Page 86 of Crushed Vow

They all saw me now as something broken.

My hands trembled. I touched my chest, then jerked my hand away. I hated her—the woman in the mirror. I hated everything she reminded me of.

I let out a strangled scream and slammed my fist into the mirror. The glass cracked with a sharp snap, pain blooming in my knuckles. I didn’t stop. I hit it again, harder, then again, each strike a desperate plea to feel something—anything that wasn’t this shame.

Blood seeped from my hand, warm and sticky, trickling down my wrist, staining the floor in crimson droplets. I didn’t care. The pain was a lifeline, a tether to a reality I could control.

My breath came in ragged gasps, my hand trembling as I reached for a broken piece, the glass cool and sharp against my skin. It seemed to pulse, as if it knew the dark thoughts swirling in my mind, like it knew what I was thinking.

I could do it. End it here. No more humiliation. No more looks. No more standing in crowds while people laugh, whilestrangers take photos of the ‘flat-chested girl,’ while Cassian leans against a pillar and smokes like I’m invisible.

If I just press it against my throat...

At least then I’d be free. Maybe I’d be reborn as someone better. Someone whole. Maybe an angel in a new world, untouched by pain and poison and love that destroys you.

Then the knock came.

Loud. Demanding. Shaking the door like it was the only thing between me and the edge.

I didn’t move.

“Charlotte,” Cassian’s voice came through.

Of course it was him. The last person I wanted to see. The only person I still wanted to see.

I walked to the door. Every step felt like dragging chains across a floor already stained with old blood.

“Go away,” I snapped, voice hoarse from crying, from screaming, from surviving.

There was a pause—long enough that I thought maybe he’d listen. Maybe, for once, he’d take the hint.

But then his voice came. Quiet. Too calm.

“Charlotte,” he said, like my name was a prayer. Like it was a noose. “Open the door.”

I stood there, naked but for a pair of panties, broken and bleeding. I didn’t care. I wanted him to break the door down. I wanted him to find my body. To see what his silence did.

“Leave and never come back!” I screamed, chest heaving.

His voice was soft. Too soft. It cut through me. “Charlotte... I just need to see you,” he murmured. “For a second.”

I slammed my palm against the door.

“I said go,” I repeated, sharper this time. “Haven’t you done enough?”

There was silence for a beat. Then he spoke.

“I protected your friend. Ethan. I could’ve let him die. I wanted to. But I didn’t. He would’ve bled out in hours from that infected wound if I hadn’t ordered my men to get him proper care.”

He paused, breathing hard.

“I hated him,” he admitted, “but I saved him because he matters to you. That’s how much I still—” He cut off. “But you—”

His voice shifted, roughened.

“You walked away from me. You disrespected me by throwing yourself at a man who immediately looked at the one thing he knew would hurt you most. Do you know how hard it was to stand there and not gut him?”

“Why didn’t you?!” I cried. “Why didn’t you protect me?”