Page 18 of Crushed Vow (Broken Vows #2)

CHARLOTTE

The kitchen smelled like smoke and eggs.

My hands trembled as I stirred the pan, the yolk bubbling, spitting grease. The sun had barely risen, but rage had already settled in my bones like rot.

Cassian fucking lied to me.

I stood stiff, barefoot on the cold tile, my fingers curling around the spatula like it was a weapon. My chest burned, not from the heat—but from the call I’d received last night.

A doctor had called. Through the central estate line. Said he was from one of the top psychiatric hospitals in New York.

He said he used to treat my mother.

He said Cassian brought her in after the last violent episode, after she clawed a nurse’s eye, after she tried to bite through her restraints.

He said Cassian signed the order to put her to sleep. Quietly. Legally. Discreetly.

“She wasn’t going to survive the month,” the man had said gently. “But the pain was out of control. She begged. And Mr. Moretti... he did what any son would do for his mother.”

Except she wasn’t his mother.

She was mine.

And he never told me. He let me believe she died naturally—after the madness had taken her. But no. He’d chosen for her. Like he always chose for me. Like I was too small, too fragile, too broken to deserve the truth.

He took that decision from me. Like he took everything else.

I was so angry I could barely breathe. It felt like betrayal stacked on top of betrayal, like the weight of every lie he ever told was finally crushing me.

My hand slipped. The spatula clattered against the stovetop, egg sliding off the pan, sizzling on the flame.

I snapped.

I grabbed the pan and smashed it against the counter.

Once.

Twice.

Over and over.

Egg and oil and porcelain splattered the tiles, a storm of mess and fury.

“I hate you,” I hissed under my breath. “I hate you. I hope the fire swallowed you whole.”

I stood there panting, hands braced on the counter, shaking uncontrollably when I felt something shift behind me—a shadow falling across the wall.

I turned.

Cassian.

Standing just a few feet away.

He wore dark clothes and a pair of sleek, medical glasses tinted like shadows. His skin was unburnt. He wasn’t a ghost. He was alive.

My mouth went dry.

“You made it out,” I said flatly.

He didn’t answer. Just stood there like a statue, and I realized... he was looking toward me, but not at me.

Something was off in his eyes.

I stormed past him without another word. My heart slammed against my chest, every beat a reminder that he was still here.

Why couldn’t he have just stayed gone?

“We need to talk,” I snapped.

The living room was dim, early light filtering in through the windows. I stood in the middle, arms crossed, as he followed—each step slower than the last. He reached the nearest armchair and nearly missed it before sinking into it stiffly, his hands trailing over the fabric like he couldn’t see it.

I stared.

He was walking like someone who couldn’t see clearly.

But I didn’t care.

Not now.

“You had my mother killed, didn’t you?”

He didn’t flinch.

“Answer me,” I barked. “You lied to me. You told me she died. Naturally. Like her heart just stopped on its own.”

He exhaled. Leaned forward slightly, fingers twitching over the edge of his knee.

“I saved your life,” he said. His voice low, raw. “I dragged myself through fire. Nearly died to get you out. And this is the first thing you want to talk about?”

“Don’t you dare make yourself the victim.”

He stilled.

“You want me to thank you for setting her up in some private ward, only to put her down like a dog when it became too hard to manage?” My voice cracked. “You killed her, Cassian. You took that from me.”

“Where did you hear this?” he asked quietly.

“Does it matter?” I spit. “Did you do it or not?”

A pause.

Then, finally, a slow nod. “Yes. I gave the order. But—”

“But what?!” I screamed. “She was my mother! I should’ve been the one to decide! You had no right.”

He pushed up from the chair suddenly, stumbling slightly like his world tilted differently now. “She was in pain, Charlotte. Screaming. Begging. The doctors—”

“I don’t care what they said. You lied.” My hands trembled as I backed away. “And you wonder why I divorced you. Why I left.”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to break what little was left of you.”

“You broke me the moment you told me to get out of your study—after calling me the slutty daughter of a whore,” I hissed.

“Then why did you cry when you thought I died?”

I froze.

“Why did you beg me to live in that fire, Charlotte? Why did you kiss me like you hadn’t already walked away?”

Silence.

“Because,” I said shakily, “I didn’t want you to die before I had the chance to hate you properly.”

He stood there, chest rising and falling.

“You ruined me.” I whispered.

The silence between us grew dense. Charged. Like the moments before a storm.

“Sit, Charlotte,” he said, low but firm.

