Chapter 44
ANASTASIA
I can’t breathe.
He’s alive?
I rush through the crowd, the walls feel like they are closing in around me.
Suffocating me with every step. Down the corridor, and up the stairwell.
I climb it two steps at a time. My fingers scrape against the wall for balance, and my nails drag along old brick as the door at the top comes into view.
The stale air of the underground presses against my lungs, suffocating me. I need out.
I slam the library door open and I keep running until I burst through the heavy doors leading to the courtyard. My breath is ragged and my chest tight. The stench of sweat and blood still clings to my skin.
Once outside, I veer left. The cold night air punches me in the face and everything around me blurs as I take off.
I sprint across the quad, the grass crunching underneath my feet, wind tearing at my hair.
The quiet hum of campus is a jarring contrast to the violence I just left behind.
But I can still hear it. The roar of the crowd.
The sickening thud of fists meeting flesh. Eryx’s blood. Then his face.
The one I thought I would never see again.
Thoren.
I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t go back. How the fuck is he still alive? I was there when it happened, I remember seeing him bloody and unmoving. I remember waking up alone and terrified. Sergio coming into the room to solidify what I knew.
I. Saw. Him. Die.
And now he’s here, why?
“Stassi, stop! Come here,” he yells after me.
I put my hands out in front of me to stop him. “Get the fuck away from me,” I scream back. I need to get away from here. I was finally getting to a good place. The nightmares had finally stopped. I was finally moving on and healing. And now? Now he just shows up here, like nothing even happened?
Tears stream down my face as he catches up to me. “How?” I ask him. “How are you here, I saw you…. I watched you, die!” I pound against his chest.
He stays silent.
“Fucking speak!” I yell at him, hitting him again. My vision is blurry with tears. “Tell me how the fuck you’re standing here in front of me right now, how you aren’t fucking dead.”
Breathe Stassi, breathe. Remember what Dr. Fleur taught us.
“We had a fucking funeral…do you know what I’ve gone through these past three years.”
The memories of the hospital I woke up in flood me.
Two weeks after the accident
The beeping drags me out of the dark. It’s the first thing I register. A steady and intrusive sound. Then the pain hits.
It radiates from everywhere. My head throbs, my arm is stiff and numb beneath the weight of a cast, and my ribs ache with every shallow breath I take.
I try to shift, but the movement sends a jolt through my side that makes my vision blur.
I open my eyes slowly. Blinking up at the ceiling. It’s too white. Too clean. A hospital.
My throat is dry. “Thoren…” I whisper, barely able to say his name. “Where’s Thoren?”
The memory slams into me like a wave. Headlights in the mirror, the sudden jolt from behind, tires screaming against the asphalt. Thoren yelling at me to hold on.
The car flipping.
The world turning upside down.
Glass. Blood. Screams.
Someone hit us. On purpose.
I try to sit up but pain chains me down. My fingers twitch helplessly against the blanket. “He pulled me out,” I murmur to no one, trying to piece it together. “He was bleeding. I saw—he got me out,” right?
Then the door opens, and the room chills instantly.
The door creaks open, and I hear his heavy footsteps stop at the foot of my bed. I’m hit with the scent of his cologne. Sergio.
He looks so polished. His suit pressed and silver cufflinks in place. Not a wrinkle in sight. Perfect, like he didn’t just walk into his daughter’s hospital room. Meanwhile, I’m lying here with bandages around my head, my arm in a cast like a child’s broken doll.
“You’re awake,” he says, flatly. No relief or warmth in his tone. He doesn’t love me. I’m just a nuisance in his life. One he can’t get rid of fast enough.
I try to sit up, but my body protests. “Where is he?” My voice cracks. “Where’s Thoren?”
He doesn’t answer me right away. He lets the silence drag on, keeping me on edge, waiting for me to fall apart. He wants to make it hurt. Finally putting me out of my misery, her responds, “He’s dead.”
The words cut through me. They hurt more than the throbbing pain lacing through my entire body right now. “No…” I shake my head. “No, no, no, no, no,” I repeat, my voice shaky with tears streaming down my face. “He—he pulled me out—he was—there’s no way.”
“Believe it. He didn’t make it. “His body was recovered after the wreckage was cleared.”
I shake my head, refusing to believe it still. “They ran us off the road—someone hit us. We didn’t just crash. Someone did this.” I’m agitated now. Why was he just standing here instead of going after the people who did this?
He levels his gaze at me. “I’m aware. And it’s being handled. But that’s not your concern anymore.”
Not my concern? My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
He says it like the incident was an inconvenience.
Like Thoren was an inconvenience. He might as well have slapped me.
I blink at him, waiting for more. For anything.
But he just adjusts the cuff of his sleeve like this is a business meeting.
The pain behind my eyes burns hot, and my chest feels like it’s collapsing. “You’re lying,” I whisper.
“Don’t be dramatic, Anastasia. You’re lucky to be alive,” He glances down at me.
