you a chance to have a life without him.”
“There was never a life without him.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Ethan's hands tightened around the steering wheel. For several seconds, he said nothing. Then his voice became strangely calm again.
“We'll start over.”
I turned toward him.
“Somewhere far away. Somewhere no one knows us. No Adrian. No police. No people filling your head with lies. Just you and me.”
“There will never be a you and me.”
He didn't answer, but the silence that followed frightened me more than his anger would have.
Neither of us noticed that the phone resting beneath the edge of my coat was still connected. The call hadn't ended. Adrian had heard everything, every confession, every threat, every desperate word I had spoken. Somewhere miles away, he was already racing toward me.
I didn't know that.
All I knew was that the road kept disappearing beneath us, one stretch of darkness after another.
Ethan continued talking about starting over, about finding a place where nobody could reach us, about building the life he had always believed should have been ours. I barely heard him. My mind was searching for a way out.
I looked through the windshield, then toward the passenger door, and finally at Ethan. He was focused on the road.
My breathing became quieter.
I couldn't overpower him. I couldn't reach the gun. I couldn't get out of the car while it was moving. But I could make him stop.
My gaze moved toward the dense forest rushing past the windows. The road curved through the trees, with nothing but darkness beyond the narrow shoulder.
It was dangerous. Maybe deadly. But staying with Ethan meant surrendering everything.
I slowly loosened my seatbelt and pretended to wipe tears from my face. My hand remained near my lap as I watched him talk, waiting for the right moment.
Ethan didn't notice. He was too lost in the future he had invented for us.
I moved my hand inch by inch, closer to the steering wheel.
Closer.
My fingers curled around it.
Ethan finally glanced at me. “What are you doing?”
I didn't answer.
My eyes met his for one final second.
Then I pulled the wheel hard.
The tires screamed against the road. Ethan shouted as the car lurched sideways, but I held on with everything I had.
The world spun. Trees blurred past the windows. The headlights swept wildly across the darkness.
Then the car left the road.
It plunged into the forest, crashing through branches as the vehicle spun violently out of control.
And then everything disappeared into darkness.