“Don’t use that voice on me, Cassian.” I turned toward the door, pulse pounding. “We’re divorced. You don’t get to order me around anymore. You don’t get to tell me to sit—not after what you did to me.”

I grabbed the handle, ready to go. “I’m leaving.”

“There’s a war outside,” he said. “There’s a bounty on your head.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’d rather take my chances out there than rot in here with you.”

He said nothing.

“I want the house across the estate. You said it’s yours. Fine—I’ll take it. But don’t you dare step foot in it. Don’t call. Don’t send flowers. Don’t try.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded slowly. “Fine. But you’re not allowed to have visitors. Not Ethan. Not Vincent.”

“You want me isolated,” I said flatly. “That’s what you’ve always wanted.”

“It’s protection.”

“No,” I shot back. “It’s control.”

He didn’t deny it. Just said, “Take it or leave it.”

I bit my lip hard, fury rising—and yet underneath it, the ache of knowing he was right. I had nowhere else to go. Damn him. He knew I had no real choice.

“I want the key. To the house across from yours. The one you said I could have.”

He patted his chest. “Breast pocket. Come and take it yourself.”

Arrogant bastard.

I crossed the room, every step thick with resentment. My hand slipped into his jacket—and the scent of him hit me.

Clean linen. Smoke. And something darker. Something that used to mean home.

My fingers brushed the metal key, but I didn’t pull away immediately. I felt the heat of him, the way his chest rose and fell beneath my palm. Felt his nearness like a wound reopening.

I hated him.

God, I hated him.

And yet... my hand trembled.

Touching him pulled at a part of me I didn’t want to remember.

A part that still ached for him.

I turned to leave but paused in the doorway.

My voice barely came out.

“And the glasses?” I asked, quietly. “Why are you wearing them?”

His mouth tilted in a bitter smile. “My sight’s gone.”

I turned back fully, shock spreading cold through my veins.

“What?”

“I lost it in the fire,” he said. “It was already failing. The damage started after you left. I stood on a cliff most nights, wondering if it was time to jump.”

I froze, stomach twisting.

“I chained my therapist to me. Told him to stop me if I ever climbed the rail.”

“Cassian...”

“Don’t pity me,” he said coldly. “This is what I deserve. I broke you, Charlotte. The eyes I used to mock your scars... the ones that watched you fall apart and did nothing—I’m glad they’re gone.”

“Then how did you even walk in here?”

“These glasses help a little. The world’s just... shadows and light now. I can’t see your scars anymore, Charlotte. But your face is carved into me.”

I felt like my ribs cracked.

“How will you even live like this?” I asked.

“I’ll manage. As long as I know you’re safe, I can breathe.”

I took a step back. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t fall again. I wouldn’t.

“Well, if you need help, call the staff. Not me.”

He nodded once. “Fair. But if you need anything... even just a voice in the dark... call me.”

I left without another word.

But his broken voice stayed with me.

The new house was sterile and quiet.

The kind of quiet that made your ears ring—like grief after a funeral.

Cassian’s men had stocked it with food, clothes, even toiletries I hadn’t asked for. Everything in its place. Perfect. Controlled.

Like him.

I stood in the center of the living room, staring at nothing. The windows overlooked the lawn, the driveway, the house across the estate.

His house.

I should’ve drawn the curtains. Should’ve turned away. But instead, I stood there and watched.

He was sitting in his garden. Alone.

A blanket draped over his legs. Those strange glasses still on his face. His shoulders hunched in that way they only did when he was in pain.

It hit me then—just how blind he really was.

Not just figuratively. But truly, physically lost in his own home, in the aftermath of everything he’d destroyed.

I should’ve hated him.

God, I did.

I hated what he did to me.

Hated that he gave the order to have my mother put to sleep—without telling me, without giving me the chance to see her one last time.

Knowing I’d spent the past ten years of my life searching for her.

That my entire existence had revolved around the hope of finding her.

I hated him for taking that from me.

I hated him for the bruises he left on my heart even more than the ones he left on my skin.

But there was something even more damning than hate.

Grief.

Because somewhere in that grief, I still remembered how it felt to sleep beside him. How his arms used to wrap around me like armor. How he used to press his lips to my forehead and whisper, “You’re safe now.”

He used to look at me like I was his world.

Now he couldn’t look at me at all.

I backed away from the window, breath ragged, hand trembling against the sill.

I felt suffocated.

I tried to cook something just to stay busy, but I ended up burning the rice. Threw the pot in the sink and watched steam rise from the mess like smoke from the fire we’d just escaped.