Page 37 of Crushed Vow

I gritted my teeth and reached for my phone. If he wouldn’t come to me—then I was dragging this chaos to him.

I turned away from Luca and headed back toward the main hall, my heels clicking faster now. But he followed—relentless.

“Even if it takes ten years for you to realize I’m the one for you, I’ll wait,” he called out behind me.

Just as I reached the hallway’s edge, his hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me back. My back hit the wall with a dull thud.

“Let go!” I screamed, kicking him in the groin.

He grunted, but recovered fast, slapping me hard across the face. Pain bloomed white behind my eyes.

“Stop kicking me, Charlotte. I’m not the monster here,” he growled, breath hot and sour against my cheek.

I struggled, his body too close, his weight suffocating.

I kicked again, harder. He staggered back just enough, and I broke free, darting to the nearest support beam. I grabbed a metal pole and charged—but he caught it, using his forearm to block the blow, then pinned me again with a violent shove.

“Wait! Just listen to me—”

But I wasn’t there anymore.

My breath came ragged. Cold sweat clung to my back. The club melted around me. The flashing lights blurred into the strobe of psych ward torture drills. The music distorted into shrill alarms. Luca’s face shifted—became Nurse Callahan’s. Or Dr. Hargrove. I didn’t know.

I screamed. A full-body, soul-breaking scream. The kind that shreds your throat on the way out. My nails raked the wall, my legs collapsed beneath me.

Luca let go instantly, stumbling back. “What the—?”

I turned to him, trembling violently. “Don’t—don’t inject me again. I’ve been good. I’ve been good, haven’t I? Don’t lock me down again. Please don’t sedate me—”

He stared, dumbfounded.

The world tipped sideways. I turned left and saw Cassian. Right—and Ethan, now sporting a thick bandage beneath his jaw.

But something was wrong.

Cassian looked like Ethan. Ethan looked like Cassian.

I couldn’t tell who was who. Three men around me. Two familiar. One evil. But the evil one—the doctor—was still here.

I ran blindly to the left, collapsing into someone’s arms. “He’s hurting me,” I cried. “That doctor—he tied me down, said I was broken. Said I’d hallucinated the real world. He tried to make me forget who I was...”

The arms around me tightened. Warm. Steady. Safe.

Not Cassian’s scent.

Ethan.

Cassian charged at Luca with a roar, and suddenly chaos erupted. Fists. Blood. Screams.

Luca slammed into the bar, but Cassian didn’t stop—he kept hitting, like he wanted to erase him from the earth.

I clung tighter to Ethan, turning my face into his chest as the crowd gasped.

“Don’t leave me,” I begged when he tried to pull away. “Please, Ethan—don’t go.”

“I need to help him—”

“No,” I sobbed. “Please stay. You’re the only one who didn’t hurt me.”