Page 41 of Before Broken Vows

My stomach churns. "Is Theo here?" I ask, moving toward the coffee pot.

Her mouth tightens. "No."

"When will he be back?"

She turns toward the pantry but doesn't look at me. "He didn't say."

"Elena—"

But she's already walking away, leaving me alone in the vast kitchen.

I reach for the envelope with unsteady fingers. What happened between last night and this morning? When I went to bed, thingsbetween Theo and me were tense but not unfixable. Now, Elena can barely look at me, and Theo has left me a note instead of speaking to me.

I tear open the envelope, unfolding the single sheet inside.

I have to leave on business. You have three days until I return. That's it. Tell me everything or get the fuck out.

I press my lips together as my chest cracks open. There's no greeting. No signature. Just a demand and a deadline.

I read it again.

And again.

As if the words might soften. As if they might change if I give them time.

They don't.

I flatten the paper against the counter, trying to steady my fingers. The message is cold. Detached. Furious between the lines.

This isn't the Theo who touched my scar yesterday, whose fingers lingered on my skin, who looked at me with something unspoken burning behind his eyes. This is the other side of him. The monster. The strategist. The man who leaves bodies in warehouses with their throats slit.

I move through the kitchen like I'm sleepwalking, reheating coffee just for something to do. Elena doesn't return, and the house becomes too quiet yet again.

The hours crawl by.

I shower. Pace. Try to eat and fail. I sit with my own pen and paper and attempt to draft what I'd say if Theo were standing in front of me.

Theo,

There's no easy way to write this. I've sat with these words for four years, afraid of what they might do to you… to us. But the longer I stay silent, the heavier it gets.

You deserve to know why I left. The real reason. Not the version you might've told yourself. Not the silence I left behind.

It's about something that happened right before I disappeared. Something that changed everything.

And I've carried it alone, every day, because I thought it would protect you. But maybe all it did was keep you in the dark…

I stop and crumble it up out of frustration. No matter what I write, nothing feels right.

By late afternoon, I've stopped trying. I sit curled in the armchair by the window in my room, eyes unfocused on the garden beyond the glass. The note, his note, sits folded on my nightstand. I think I've read it over so many times the way Theo shapes his letters is burned into my thoughts.

And it's clear Elena is avoiding me. I catch glimpses of her moving through the halls, but she never speaks. Never evenlooks over in my direction. Never comes to check on me. Never speaks.

I suppose I don't blame her.

Loyalty is big in Theo's life, which means in this house it's earned, not assumed. And I've done nothing to earn hers since returning. I can only imagine what she thinks of me. What Theo's told her about me since I left.

The sky starts to darken, the light outside fading into violet shadows. I change into a clean shirt and leggings and sit back on the bed, legs tucked beneath me.