I push off the bars and drop back to the floor, grabbing the letters again, clutching them to my chest this time, crushing them against my ribs like they might crawl inside me if I hold on tight enough.
“I didn’t stop loving you in here,” I say, my voice breaking for the first time, just a fracture, just a slip. “I perfected it.”
I learned how to turn it into something quiet. Something patient. Something that doesn’t rush or beg or hope.
Hope is for men who still believe they’ll be saved.
I know better.
The intercom crackles overhead, announcing count. My time is coming. I can feel it in my bones. In the way my pulse slows instead of racing.
Soon.
I slide the letters back under the mattress again, slower this time, deliberate. I wipe the blood from my knuckles on my trousers and don’t bother hiding it.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, hands folded on my chest like I’m already dead.
“I loved you,” I whisper, letting the words rot in my mouth. “I fucking loved you.”
The smile that spreads across my face is wrong. Calm. Certain.
“And you’re going to remember that.”
Soon.
Very fucking soon.
Scarlett
The house breathes money.
It hums with it, quietly, like it’s learned not to show off—heated marble under my bare feet, glass so clean it looks like air, walls painted in soft neutrals that cost more than my first car ever did.
Everything is curated. Controlled. Safe.
I sit at the vanity in the master bedroom, spine straight, ankles crossed, the morning light spilling in through floor-to-ceiling windows and catching on crystal perfume bottles arranged like a shrine. The mirror reflects a woman who looks put together. Polished. Untouchable.
It lies.
I twist the lid off my blush and tap the brush once, twice, shaking off the excess. My hand hesitates just long enough to betray me.
Kai always hated blush.
Not hated—noticed. He used to tilt his head, eyes narrowing like he was cataloguing me, and say, You don’t need it. You already look flushed when you’re lying.
The memory slips in without permission, warm and sharp, and my mouth curves before I can stop it.
It’s stupid. Dangerous. He’s been gone for years.
I sweep the colour across my cheeks anyway, soft rose blooming under my skin, and the smile dies as another image replaces the first.
The courtroom.
Fluorescent lights too bright. The air stale and unmoving. My hands folded in my lap because if I let them shake everyone would see. Kai sitting at the defence table in a wrinkled suit that didn’t quite fit, jaw set, eyes locked on me like he already knew how this would end.
The worst part wasn’t the chains.
It was the way he didn’t look away.
