Page 21 of Sinful Obsession (Broken Vows #3)

CHARLOTTE

Ethan remained standing before me, the syringe in his hand glinting like a blade under the dim cabin lights.

“I’ll explain further if you take this injection,” he said, his voice calm but edged with a menace that made my pulse spike.

“I could force you, Charlotte, but that wouldn’t be good for you. ”

My hand flew to my belly, the small bump a lifeline anchoring me to reality.

My baby.

What if this drug—whatever poison he held—hurt them?

Fear gripped my chest, squeezing until I could barely breathe.

My body still aching from the trek through the woods.

I opened my mouth to protest, to beg him to stop, but Ethan moved faster. He lunged, his grip iron on my wrist, and slammed the needle into my arm.

Pain seared through me, a white-hot burn that tore a whimper from my throat.

“Be calm,” he ordered, his voice commanding as he pinned me to the seat. “Thrash, and you’ll hurt yourself.”

I yanked against him, tears stinging my eyes, but his strength was unyielding.

The plunger sank, pumping the liquid into my vein, and he stepped back, his eyes cold.

“I swear,” I gasped, my voice raw with rage, “if this harms my baby, I’ll kill you, Ethan.”

“It won’t,” he said, his tone infuriatingly calm. “It’s safe. I had it tested by Russian neuroscientists. The compound targets the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, rebuilding suppressed synaptic connections. It’ll restore your memories, Charlotte. Every single one.”

I glared at him, my arm throbbing where the needle had bitten, my heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst.

“Your bullshit didn’t work,” I spat after several minutes, the silence heavy with my distrust. My mind was still a fog, fragments of my past taunting me.

Then it hit.

A blinding pain, like a sledgehammer slamming into my skull, splintering my thoughts.

I screamed, clutching my head as memories crashed in—once, twice, a relentless flood.

My grandfather’s voice, frail but firm, making me promise to marry a Moretti to secure my inheritance.

My heart racing as I stole a file about my mother’s secrets from mafia men, their footsteps pounding behind me.

A club, neon lights pulsing.

Running into a stranger—Cassian—kissing him desperately to throw off my pursuers, his lips claiming mine with a hunger that felt like fate.

I thrashed, my head whipping side to side, nails digging into my palms until blood dripped, hot and slick.

The pain was unbearable, my body shaking violently, sweat soaking my clothes as memories piled on—meeting Luca, my intended fiancé, only to find Cassian’s shadow everywhere; Cassian kidnapping Luca on our wedding day, standing at the altar in his place, his vows a chain around my heart.

The flood slowed, the fragments settling chronologically, a completed tapestry of my life.

When it stopped, I was slumped in the seat, gasping, my palms bleeding, my body drenched in sweat.

I was reborn, my memories whole, sharp, and devastating.

I remembered everything.

I remembered being married to Cassian—his touch, his anger, the darkness that had haunted every room we shared. I remembered the punishments, the torment that had carved itself into my body and soul.

I remembered leaving him, thinking I could escape. And then... the nightmare of being taken by my own father. The cold, sterile walls of the psych ward. The drugs. The isolation. The sense of being erased, piece by piece, until I hardly recognized myself.

All of it came back in a torrent, leaving me breathless, trembling, and desperate for air.

Ethan’s eyes never left me, unreadable and calculating. “You wanted to know who I work for?” he asked, breaking the heavy silence that had settled between us. I couldn’t respond; the memories still throbbed in my mind like a fresh wound.

“I work for no one,” he continued, his voice low, almost a growl. “I’m too valuable, too... expensive to be anyone’s pawn. I have wealth, power, influence—everything. But two years ago, my father... he took my daughter from her mother to control me.”

I froze, my heart skipping a beat.

“The reason I didn’t fight for custody,” he said, his jaw tight.

"Wasn't because I didn’t care. It was because my enemies could use her against me. I had to pretend that I didn’t care, that I was absent from her life, while all the while protecting her from the shadows.

Who would have guessed that the one person who knows she exists.

.. my father... would actually come after her to manipulate me?

He needed me to obey him. Our relationship isn’t good.

