Shutting my eyes, I shook my head.
I tried to steady my breathing and calm the storm spiralling in my head that seemed to drag me further astray. I reached for the pill bottles I’d set aside earlier, opening them one by one as I stared at the tablets in my palm; I let out a long breath, wondering when all of this would finally leave me alone so I could live in peace after all these years.
I never could accept it.
Every time I tried, it only dragged me deeper into the dark.
But the moment Tshabina’s face crossed my mind, I knew I had to do something. And though I’d failed before, this time I had to succeed.
I had to gohome.
To fulfil the promises I’d once made to Tshabina.
I reached for a glass on the island counter and poured some water. As I was about to swallow those pills, my phone lit up, halting me. I set the pills on the counter and grabbed the phone beside me.
The notification staring back at me sent a heat surge through my veins. I growled under my breath as I opened the message Dave had sent.
Dave:Miss Sophia is really with her male friend, Andi.
Dave:Regarding what happened this morning, shall we take action, sir?
That shit woman hadhurther.
My Sophie.
That was what Dave had told me when I saw her being driven to the office, with a bruised forehead and shock written across her face.
Cindy had the audacity to do that.
I squeezed my phone so hard it shook in my hand. My breathing turned ragged.
Tshabina lied.
That bruise wasn’t from something trivial like a fall.
Cindy didn’t come here only to create drama for my family and me. She came as fuel that kept the flames alive whenever they threatened to die—or worse, made them spread.
Made the fire I fought so hard to smother roar back to life, bigger, broader, consuming everything good left within me.
Dozens, even hundreds of times, I tried to rid myself of Cindy. Not just me, even my elder brother and Zeraiah. From the gentlest methods to the harshest, we tried them all. But like Ivy, she endured, spread wider.
We nearly succeeded. But that damn woman had something—something my brother and I almost managed to erase.
Photos and videos of Zeraiah and me.
She had thousands. The moment I saw them, my stomach twisted as if it were being stirred from the inside, and my eyes set on fire. Photos she used to threaten me with, again and again—until I wanted to kill her.
The mere thought of those files in her hands made my skin feel itchy, making me want to claw at my own flesh until I bled out the memory of her touch.
No matter how many times we, even Zaeem’s people, had hacked her devices, she always had it. Copied, backed up, hidden. Every time we deleted one, ten more seemed to flicker to life on a different drive, device, memory card, flash disk, or hidden cloud.
Her insanity had to be stopped, I knew. But no matter how indifferent I tried to be about the consequences, there was still Zeraiah. Acting rashly would only hurt him more, and I couldn’t bear to wound him again. Not after all the chaos he’d already enduredbecause of me.
I dragged everyone into my pain. My suffering entangled them, stained them.
Or perhaps I was the parasite all along…
Cindy knew exactly where to press.
