Page 37 of Crushed Vow (Broken Vows #2)

CHARLOTTE

My breath hitched. I tried to look away, to escape what I already knew I’d hear, but his hand held me there—soft but unrelenting. Anchoring me to him.

“Do you...” My voice cracked, and I hated how much hope trembled behind the words.

“Do you truly love me? Or is this just some sick obsession? Some broken part of you acting out trauma? Is this about the vault? The inheritance? My name?”

Cassian leaned in, close enough that his breath stirred the strands of my hair.

His voice wrapped around me like a wound—and like a balm.

“I divorced you, Charlotte,” he said quietly. “Officially. Legally. Publicly. I made sure of it, so you’d never think I was like Luca. So you’d never mistake what I feel for strategy.”

He swallowed. His jaw clenched.

“I don’t give a damn about that vault. I would rather burn that money than let it make you doubt me for one more second.”

His hands trembled slightly as he placed them on either side of me, as if he couldn’t bear not to be touching me while he said this.

“I love you,” he said, and it wasn’t gentle this time. It was rough. Real. “I love you in a way that devours me. That rots me from the inside. That drives me to kill and bleed and kneel and fucking beg.”

His voice broke.

“I know I’m not the man you deserve. I’m not Ethan. I’m not noble. I’m not clean. I’ve got blood on every part of me, Charlotte—even my soul.”

“But the only reason it still beats is because of you.”

“I mutilate monsters because I can’t stand the thought of them touching you.

I erase threats because I don’t know any other way to keep you safe.

You think I’m obsessed?” He let out a bitter laugh.

“I am. You are the air I breathe. The sound I chase in silence. I have audio recordings of your laugh. I fall asleep to them like lullabies. I’ve memorized the rhythm of your footsteps like a song. ”

“I don’t want anyone else. I can’t even see clearly anymore, and yet I’d know your silhouette in a room full of ghosts.”

He pressed his forehead to mine.

“And if you walked away now, I’d follow. Not to stop you. Just to make sure you didn’t fall.”

Silence stretched thick between us.

He was breathing hard. Not with rage—but with grief. The kind that cracks ribs and bends bone.

Then, softly:

“I love you, Charlotte. In every way a man shouldn’t love someone. And I’d give everything just to be the kind of man you could love back.”

His voice faltered, trembling, as if every word cost him a piece of his soul.

“Every night, I fall asleep to your voice. Your laugh. I have recordings—voicemails, security tapes, fragments from the times you were with Ethan. I loop them like lullabies, because without them, the silence drives me insane. I can’t sleep unless I hear you.

Even if it’s fake. Even if it’s stolen.”

He swallowed hard, eyes fixed on mine, guilt etched into every line of his face.

“Some nights, I sit outside your door and just... listen. For your footsteps. For your breathing. Just so I know you’re still here. Still alive. I see you walking around this house like a ghost and I know I did that to you. I ruined the girl who used to laugh like the world couldn’t touch her.”

He dropped his hand from my jaw to my knee, holding it like a prayer he didn’t deserve to speak.

“I regret every second of it. All of it. Not just the chains or the words I carved into you, but the moments I should’ve held you and didn’t.

The times I could’ve told you the truth and chose control instead.

The night I told the doctors to let your mother die.

.. I stole that decision from you, Charlotte.

You weren’t even present, and I played God. And I’d do anything to take it back.”

He drew a shaky breath, eyes glistening.

His voice broke completely then.

“I see your pain when you think no one’s watching. But I’m always watching. Through the cameras. Through the cracks. Not to control you—God, never again—but because I’m terrified. Terrified you’ll disappear again and I’ll never find you.”

“I know I don’t deserve another chance. I know I’ve scorched every bridge between us. But I need you to know—what I feel for you... it’s not obsession. It’s not about vaults or revenge or some twisted idea of ownership. It’s grief. It’s worship. It’s love so deep it makes breathing hurt.”

I stared at him through the blur of my tears, chest rising with each trembling breath.

The urn pressed to my heart. A reminder of everything I’d lost.

His hands trembled on the floor. “When I asked you to watch a movie with me,” Cassian said hoarsely, “and you refused...”

He trailed off. His throat worked like he was trying to swallow glass.

“I went to the corner of my study,” he continued, his voice cracking, “and I lost control.”

He didn’t look at me. His fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles flexing like they remembered the damage.

“I punched the wall. Over and over. Until the plaster cracked. Until the blood started to splatter on the white paint. I didn’t stop.

My knuckles tore open. I think I hit bone.