He knew I’d refuse if he asked outright, so he forced my hand. ”

He paused, letting the words sink in, his eyes burning with a mixture of anger and calculation. “Everything I did... every choice I made, even the ones you saw as betrayal—it was all about survival. And keeping her safe, even if it meant living as a ghost in my own life.”

“My father heads the Bellucci Clan in Chicago. We’re the most dangerous because we don’t make noise.

We strike from the shadows, let others take the fall.

Your mother was sold to us by your father before he died.

He called her a slut, said she was sleeping with Cassian’s father, the Moretti head.

We paid for her, but the Morettis protected her, so we couldn’t claim her. ”

My breath caught, memories of my mother—her soft voice, her hidden pain—clashing with his words.

“Cassian killed his father,” Ethan continued, “weakening the Morettis. We took your mother then, our rightful property. Years later, Cassian saved her, anonymously, thinking we’d never know. We did. And we wanted revenge.”

“That’s why you... killed his sister?” I finally asked, my voice trembling.

My chest ached as I remembered fleeting fragments—Elodie coming home for the holidays, her gentle hands freeing me from the chains and leash Cassian had forced on me the day before.

She led me to the table tennis court, offered me an escape, her kindness a brief, shining moment in the darkness.

Her death hurt now, in a way that made my heart feel like it had been ripped in two. God, I’d never see her again. According to Cassian, she had died trying to save me.

Ethan remained silent, his expression unreadable.

“She... she wasn’t bitten by a snake, was she?” I asked, tears slipping down my cheeks despite my best effort to stop them. “You killed her.”

He swallowed hard, his jaw tight. “My father had my daughter taken because he wanted me to carry out his command—a revenge on Cassian for taking your mother, who was rightfully ours, without any legal process. He could have handled it differently. Could have bought her back, and maybe we would’ve considered it. But no... he chose the wrong route.”

“I did everything I did for my daughter,” he continued, his voice tight with controlled anger. “If I refused, my father would have hurt her. I couldn’t let that happen.”

I clenched my fists, my voice trembling with rage. “So answer my damn question. Don’t be a coward. You... you killed Elodie?”

He looked away, his silence a confession.

“I couldn’t shoot her,” he said finally, his voice low.

“So I placed a viper where she’d wait for me.

She was bitten, collapsed in the woods, clutching her leg as the venom burned through her.

She screamed, Charlotte, alone, with no one to help. Her last moments were agony.”

The image tore through me—Elodie, clutching her leg as the venom coursed through her, falling to the floor, crying in pain, screaming for help that never came.

The cold, empty space around her, the helplessness, the fear.

.. it tore at my soul. My stomach churned and my hands trembled.

God, the thought hurt more than I could bear.

My chest heaved, sobs ripping from my throat. “God, why?” I whispered, the pain of her loss a knife in my heart. “She was innocent, Ethan. She helped me. She was kind.”

I shivered, the anger and grief mixing in a bitter taste in my mouth. “Her life meant nothing to you?”

Ethan’s eyes flickered, almost imperceptibly, with something unspoken—regret, perhaps, or a memory best left buried. “I did what I had to do. Don’t mistake duty for cruelty. I protected my own.”

I forced myself to speak. “You kidnapped me to get to Cassian?”

“I was supposed to send you to Chicago, to replace your mother,” he admitted, his voice low, almost regretful.

“That’s how it’s done. Cassian still owes us, and since he took your mother from us.

.. you were meant to take her place. But I.

.. I pleaded with my father to let me keep you here, alone in the middle of the sea. ”

I stared at him, confused and horrified.

“I knew if you were taken to Chicago, your fate would be worse. You would have been raped by men who would’ve used you as a tool, forced to do degrading jobs, trapped in misery with no escape. I couldn’t stand the thought of that life for you,” he said, his voice tight, almost breaking.

“Thankfully,” he added. “My father finally agreed, after I pushed and pushed. I kept you here... because it was the lesser evil.”

“That doesn’t make you a hero,” I spat, my voice trembling with rage.

“You tortured me. Threw me into the sea, tied my hands until they bled, locked me in a cage so small I couldn’t breathe, whipped my back until it burned, starved me for days, pressed ice to my skin until I screamed.

You wore a mask so I wouldn’t know it was you. ”

He didn’t flinch. “Those were for the cameras. My father watched every move. I had to prove you were suffering, or he’d take you to Chicago himself.” His voice softened, a crack in his armor.