I choke on a sob, the pressure in my chest unbearable. “You don’t care,” I whisper. “You never cared about him. You never cared about—”
“Stop,” he snaps. “I won’t entertain another emotional breakdown. Get some rest, Miguel will pick you up, and you’ll be going home tomorrow. You’ve already been here two weeks.” Then he leaves just like that.
That night I dug through the cabinets in my room looking for anything that would take me to him.
Anything that would help me make my way back to Thoren.
I couldn’t go back to that house. I couldn’t be where he wasn’t.
I would be entirely alone this time. This way at least I had a choice.
And my choice was him. To see Thoren again. See my mom again.
There’s no tears in my eyes this time. I know they’ll be waiting for me on the other side. I can feel sleep taking me under when I hear the faint sound of an alarm blaring next to me. Then yelling and movement, “Code blue, code blue,” but I’m too tired to pay attention.
The next morning I wake up strapped down to the bed.
Sergio’s cold gaze looking down at me again.
“You’ll be transferred to a facility once the doctors clear you.
They can help with… your emotional state.
Clearly, you're not in the right state of mind.” He says it like he’s ordering a shipment.
“You’ve become a liability. I won’t have you unraveling in public. ”
I don’t react. I’m numb. Drugged. Restrained. Next time I won’t fail.
He says something else, but I don’t hear him.
All I hear is his name.
Thoren.
Thoren.
Thoren.
His voice brings me back to the present moment.
“What you went through?” He finally speaks, grabbing my wrists to keep me from hitting him again.
I struggle to release them and finally stand back.
His body is in full display under the moonlight.
There’s a cut above his eye from the fight. Scars mar his once beautiful body.
“You have no idea what the fuck happened, what the last three years have been like for me, princesa. Everything you were told about that night was a fucking lie.”
“W-what are you talking about?” I ask, worry in my voice.
“You think the three years at Blackridge were bad? With your three square meals a day. With a bed to lay on. With therapists to help your mind?” He backs me against the wall looking down on me. Blocking me, with his arms on either side of me.
“Hmm… you think that was hard? Every day I lived with the weight of knowing he had your life in his hands. He had me declared dead, I lost my shares and my fathers company that he built. I was forced to continue fighting. After the Rivera family couldn’t have you as their new bride, they took me as payment.
Every choice I made, every fight I took wasn’t for me.
They were for you. They knew you were my weakness.
Sergio made sure of that. I didn’t want to be their pawn, but when they threaten the one person I’d die for, you do what you have to.
No matter the cost.” He takes a deep breath before continuing.
“Daddy dearest, planned it all. He was onto us from the start, we never stood a chance. The idiota just failed to realize you’d be with me that day.
He thought he could just get rid of me, blame it on his enemies.
He owed a lot of money to some bad people, so no one would ask any questions if something were to happen.
Maybe he’d retaliate to save face, but he’d finally gotten rid of me.
He would finally have full ownership of the company and of you.
When he found out you were in the car with me that night and that I didn’t die, he forced me to do jobs for him.
Held you over my head ‘cause he knew I’d do anything for you.
” His eyes have a dead stare behind them as he tells me this.
Empty. The light that used to shine so bright in them is gone.
“What?…. No, you’re lying. Why would he do that?” Sergio has always hated me, there’s no point in lying, he would tell me just to hurt me. Use it as another thing to control me with.
“Come on think about it, don’t act like you never suspected anything. Why do you think our parents died in an accident of their own?” The way he says this is as if there’s a lie I’m supposed to uncover. “Why do you think he was always so distant from you? Why he looked at you with such disgust?”
“He’s…”
He cuts me off. “I think it’s time you knew the truth princess.”
Just then Eryx comes and pulls Thoren off of me.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Eryx slams his fist to Thoren's face.
I grab Eryx’s hand and pull him back, keeping my hold on him. Thoren swipes at his now cut lip. He looks between the both of us and laughs. A look of disgust on his face. Like he’s piecing together a puzzle.
“Oh this is fucking rich. So now you're sleeping with the enemy?” he laughs.
“What ar—”
But Eryx cuts me off. “Leave her out of this, this is between you and me.”
“Oh, he’s not told you?” An amused look crosses Thoren’s face.
I look at Thoren, then back at Eryx. My mind running a hundred miles an hour trying to decipher what’s happening. “What is he talking about, what aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
There’s hesitation before he speaks. Like he doesn't know what to say, or doesn't want to. Like everything we’ve worked on and how far we’ve come is about to crumble.
“What. Aren’t. You. Telling. Me!” I seethe. The tears that never stopped falling marring my vision. Then Thoren throws the final blow. Destroying the final piece of my armor.
“He was there that night, Princesa. He was in the other car. You’re dear—knight in shining armor—was the reason we crashed that night.”
“You’re lying, he wouldn’t, why—”
“Why would he? Oh gee I don’t know, maybe ‘cause Sergio planned it. He wanted to take me out of the picture once and for all. He just didn’t count on you being with me that day. You were supposed to be back at the house. He was the one who pulled you out of the car that night.”
“No, the paramedics did….”