And I still didn’t stop. Because for a moment, that pain—” he exhaled, broken, “—it was the only thing louder than the sound of you saying no.”

He finally turned to look at me. “It hurt, Charlotte. Not because you rejected the movie. But because you couldn’t even sit beside me for an hour. Because the thought of being close to me made you sick.”

His voice dipped lower, eerily calm, but underneath it trembled devastation.

“It kills me,” he whispered, “that every time you look at me, you see a monster. And maybe I am. Maybe that’s all I’ve ever been.

I know how to destroy. I was raised in violence.

Molded by it. Love was never something I was taught—only possession, punishment, war.

But I’m trying. I swear to God, I’m trying.

I just... I don’t know how to love without bleeding for it. ”

My heart felt like it was collapsing under the weight of his sorrow.

I reached out, hand trembling, and touched his cheek.

His skin was warm. Damp.

His mouth parted slightly, like something inside him was trying to crawl free.

But no words came.

“Cassian...” I whispered. “Please... let me go.”

He flinched. Like the words struck deeper than any knife I could’ve held.

“Charlotte—”

“No.” My voice was shaking. But I didn’t back down. “Listen to me.”

He stilled, breath shallow.

“I need space. A new city. New air. New people. New bonds.” My voice cracked. “Everything here—everything tied to you—is suffocating me. I can’t breathe.”

His jaw tensed. But he didn’t speak.

“My mental health is spiraling, Cassian. I’m not just hurting—I’m vanishing.

” I pressed a hand to my chest, gasping through tears.

“I stabbed myself. I don’t even remember doing it.

I disassociated so badly I forgot I had a body.

I had a full psychotic break. If I stay here—around the cameras, the ghosts, the memories—I will die. ”

He inhaled sharply. Like I’d yanked his soul from his lungs.

“I will kill myself,” I whispered, “and you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if it was because you couldn’t let me breathe.”

He looked like he was unraveling—like the air had been knocked out of him and he didn’t know how to fill his lungs again.

His jaw locked. His mouth trembled like he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the language for agony.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t let you go.”

“You have to.” My voice cracked under the weight of it. “Send me away. Just nine months. That’s all I’m asking.”

He shook his head slowly, eyes dark, unbelieving.

“I won’t see any man,” I promised, words tumbling out like a vow. “I know what’s at stake. If I make friends, they’ll be women. But I need no calls. No texts. No voice notes. No shadows. No one watching me.”

I sobbed. “I need it, Cassian. I need it. For me to ever heal. For me to stop wanting to die. For me to maybe...” My voice collapsed. “Maybe feel like a woman again.”

He said nothing. But something in him cracked open completely.

“I want therapy. Twice a week. CBT, DBT, trauma reprocessing—whatever works.” My breath hitched.

“I want to explore the possibility of breast reconstruction. I want to stop taping foam to my chest like I’m some kind of shameful accident.

I want to wear a shirt and not feel like I’m a wound pretending to be a body. ”

I wiped at my face. “Just let me go. Somewhere without eyes on my scars. Somewhere I’m not being watched through your goddamn CCTV.”

Cassian’s expression shattered. Whatever piece of him had been holding together—it broke.

“If you leave...” he said, hoarse, barely audible, “I will die.”

“No.” I stepped forward and our lips brushed—barely, like a dying prayer. His breath caught.

“You won’t,” I whispered. “It’s not forever. Just nine months.”

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine again. I felt his breath against my skin—uneven, like every inhale might be his last.

His heart was pounding.

“I’m dying, Charlotte,” he murmured.

My body froze. “What... what do you mean?”

His throat moved with effort. “The fire. The smoke inhalation didn’t just take my eyes.” His breath rattled. “It damaged my lungs. Scarred them. I cough blood now. I barely sleep. I’m on oxygen when I’m alone.”

My chest hollowed. “Cassian...”

He lifted his head just enough to meet my eyes again. “I’m not sure I’ll still be here when you return.”

Silence fell between us like a tomb.

“That’s why I’m begging you,” he said, voice frayed. “Please... don’t leave me.”

Tears blurred my vision. I shook my head through them, desperate.

“I have to,” I whispered. “You want me to be whole again, don’t you? This is the only way.”

He was shaking. Breathing unevenly.

“Where will you go?”

“Somewhere safe,” I said. “A quiet city. Maybe in the U.S. Maybe abroad. Somewhere you won’t follow me. Somewhere I can... begin again.”

His jaw tensed. He didn’t argue. Not out loud.