Page 35 of Crushed Vow (Broken Vows #2)

CHARLOTTE

Cassian turned without another word, walking away from the brutal scene like a man possessed. I watched, confused, my blood still cold from what had just unfolded. My gaze followed him—until he stepped into my room.

What the hell was he doing?

“Brooks,” I called out, still shaken. “I know you only answer to your boss, but please... leave Manuel out of this.”

Brooks didn’t move. Not a twitch.

I took a breath and tried again. “Brooks, come on. Are you seriously going to kill an innocent man?”

“Innocent?” came a voice that twisted my stomach into knots.

Cassian emerged again—but this time, he was holding something in his hand.

My mother’s urn.

No.

My heart stuttered. My legs gave out for a second. I couldn’t breathe. “The fuck are you doing with my mother’s urn?” I whispered, already stumbling forward. “Cassian, that’s the only thing I have left of her. That’s all I have.”

That urn wasn’t just ashes—it was sanctuary. It was the last piece of her I’d clung to through the dark. I talked to it at night. Held it when I was breaking. It was all that survived the fire, the betrayal, the silence.

And now he was holding it like it was a prop.

Cassian’s face was a thundercloud of fury. And then—God—he unscrewed the lid.

“I’ll empty it,” he said, his voice low and trembling with rage. “And you’ll watch me do it.”

My knees buckled. “No. No, Cassian, please—” I reached for it, my fingers trembling. “You’ve hurt me enough. If you do this—if you do this—my hatred for you will be irreversible. You already had her killed. Don’t make me lose her again.”

He tilted the urn slightly, and a fine shimmer of ash grazed the edge, ready to fall.

Tears flooded my eyes. A scream caught in my throat. “Please—please stop! That urn is everything to me! In my culture, you don’t pour the ashes of the dead. It’s a desecration. Their soul gets lost. It’s like killing them again.”

I collapsed to my knees, hands outstretched. “Please don’t take her from me again.”

Silence.

Then—he paused.

His jaw clenched, his face hollow with something like guilt. He sealed the urn back, then slowly walked over and placed it in my hands.

I clutched it to my chest like a lifeline, sobbing into it. He almost took her again.

The room was dead silent.

I glanced up through my tears—and saw the three men staring at me.

Brooks stood expressionless.

Cassian’s face was unreadable—but the regret there was raw and obvious.

And Manuel—Manuel looked like he’d seen the gates of hell open.

Cassian stepped forward, voice cutting through the stillness. “Brooks.”

In one swift move, Brooks unsheathed his dagger and pressed it to Manuel’s throat, holding him perfectly still.

Cassian’s voice was ice. “Tell her what you planned before I make you bleed to death—slowly.”

Manuel’s voice trembled. “I—I planned to deliver you to Luca. He offered me money. And access to... to you before he took you.”

My stomach twisted violently. “Access?”

“Rape,” Cassian snapped. “He was going to rape you. With Luca’s blessing. That’s the deal. That’s what happens when you go out alone, Charlotte.”

I froze.

That sick feeling that haunted my gut ever since I stepped into Manuel’s car—it had been right.

Cassian turned to him again, deadly calm. “And now you want mercy?”

“I can be useful!” Manuel cried. “I can help bring down Luca—I swear, just give me a chance! Please, my daughter needs me. Her mom’s gone, if you kill me, she ends up in foster care. Please...”

Cassian stared at him for a long moment.

“Okay,” he said finally, his voice deceptively calm. “You’ll live.”

Hope flickered in Manuel’s face.

Cassian walked up to him slowly—too slowly.

Then he whispered, “But you’ll never touch another woman again.”

He gave a subtle gesture.

Brooks grabbed Manuel’s face, forcing his mouth open, his tongue lolling out.

Before I could process what was happening, Cassian took the dagger from Brooks and drove it into Manuel’s tongue with a sickening crunch.

Blood sprayed, a crimson arc splattering across the floor as Manuel’s scream tore through the room, raw and animalistic.

He thrashed like a wounded beast, his body convulsing, his eyes wide with agony as the blade sliced through flesh and bone, severing half his tongue.

The other half of the dagger plunged into his jaw, pinning it in place as blood poured, pooling beneath him.

The sound of his muffled screams, the wet gurgle of his pain, was a nightmare I couldn’t unhear.

I covered my eyes, my stomach churning, bile rising in my throat. The horror unfolded behind my hands, vivid and inescapable.

When I finally lowered them, Manuel was gone, dragged away by Brooks, but the blood remained

The scene replayed in my mind, relentless: the dagger, the blood, the scream. And Luca’s eye, another memory Cassian had seared into me, the way he’d gouged it out without hesitation.

