Page 75 of Crushed Vow

He had no right—but he gave the order anyway.

“She’s in too much pain,” he said, as if that made it merciful. As if that made him God. As if he had any fucking right to end her life like that—to choose for her, to choose for me.

He didn’t just kill her. He killed the hope I lived on.

I closed my eyes under the stream and leaned against the tile, letting the guilt of wanting him battle the rage of remembering him.

Yes, the sex had been incredible—aching, raw, consuming—but it was not enough. It could never erase what he did to me.

When I emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, the bed was empty.

He was gone.

The room felt colder without him. But I told myself it was good that he’d left.

That was—until I saw the bouquet sitting on the center of the bed.

A vibrant arrangement of deep red roses and tiny, silvery blooms. Something romantic. And understated. The kind of thing Cassian would never send in the past.

Too thoughtful.

I walked over slowly, the scent hitting me before I touched them—rich, velvety, painfully clean.

It was the second bouquet he’d given me in less than a week.

When we were married, he never once brought me flowers. Not even after he broke me.

Only pain. Only silence. Only chains and all the cruel ways... he called that love?

My throat tightened unexpectedly. My fingers brushed the petals as I sat on the bed, and nestled among them was a folded piece of paper.

His handwriting. Slanted, sharp—but legible.

“Our biking championship for this year is starting again. If you’d like to join me at training this afternoon, call me.

Cassian.”

A breath caught in my throat. He could’ve told me before he left. But he didn’t.

He wrote it down.

I traced the letters with my thumb, the lines neat—surprisingly neat for a man with barely any vision left.

How had he even managed that? Were his hands still so trained by memory that he could write blind?

And the bike? My heart clenched at the thought.

How could he still race like this? He couldn’t see. Not fully. His world was blurry shadows and fractured light, and yet... he was going back into the one place that required perfect focus, precision, speed.

Why?

To prove something? Or was it penance?

I didn’t know if I could go. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything to do with him right now—not after the mess he left behind in my life.

But I also didn’t want to sit here alone. Waiting. Thinking. Drowning in silence.

My stomach grumbled, pulling me back to the present. I stood and walked to the kitchen, needing something simple to fill the emptiness.