Page 89 of Cara

My chest tightens, my body aching to feel anything but restraint. My legs stumble over the sand dunes until my feet meet the wet shoreline. Without hesitation, I stride into the restless waves, driven by something beyond sense.

The waves pound against my delicate frame, powerless to withstand their force. Rather than struggle, I shut my eyes and descend. Deep, deep into the depths, just as I witnessed Xavier doing through the windows earlier today. In a place like this, you can surrender it all.

The rage. The anger. The desperation. Hopelessness.

Let the water wash it away. Let it try.

My straining eyes reopen, and I’m enveloped in darkness, granted a momentary reprieve. The demons struggle to find me here. Not even the crashing waves over my head terrify me as much as they do.

But they always find me.

The past topples over my head, an onslaught of memories tearing me apart, memories I can’t bear to relive.

Decades in my father’s lifeless home, nothing but a pawn to an evil man who somehow fails to rival my father-in-law.

Most of my life has been spent in some form of prison, surrounded by those determined to erase my very being.

That unloved feeling shouldn’t overshadow the immense love Xavier provides, yet its strength is overwhelming, having built over the years. Thomas was the catalyst—the first person to suffer for loving me. I was never able to repay him, just as I’ll never be able to repay Xavier.

His love requires no payment.

I nod to myself, a tightness building in my esophagus.

Breathe. You need to breathe.

The depths of my panic are strong enough to anchor me and keep me from breaking the surface. Many times now, I’ve lost myself like this. In a hotel room with my fiancé, his hands capturing my carved wrists, the wounds healed only on the outside. When my father’s hands curled around my throat on the night of my wedding, determined to drown out my voice, even if that meant forever. In that fucking cell—so many times. I lost count over the last four years. This morning was just another episode… except it happened at my most vulnerable. At his.

My bodyyearnsfor him. The fact that it can’t decipher his touch and theirs infuriates me.

They can’t win.

None of them. Not Vito. Not Arturo. Not those bastards who followed their orders.

Breathe. You need to breathe, Sophie.

My eyes locate the surface and that soft, inviting light. The ripples of rain already dancing upon the sloshing water. My heart pounds as fast as that reverberating metal rolling across the sea.

You need tobreathe.

That burning, that desperation, builds into something impossible to withstand. My body tenses, my hands covering my face as I will it all to cease.

Letgo.

Let it all go.

Fucking hell, youdeserveit.

The Atlantic swallows my piercing scream, hurling it all into the dark abyss. It’s endless, mighty, carrying the unbearable weight of my life—until it isn’t. Until hands are seizing me from above, dragging me out of the depths.

Xavier’s eyes are wide with terror, his drenched hair plastered to his skin as the waves come crashing. He captures my face furiously, shaking me. “What thefuckare youdoing?”

Coughing, trying to figure out how to breathe properly again, I grab his wrists. He growls, yanking my hand, tugging me towards shore.

Tension hasn’t left my body—It’stransformed.

My eyes, still disoriented, fall to our hands, to his fingers squeezing warmth back into mine, easing the stiffness. They drift to the sheer fabric clinging to his back, dipping into the crevices of his muscles that strain as he battles the water.

Don’t fight it.