“But after, I warmed you with blankets when you shivered from the sea. Massaged your shoulders when the cage left you aching. Slipped water through the bars when you were parched. Mixed painkillers into your food to ease the welts. Bandaged your wrists when the ropes cut too deep. I did what I could to keep you whole.”

The memories flooded back—his hands, gentle after the cruelty, wrapping me in warmth, whispering apologies I’d barely heard. I swallowed, my throat tight. “Why kidnap me again? Why let me go the first time?”

“My father’s sick,” he said. “Cancer, eating him alive. I thought you were free when I left you at your grandfather’s cabin, with the will to choose the underground trials or the Morettis.

I figured you’d fight for your inheritance and vanish.

My father’s men would search, but they’d never find you. ”

“And if I’d chosen to marry the Morettis?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Cassian would protect you,” Ethan said, his lips twitching. “He’s obsessed with you, Charlotte.”

“My father’s clan works in shadows—anonymous proxies, silent strikes. Even Cassian doesn’t know we exist. If my father recovers, though...” He trailed off, his eyes darkening. “Pray he stays sick. He’s showing signs of recovery, but he’s still weak.”

He sat, half-perched on the edge of a seat, his posture deceptively casual. “And no, this is not a kidnapping. This is protection—from Cassian, from my father. Chicago is no place for you. If my father’s men found you here... they’d take you, and you’d never see freedom again.”

I stared at him, my chest tightening. “Then if it’s not a kidnapping... take me out of here.”

He tilted his head, considering me. “I could take you somewhere right now, but to where? You’re safe here.

I won’t hurt you, not in the slightest. I’ll leave immediately if you don’t want me staying.

Everything you need—food, clothing, water—is here.

I can even send a maid over to help you if you like. ”

I exhaled, trying to steady myself. “Then leave. Send a female maid over.”

He stood, bowing slightly, a gesture that felt like mockery. “Consider it done.”

Silence fell, my mind reeling with the weight of my restored memories.

One question burned, sharper than the rest. “The baby,” I said, my voice breaking. “I don’t remember Cassian... with me. You swear you didn’t touch me. How am I pregnant?”

Ethan’s eyes softened.

“Cassian’s dying,” he said. “Stage four cancer, eating him from the inside. When I found out, I... owed him. He saved me in the underground trials, pulled me from a blade meant for my throat. So I arranged for his legacy to live on. One of his doctors—a woman I trust, extracted his sperm during a chemo session, when he was delirious, unraveling. She convinced him it was for the Moretti name, to preserve his bloodline. We used it for artificial insemination while you were sedated on this boat, three months ago. A female doctor performed it, Charlotte. I wasn’t in the room. No one saw you but her.”

My stomach churned, rage and violation crashing through me like a tidal wave. “You used me,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face, hot against my chilled skin. “You and your doctor violated my body, my choice, for your twisted sense of debt.”

“I did what I think is right,” Ethan said, his voice steady but tinged with regret.

“Get out,” I screamed, my voice raw, my fists clenched so tight my nails drew fresh blood. “I hate you. I wish I’d never protected you from those bullies in school. You’re a monster.”

He nodded, as if he’d expected my hatred.

I stormed out, slamming the door behind me, my legs shaky but fueled by rage, emerging onto the deck of a yacht so vast it mocked the word ship .

Polished teak floors stretched endlessly, reflecting the starlight above.

Sleek chrome railings lined the edges, framing cushioned lounges and glass-topped tables under a retractable canopy.

A spiral staircase descended to lower decks. It was a floating palace, larger than any mansion I’d seen.

I watched Ethan’s jet take off, its roar fading into the night, leaving me alone with the waves and my fury.

My fists clenched, nails biting into my bloody palms,.

“Fuck you, Ethan!” I screamed, my voice swallowed by the endless sea.

I was free of his presence but trapped in his world, my memories whole but my heart shattered.

I carried Cassian’s child, a life forced upon me, and the weight of Elodie’s death clung to me like a shadow.

I sank to my knees, the deck cold against my skin, and vowed to protect my baby, no matter who came for us—Ethan, his father, or Cassian himself.