“I don’t want this life,” I sobbed, collapsing onto the floor, the urn still clutched to my chest. “It’s too much, Cassian.

You hurt people, you kill them, you’re a murderer, a psychopath.

I want to be as far from you as possible.

” My voice broke, my words a desperate prayer to a god who wasn’t listening.

Cassian knelt before me, his dagger sheathed, his hands resting on his knees. “If you want to stop putting people’s lives at risk... then stop linking up with them. I hate it. Hate seeing you with another man. Hate thinking about it. And I will never stop.”

I looked up, fury igniting behind my tears. “So I can’t have friends? I’m just... what? Trapped with you forever?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “You are. And I’m sorry I can’t help how I feel about you.”

“You’ll never have my forgiveness,” I said, my voice steady despite the tears streaming down my face. “Never.”

He went quiet, his jaw tightening. “Why?”

“Because you’re irredeemable,” I said, each word a weight dropping between us. “The things you’ve done... they’re too much. You’ve broken me in ways I can’t forgive.”

“I’m just protecting what’s mine,” he said, his voice soft but resolute.

“But I need your forgiveness, Charlotte, even if it doesn’t change who I am. I was raised in blood—killed my own father before I was ten, ended countless lives since. This is my fate, carved into me long before I met you.”

He paused, his gaze dropping to the urn in my arms, then back to my face. “But I never meant to hurt you

He looked up slowly, and for the first time, I saw something broken in his expression.

He swallowed hard. “Do you know I started therapy the day I saw you at that first official dinner with Luca—in my family’s penthouse? Your mother’s betrayal... what she did to mine—it consumed me.”

“I hated you, Charlotte. Hated you so much I wanted to destroy you. But I was also obsessed, drawn to you in a way I couldn’t control. I wanted you to be mine—every part of you, even your last breath.”

He leaned closer, his voice breaking with a rare vulnerability.

“I thought therapy would fix me, make me better for you. But it didn’t.

I still did to you what your mother did to mine—hurt you, broke you.

And the worst part? Watching you walk out of my house, knowing I should’ve stopped you, only for you to be kidnapped and locked in that asylum for a year.

That’s what I can’t forgive myself for.”

His words hung in the air, heavy with regret. “Charlotte, I’m sorry. For everything.”

My eyes stung, dry and sore from crying too much. The pain in my wrist, side, and thigh—old wounds that were still healing—had returned, aching with a deep, steady throb. It felt like my blood was on fire, stirred up by too much grief and fear.

“You’re too broken to be fixed. You’re unlovable.” I said, my voice low and cutting

His face crumpled, “I am... truly unlovable,” he admitted, his voice quiet, his eyes lowering, as if the weight of my words had finally pierced him.

“No one will ever love you like this,” I said, my voice trembling, thick with anger. “You kill without thinking. You mutilate people like it’s just another Tuesday. And your obsession with me—it’s not love, Cassian. It’s toxic. It’s poison.”

I clutched the urn to my chest, the edges digging into my skin, grounding me.

“Why don’t you just live alone? Without a woman to destroy. If you really meant it—if you were truly sorry—you’d let me go.”

His eyes lifted slowly behind those concave glasses, and the moment they locked on mine, something in the air shifted.

“I can’t let you go, Charlotte,” he said, voice rough like gravel. “And I can’t stand the thought of you near another man. I’d burn the world to ash before I let anyone else touch you. Protecting you has made me a monster... but I’ll be that monster every time if it means you stay alive.”

I let out a laugh.

“My mind is gone, Cassian. Do you understand that? I was stabbing myself two nights ago, trying to end it. If you keep me here, one day you’ll walk in and find my body cold on the floor.”

His face twisted, and for the first time, I saw real fear in his eyes.

“Don’t,” he said, voice low and cracked. “Don’t talk about death like that.”

“Why not?” I snapped, “I’m already thinking about it all the time. I already see it every time I close my eyes. What more do you want from me? Do you want to watch it happen?”

His jaw tightened, but his voice came out barely above a whisper.

“Do you love me?”

The question hit like a punch to the ribs. My breath caught.

I stared at him, heart racing.

“Don’t ask me something so stupid,” I choked, voice cracking with disbelief. “Not after everything. Not when I can barely stay alive.”

“No, Charlotte,” he said, his voice too steady, like he was forcing it to hold together. “Answer me. You say I’m irredeemable. You say I ruined you. Fine. Maybe I have. But answer the damn question—do you love me?”

I laughed again, a hysterical sound that clawed its way out of my throat. My fingers tightened around the urn until my knuckles turned white.