“Stop!” he bellowed, his voice fractured. “Make it stop!”
His body spasmed uncontrollably, each movement jerking like a marionette on broken strings. His eyes—once sharp with cruel precision—now blazed with pure, unfiltered madness.
I stumbled to my feet and then crumpled again to the pavement, chest heaving. And that’s when I saw it.
Just ahead, through the shimmer of streetlamp and shadow, a figure stood at the sidewalk’s edge—motionless, cloaked in darkness. A grin cut across its face, wide and knowing, like it had been watching all along.
Before I could scream, Balthazar vanished in a cloud of thick black smoke, the stench of sulfur and scorched flesh lingering in the air.
I wanted to believe it had all been a nightmare. But the ache between my legs, the bruises on my skin, and the ragged terror in my lungs told me otherwise.
I bolted inside the antique shop, slamming the door shut behind me. The lock clicked into place.
He would come back. Healwayscame back.
But this time, I’d be ready.
Endless arguments with Jack consumed my days.
“You always side with Olivia!” I snapped, throwing my handsup in frustration. “She’s just a child, and already you’re spoiling her rotten.”
Jack didn’t look up from his keyboard in the cramped bedroom office. His voice came out calm, controlled, infuriatingly measured. “She’s our daughter, Alina. We should be on the same side.”
I scoffed. “You never listen. Our marriage is crumbling, and all you care about isher.”
One evening, something in me snapped.
I stood rigid in the living room, arms crossed, jaw clenched. The antique clock on the sideboard ticked like a bomb about to detonate.
“I told you from the beginning—I only agreed to carry Olivia foryou. Don’t expect me to become your picture-perfect mother. I never signed up for this grind.”
We’d been locked in this fight for over an hour, but he still didn’t get it.
Jack shot up from the couch, frustration rippling off him. “You have totry, Alina! I’ve been doing everything. I’m fine being her primary caregiver, but God forbid you show her the slightest shred of affection!”
“Iamaffectionate,” I hissed. “I’m civil. I’m polite.”
“‘Civil and polite’?” His face reddened with rage. “That’s what you give a neighbor, not your daughter. A child needs love, not cold detachment.”
My lip curled. “I’m so sick of your moral high ground. You act like some saint, but you’re just a pathetic excuse for a man. A loser.”
He flinched.
I leaned in, voice venomous. “I should’ve never saved you. Our sex life is laughable—if it even exists—and frankly, everything about you disgusts me.”
He looked like I’d punched the air from his lungs.
The silence that followed was deafening.
My words had been cruel, calculated knives sharpened over years of resentment. But for the first time, I’d spoken them aloud. The bile I’d swallowed day after day had finally erupted.
Jack’s anger dissolved, replaced by something more haunting—disbelief, wounded silence.
He’d once believed I was his savior, who stood by him when the world didn’t. Now, with a few merciless truths, I had demolished that illusion. The fragile bridge between us splintered beneath my confession, collapsing like rot-infested wood.
I braced myself for retaliation. For him to scream, accuse, and throw my cruelty back in my face.
But he didn’t.
