Page 69 of Hunted to the Altar

He stayed.

That night, when the lights dimmed and the nurse slipped out of the room, he didn’t move from the chair beside my bed.

He didn’t try to touch me again.

Didn’t try to speak.

Just sat there.

Watching.

Waiting.

I stared at the ceiling, wondering if I’d ever feel anything again. Wondering what came after the kind of loss that scraped you raw inside.

I didn’t have answers.

Only pain.

And the man who caused it, silently breaking beside me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Nina

The penthouse is too clean.

It smells like lemons and money and everything I can’t stomach right now.

I sit on the couch, knees pulled to my chest, the hospital band still on my wrist. My hair smells like iodine and metal. I want to shower but I can’t move yet. My body remembers what the anesthesia erased. It twinges. It throbs. It grieves.

I stare at the band around my wrist. At the name printed neatly in black ink. Mrs. Caputo.

It mocks me.

Samuel walks past me once. Then again. Then again.

He’s pacing. Every step heavier than the last. He won’t look at me. His mouth moves like he’s arguing with someone who isn’t there.

He pours a drink. Spills half of it. Doesn’t wipe it up. Just stares at the glass like it betrayed him.

The silence stretches. Tightens. It becomes its own thing, a presence in the room. Smothering us both.

I speak first.

"Say something."

He doesn’t.

"Samuel. Say something."

He looks at me finally.

And his eyes are vacant. Like he’s not all the way here.

"I did this," he says. His voice is flat.

My throat tightens. I shake my head.