I’m sitting on a broken concrete step behind one of the staff buildings, boots sunk into the fucking filth, back against a wall still vibrating with the day’s heat. The villa lights glow up the hill like a crown of teeth. Noah’s crown. All white stone and glass and blood-money pretending it’s clean.
I roll my shoulders, slow, controlled, like I’m keeping a goddamn demon in a cage.
I’m not.
I can still see her. I can still taste the air she breathed.
Barefoot on the balcony earlier. Blue dress. Hands shaking even when she tried to hide it. Chin lifted like she was daring the world to come and break her again.
She always did that.
Brave mouth. Trembling hands. A spine made of glass and stolen steel.
I drag a hand down my face, nails scraping over stubble, wishing I was scraping them over the throat of every man who’s ever looked at her.
“Fuck,” I mutter. The word is thick, tasting like copper and salt.
Six days.
That’s what the prick said.
Six days until he thinks he owns the only thing in this world that makes my heart beat. Six days until he puts a ring on a woman who still flinches at silence and sleeps like prey. Six days until he learns what happens when you try to cage a goddamn miracle that already belongs to a monster.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone.
No signal bars worth a damn out here. Doesn’t matter. I don’t need him to answer. I don’t need her to pick up. I just need to bleed into the air.
I open the voice memo app.
My thumb hovers. My pulse is a hammer hitting an anvil.
I press record.
“Hey,” I say. My voice is a wreck, rough as broken glass and twice as sharp. “It’s me.”
I breathe out through my nose, slow, grounding. If I let the rage out first, I’ll shatter the phone in my hand.
“I saw the dress. Blue still suits you. You always liked wearing colours that made people think you were safe. Made them think you were soft.”
I tilt my head back, staring at the sky through the canopy. No stars. Too much light pollution. Too much civilisation pretending it isn’t a slaughterhouse.
“You shouldn’t be scared of him,” I continue, my voice dropping to a whisper that feels like a threat. “He’s a ghost. He’sfucking nothing. You should be scared of what I’m going to do to him if he touches you again.”
My jaw tightens until I hear the bone creak.
“I don’t care about the island. I don’t care about the wedding. I don’t care how many hired guns he lines up to die for him.”
A beat. My eyes burn.
“I care about the fact that he put his filthy hands on you like you were a fucking asset. Like you were a piece of paper to be signed.”
My fingers curl around the phone, the plastic groaning under the pressure.
“I care about the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not paying attention. Like he’s already tasted you. He hasn’t. He never will. I’ll rip his tongue out before he says your name again.”
My voice drops an octave, dark and obsessive.
“I care about the fact that you still sleep with your shoulders tight, waiting for permission to breathe. You’re mine, Scarlett. Every breath you take is a gift from me. Not him.”
