“How can you do this to me?” she chokes out. “After all we’ve been through, how… how can you?”
“How canI? How the fuck canyou, Sima? How can you stand there and pretend you know nothing about my brother’s attack? How can you leak to your family while you’re lying in my fucking bed? Playing the whore while you cut me open?”
Sima flinches at the harshness of my words, but lifts her chin stubbornly and blinks through the tears. “I never?—”
“Don’t you fucking dare lie to me again. Or I swear your family will be getting you back in pieces.”
I hate myself for what I’m saying and doing to her. And even more so for how close I come to reaching for her right after. The urge to pull her against me, bury her face in my neck and comfort her—it’s too fucking ingrained.
But I can’t. If I touch her, I’m lost.
So I turn. Storm out. Before I can walk back everything I’ve said, undo all the work I’ve done to sever myself, I shut the door and leave her behind.
For good.
60
SIMA
The second the door slams, my legs give out.
I drop to the edge of the bed. My hands clutch the duvet. They’re trembling, shaking so hard they blur before my eyes.
Or maybe that’s the tears’ fault. Right now, I can’t even tell.
He knew.All along, he knew. Every confession I ripped out of myself was pointless. Because Petyr had the truth in his pocket the whole damn time.
And he kept it from me. For his own advantage. So he could use me as a bargaining chip when the time came.
“Fuck.” I press my palms to my eyes hard enough to see stars. “God fucking dammit.”
I’m so stupid. I thought it would matter that it came from me. I wanted him to know I trusted him with the truth. It was supposed to be our big moment—me coming clean, finally taking control of my own story.
But the whole time, Petyr was just waiting for me to catch up. He was faking it, all of it. Giving an Oscar-worthy performance while turning me into his personal court jester.
My throat feels raw. All the things I let myself believe turned out to be lies, and I don’t know what to do with it.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
I let myself want him. Hoped he’d be different. And all the while, I was just another pawn on his board, waiting to be sacrificed.
I keep seeing his face when he said it. Calm. Flat. Almost smug.
“Why else do you think I married you?”
The words replay over and over. Shame floods me. How could I be so naïve? Let myself be tricked like this?
After all I’ve lived through?
“Stupid.” I wipe furiously at my eyes. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
It feels like everything I built just crumbled to dust in one breath. My job, my name, the fragile little life I fought tooth and nail for.
And underneath all that wreckage is the truth I’ve been running from since I was twelve: I never really escaped. I thought I had, but here I am, right back where I started.
Caged.
Hot tears sting my eyes, but I keep swiping them away even though it won’t make me feel any less pathetic.
