---- Chapter 21 Emily POV: "Boredom is not an excuse for betrayal," | said, my voice as cold and sharp as a shard of glass. "And choosing to love the person who tormented me, the person who scarred me... that is unforgivable." He looked up at me, his face a mess of tears and desperation, completely broken. "Then tell me what to do," he pleaded, his voice a raw whisper. "How do | make you forgive me? What do. you want from me? Do you want me to die? Is that it?" | looked down into his shattered eyes, the eyes of the man | had once loved more than life itself, and | felt nothing but a vast, cold emptiness. | nodded slowly. "Yes," | said, the word falling like a stone in the silent room. "Go die." The last flicker of hope in his eyes extinguished. He had expected me to scream, to rage, to give him a fight. He had not expected this calm, simple execution. He finally understood. | wasn't just angry with him. | was done with him. He had been completely and irrevocably excised from my heart. He stared at me for a long moment, a strange, dead look on ---- his face. Then he pushed himself onto his knees. "Okay," he whispered. "Do it. Kill me yourself. It's the least you can do." A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "| wouldn't dirty my hands on you." | glanced at the two guards who had been watching the scene unfold, their faces impassive. "Beat him." They didn't hesitate. They advanced on him, and the sound of fists hitting flesh filled the office. Killian didn't fight back. He didn't even try to protect himself. He just knelt there, taking the blows, his eyes never leaving my face, as if my gaze was the only thing holding him together. After a few minutes, when he was a bruised, bleeding mess on my expensive Persian rug, | raised a hand. "Stop." The guards stepped back. Killian looked up at me, a pathetic, hopeful light in his swollen eyes. He thought this was it. He thought he had paid his penance. "You really are a fool," | said with a sneer of disgust. "Did you teally think a few punches could bring my brother back? Did you think a black eye could undo years of betrayal?" | shook my head, my voice dripping with contempt. "You are pathetic." | stepped over his broken body without a second glance and walked towards the door, where Josiah was waiting for me. Killian saw him then. He saw the way Josiah opened the car door for me, the gentle way his hand rested on the small of my back. He saw Josiah lean in, his lips brushing my forehead in a gesture of tender affection. ---- | heard a choked, guttural sound from behind me. | didn't turn around, but | knew. It was the sound of a man's heart breaking. The sound of a man who finally, truly, understood the magnitude of what he had lost. It was the sound of jealousy, a poison he had forced me to drink for months, now consuming him whole.