---- Chapter 3 Khloe Rojas POV: "Just stop it, Khloe," Julian commanded, his voice laced with the weary impatience of a king dealing with a hysterical peasant. "It was an accident. Helena feels terrible." He stroked her hair as she buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking with what | knew were fabricated sobs. "I'll buy you a better coffin. The best one money can buy. Now, stop making a scene." A better coffin. He thought money could fix this. He thought he could buy my silence, buy my forgiveness, plaster over the gaping, screaming wound of my brother' s death with his blood-soaked dollars. The rage inside me, which had been a simmering fire, exploded into a supernova. It burned away my tears, my grief, my shock, leaving only a cold, hard certainty. In one fluid motion, | spun around. My hand flew up, the crack of it connecting with Helena' s cheek echoed in the stunned silence of the chapel. Her head snapped to the side, a red handprint blooming on her pale skin. Her fake sobs turned into a real shriek of pain and surprise. Everyone froze. The mourners, the bodyguards, even Julian. They stared at me as if | had sprouted a second head. The ---- grieving, broken sister was gone. A Fury stood in her place. "You," | snarled, my voice a venomous whisper as | pointed a trembling finger at Helena. "You will burn in hell for this." Julian' s shock morphed into a thunderous rage. His face turned crimson. "Grab her," he roared at his bodyguards. "Now!" Two large men moved towards me, their expressions hesitant. They had worked for Julian for years. They knew me as his wife, the woman he had cherished. "What are you waiting for?" Julian bellowed, his voice shaking with fury. "Do it!" He pointed at me. "Make her apologize to Helena. On her knees." | laughed, a raw, sharp sound. "Apologize? I'd rather die." The funeral director, a small, balding man, scurried forward. "Mr. Gallegos, please, this is a house of God. Let's not have any more trouble." Julian shot him a look so lethal the man physically recoiled and melted back into the shadows. The chapel was his now. He was the god here. "Last chance, Khloe," Julian said, his voice dangerously soft. "Apologize." When | just stared back at him with all the hate in my soul, he nodded to his men. "Break her legs." The bodyguards exchanged a horrified look. "Sir," one of them ---- started, "she's..." "She's nothing," Julian cut him off, his voice dropping to an arctic chill. "She is an inconvenience. Do as | say, or you can join her brother." That was all it took. Fear, raw and primal, erased any lingering loyalty they had for me. They grabbed my arms, their grips merciless. | struggled, but it was useless. They were mountains of muscle, and | was just a woman shattered by grief. They forced me to my knees on the cold marble floor. | looked up at Julian, at the face | once loved more than life itself, and saw nothing but a void. No love, no memory, just a chilling, cruel emptiness. One of the guards lifted a heavy wooden kneeler from the front pew. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes pleading with me to just say the word, to apologize. | met his gaze and shook my head slowly. Never. Julian gave another sharp nod. The kneeler came down. The sound of my own bone snapping was sickeningly loud in the silent chapel. An agony unlike anything | had ever known shot up my leg, white-hot and blinding. | screamed, a long, ragged sound of pure animal pain. ---- They didn't stop. They brought it down on my other leg. Another crack, another explosion of pain that threatened to swallow me whole. | collapsed onto the floor, my body a useless, broken heap. The world was swimming, black spots dancing in front of my eyes. Through the haze of pain, | saw Julian turn his back on me. He gently led Helena, who was now looking at me with a triumphant, malicious smirk, out of the chapel. "Clean this up," was the last thing | heard him say before the darkness finally took me. As | slipped into unconsciousness, a memory surfaced. Years ago, a sleazy business rival had cornered me at a gala, his hand sliding too low on my back. Julian had seen it from across the room. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't make a scene. He simply walked over, took the man's hand, and bent his fingers back one by one until the man was on his knees, whimpering in pain. Julian had leaned down and whispered, "If you ever breathe in my wife's direction again, | will personally ruin you." He had been my protector. My fierce, possessive, loving protector. He had been willing to break another man's hand for a disrespectful touch. Now, he had ordered my own legs to be broken in a chapel, over the body of my dead brother. The line between love and hate, | realized as the blackness ---- consumed me, wasn't a line at all. It was a cliff. And Julian had just thrown me off it. My love for him, my very soul, was shattered on the rocks below.