---- Chapter 13 Carter Wolfe POV: For two weeks after the wedding, | didn' t leave my house. | didn' t eat. | didn't sleep. | just sat in the dark, replaying every cruel word, every selfish act, every single moment | had taken Amira for granted. The evidence from the wedding had been my confession, and the world was my jury. My company' s stock plummeted. Investors pulled out. My parents weren' t speaking to me. | was a pariah. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that she was gone. The guilt was a living thing, a ravenous beast gnawing at my insides. | needed to let it out. | found a utility knife in a drawer. | pressed the cool metal against the skin of my forearm and dragged it across. The pain was sharp, clean. A welcome relief from the agony in my soul. | watched the blood well up, a dark red line against my pale skin. It felt right. It felt like penance. The cuts became a ritual. Each new scar was a testament to a specific failure. This one was for leaving her with a fever. This one for making her drink the champagne. This one for my ---- mother. This one for the dress. My arms became a roadmap of my sins. Then, | got the news. A private investigator |' d hired finally found a trace of her. She had been accepted into a high-level, confidential Al project. A government contract. She would be gone for five years. Minimum. Five years. The number echoed in the empty house. A tidal wave of despair so powerful it brought me to my knees. | let out a raw, animalistic roar of anguish and began to destroy everything around me. | smashed lamps, overturned tables, punched holes in the wall until my knuckles were bloody and raw. Finally, exhausted, | collapsed onto the floor amidst the wreckage of my home and my life, and | wept. | wept until my throat was raw and my eyes were swollen shut. In the middle of my breakdown, there was a knock at the door. Three soft, hesitant taps. Her knock. My heart leaped into my throat. She came back. | scrambled to my feet, stumbling over debris, and ran to the door. | flung it open, her name a prayer on my lips. "Amira!" It wasn't her. ---- It was Francine. She looked terrible. Her hair was a mess, her expensive clothes were rumpled, and her eyes were wide with a desperate fear. The scandal had ruined her, too. She was a social outcast, a joke in the investment community. She grabbed onto my shirt, her nails digging into the fabric. "Carter, you have to help me. People are throwing things at me in the street. My life is over!" | looked at her, at the woman for whom | had thrown everything away. And all | felt was a bottomless, seething hatred. With a cold, deliberate motion, | kicked her. Hard. My foot connected with her shoulder, and | heard a sickening crack. She screamed, a high, piercing sound of agony. She crumpled to the ground, clutching her shattered clavicle. | stood over her, my shadow falling across her pathetic, writhing form. | bent down, my voice a low, menacing whisper. "You want to know what real pain is, Francine?" | snarled. "Real pain is knowing you destroyed the only good thing in your life for this." | gestured at her, a look of utter revulsion on my face. "She killed your mother. She drove Amira away." Neighbors started to gather, their faces a mixture of shock and morbid curiosity. | didn' t care. "Put it online!" | yelled at them. "Tell the world what she did! Tell them she murdered Edie Odom!" ---- Francine' s eyes widened in terror. "You' re insane," she hissed. | smiled, a terrifying, broken thing. "Oh, | know. But if going to hell is the only way | can even begin to atone for what | did to Amira, then | will gladly drag you down there with me."