---- Chapter 8 Khloe Rojas POV: The day | was discharged from the hospital, | had a taxi take me back to the penthouse. It was the last place on earth | wanted to be, but | had things to retrieve. Things that couldn't be replaced. As | walked through the front door, my heart stopped. The place had been ransacked. Not by burglars, but by something far more malicious. My design studio, once my sanctuary, was in ruins. Blueprints were torn from the walls, models smashed on the floor. My entire life's work, demolished. | walked numbly towards the bedroom. It was worse. My clothes, the ones | hadn' t sold, were slashed to ribbons and thrown across the floor. My perfume bottles were smashed, their scents mingling in a sickeningly sweet cloud of destruction. On the floor, amidst the debris, was the shattered frame of a family photo. Me, my mother, my father, and Leo, all smiling on a beach holiday years ago. It was the only photo | had left of all of us together. The glass was shattered, and the photo itself was torn in half, right through my smiling face. | sank to my knees, my breath catching in my throat. | gathered the torn pieces, my fingers trembling. The pain was ---- so immense, so absolute, that | couldn't even cry. | just knelt there, clutching the ruined image of my family, a hollow shell of a woman in the ruins of her life. "Oh, you're back." | looked up. Helena stood in the doorway, a smug, self- satisfied smirk on her face. She was wearing one of my silk robes. "What did you do?" | managed to sign, my hands shaking with rage. The head maid, Maria, scurried in behind her, her face stricken with guilt. "Madam, | am so sorry," she whispered. "Miss Castro was looking for... a necklace. She said you stole it from her. She insisted we search your things." Helena waved a dismissive hand. "Don't be so dramatic. It's just stuff." She sauntered into the room, her eyes gleaming with malice. "It's a shame you can't scream anymore. | bet it would be quite satisfying." She knew. Julian must have told her everything. "I've always hated you, you know," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as Maria discreetly left the room. "Ever since we were kids. You were always the pretty one, the popular one, the one everyone loved. And then you took Julian. He was always supposed to be mine." She picked up a piece of the broken picture frame, running her ---- finger along the sharp edge. "l knew he still had feelings for me, even after he married you. | waited. And when he lost his memory, it was like a gift from God. My second chance." She laughed, a high, tinkling sound that grated on my nerves. "And you, with your pathetic, undying love. It was almost sad to watch. Did you really think he would remember you? That your love was strong enough? How foolish." Her eyes landed on the small, velvet box on my nightstand. Before | could react, she snatched it. She opened it, revealing the jade pendant my mother had given me on her deathbed. It was my most treasured possession, the last piece of my mother | had left. "Oh, this is pretty," Helena cooed, holding it up to the light. "I think I'll keep it." A guttural, animalistic sound of rage escaped my throat. | scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain in my legs, and lunged for her. "Give it back!" | signed furiously, my movements sharp and desperate. Helena just laughed, dangling the pendant out of my reach. "Make me," she taunted. As | reached for it, she let it slip through her fingers. It hit the marble floor with a sickening crack, shattering into a dozen green pieces. ---- The world went red. | don't remember making a conscious decision. One moment, | was staring at the destroyed remnants of my mother's love on the floor. The next, my hands were tangled in Helena's blonde hair, and | was slamming her head against the wall. Again. And again. The smug smirk on her face was replaced by a look of shock, then pain, then terror. "What the hell is going on in here?" Julian's voice boomed from the doorway. He took in the scene -me, my hands in a screaming Helena's hair, the room in chaos-and his face contorted into a mask of pure fury. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't wait for an explanation. He just saw his precious Helena, hurt, and me, the aggressor. He ripped me off her, his grip on my arms like iron bands. He shoved me to the floor. "You psycho bitch," he snarled. "I should have known you were unstable." He knelt beside a whimpering Helena, cradling her in his arms, checking her for injuries. He looked at me with a loathing so profound it was almost tangible. "l'm done with you," he seethed. "I'm done with your games." He pulled out his phone and barked orders at his head of security. "Take her. Lock her in the water cellar. | don't want to see her face again." ---- The water cellar. It was a relic from the original foundation of the building, a cold, damp, windowless room in the sub- basement that sometimes flooded during heavy rains. It was my deepest, most claustrophobic fear. He knew that. We'd discovered it during renovations, and I'd had nightmares for weeks. His men dragged me away, my frantic, silent protests ignored. They threw me into the darkness, the heavy steel door slamming shut with a deafening clang of finality. Cold water seeped into my clothes, chilling me to the bone. The air was thick and musty. My old injuries ached in the damp cold. | clawed at the door, my nails scraping against the rough steel until my fingers were raw and bleeding, but no one came. | screamed, but no sound came out. | was trapped. Alone in the dark, with nothing but the ghosts of my past and the crippling fear that | would die there. As | huddled in the corner, shivering and broken, | remembered a time I'd had a panic attack during a thunderstorm. Julian had held me for hours, whispering promises that he would never let anything bad happen to me, that he would always keep me safe from the dark. Another beautiful, shattered lie. He hadn't just let the darkness in. He had locked me inside it and thrown away the key.