Page 131 of Crushed Vow

“What does it matter, Cassian?” My voice cracked from exhaustion and fury. “Love doesn’t erase what you did. Love doesn’t stitch up scars or make trauma vanish. You’ve hurt me, over and over—and I will never forgive you. So stop asking me about love like it’s some magical cure.”

He didn’t flinch. Instead, he stepped closer.

The sound of his boots thudding against the floor was slow and deliberate. Each step made my heart pound harder in my chest until he towered over me where I sat curled on the couch, the urn the only thing separating us. His shadow stretched over me.

“Aren’t you supposed to hate someone you hold a grudge against?” he asked, his voice low, almost coaxing. “Then answer me, Charlotte. Do. You. Love. Me?”

I opened my mouth to lash out, to spit another cruel truth at him—

But he reached into his coat and pulled something out.

A leather journal. Old and battered. Its corners were worn, its spine cracked, pages yellowed from time and handling.

He didn’t force it into my hands.

He knelt. Slowly. As if bowing before something sacred. As if I were something sacred.

Then, with a trembling hand, he placed it gently in my lap.

“Open it,” he whispered.

I stared at the journal, frozen. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

My fingers trembled as I cracked it open.

His handwriting filled every line. Dark ink, sharp strokes, obsessively neat. Dated entries. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. My eyes scanned the first few.

March 3, 2024:

I chained her today. Collared her. Dragged her like an animal across the floor from the living room to the bedroom. I made her crawl—on her knees—for me.

I told myself it was dominance. That it was power. But when I looked down at her, all I saw was terror.

Not respect. Not desire.

Just a woman I shattered.

And still, I forced her mouth open. Still, I shoved myself past her lips and made her take me like some broken toy I could bend into pleasure. She gagged. I didn’t stop.

God, I didn’t stop.

I finished in her mouth, then told her she looked like a boy. That her chest—flat after surgery—was repulsive.

I couldn’t bear to look at her face. So I turned her around. Took her from behind like she was nothing. Like she didn’t deserve to be seen.

She didn’t cry.

That was the worst part.

She didn’t cry—she went silent.

And I think that’s the day something inside her died.

June 8, 2024:

I broke her.

Fully. Completely.