---- Chapter 7 Amira Osborne POV: Someone in the crowd started filming with their phone. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing down on me, stealing the air from my lungs. My nails dug into my palms, the sharp sting of pain a welcome distraction from the utter mortification of the moment. | turned to go back to my mother' s empty apartment, anywhere but here. | twisted the doorknob. It was locked. He had locked me out. | pounded on the door, my voice raw. "Carter, let me in! What are you doing?" His voice came from the other side, cold and distant. "Not until you apologize. Get on your knees and tell Francine you' re sorry for upsetting her." The neighbors snickered. | stood there in the cold hallway, shivering in my thin funeral dress, stripped of my home, my dignity, my last shred of self-worth. Finally, defeated, | sank to my knees. The cold of the tile seeped through my clothes as | bowed my head in feigned repentance. ---- The door clicked open. Carter stood there, holding his suit jacket. He draped it over my shoulders in a gesture that might have once seemed tender. But the jacket smelled of her. That cloying, expensive perfume, mingled with the scent of his skin. It was the smell of my betrayal. Francine appeared behind him, a triumphant smirk on her face. "Oh, that' s my jacket, darling," she purred. "Carter let me borrow it earlier. My feet were so cold." My stomach heaved. | tore the jacket from my shoulders and threw it on the floor as if it were on fire. "I ll sleep in the study," | said, my voice flat and devoid of all emotion. | pushed past them without another glance. Carter frowned, a flicker of unease in his eyes. But then his phone pinged with a calendar notification: "Wedding Day - 2 Days." The anxiety on his face smoothed away, replaced by his usual arrogance. He thought he still had me. He thought | was just throwing a tantrum, that | would never abandon him, not with our wedding so close. He believed | had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. In the study, | opened my laptop. An email glowed on the screen. "Security Clearance: APPROVED. Welcome to the Chimera Project." ---- Tears of relief, of gratitude, of pure, unadulterated freedom streamed down my face. My phone rang. It was Arjun. "Your flight is booked, Amira. Day after tomorrow. 7 a.m. sharp." | looked around the study, the room where | had spent countless nights working on Carter' s business proposals instead of my own research. My eyes landed on a pair of small clay figurines on the bookshelf-ones we had made on our first anniversary. He had promised then that we would always protect each other. Without a second' s hesitation, | swept them off the shelf and into the trash can. Then, | booked my ticket.