Page 7 of Crushed Vow

He blinked, stunned. “Charlotte... that’s not true.”

“No,” I snapped. “But it didn’t have to be, did it?”

My voice cracked, bitterness slicing through every word.

“You let it be true. You let them erase me—and you didn’t come.”

“I never touched another woman,” he said, voice cracking like glass. “I’ve been looking for you since the day you left. And when I couldn’t find you... I started losing my mind.”

I flinched when he reached for my arm. His fingers brushed my skin and I recoiled like I’d been burned.

“You said I was nothing. That I was filth. The slutty daughter of a whore. And then you let me walk out—straight into a trap.”

His expression shattered. “I know. And I regret it every fucking day. But Charlotte... please, don’t think I gave up.”

“Then where the hell were you?”

Ethan’s voice sliced between us like a scalpel. “That’s enough.”

He stepped forward, placing himself slightly in front of me.

“You’re in my home, Mr. Moretti. And I’ve been patient. But if you take one more step toward her, I’ll call the police.”

Cassian turned, slow and deliberate, like death incarnate. “You call the cops—and I’ll make sure they find your body before they find your jaw.

“Cassian!” I stepped between them, chest heaving. “Don’t touch him. Don’t even look at him like that.”

Cassian’s voice dropped to a snarl. “He’s harboring my wife.”

“Charlotte’s not your anything anymore,” Ethan said. “You lost the right to her when you abandoned her to hell.”

“You don’t get to say her name,” Cassian said, stepping forward.

But Ethan held his ground.

And I’d had enough.

“You don’t get to walk in here and treat him like shit,” I said to Cassian, my voice shaking. “He’s the reason I got out of that hell. The reason I’m not still locked in a padded room, drugged out of my mind. The reason I can breathe again.”

Cassian turned to me, a storm behind his eyes—grief, anger, something dangerously close to desperation.

“You’re coming with me.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Charlotte—”

“I want a divorce.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

Cassian blinked once. Slowly. Then laughed—but it wasn’t amused. It was hollow. Disbelieving. A man unraveling and pretending not to.

“You think I’m letting you go?” he said, voice low, deadly calm. “You think you get to leave me twice?”

I didn’t flinch. Not this time.

“We were never something I chose,” I said. “You dragged me into your world. You made me your wife out of spite. And now you want to pretend there’s love in it?”